Time to roll up those sleeves and get your fists ready to do some old-school arcade pounding. I’m a 90s kid, so I spent some time at the arcades, and I vaguely remember playing something that looked a lot like Legend back in the day. Since my memory is not that great, thanks to getting kids and being sleep deprived, I will never know if I played that game in my childhood. However, you are not here for a Pepperidge Farm meme, remember. You are here for a review. Let’s kick in!
So, this release covers two old-school beat ’em-up games with different styles and storylines. I’ll cover them both, starting with Iron Command, so if you want to skip to Legend, go ahead and do so, I dare you – I double dare you.
Iron Command
Iron Commando is a belt-scrolling beat ’em-up video game by French developer Arcade Zone for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It was scheduled to be released in Europe by Sony Electronic Publishing (who also published Arcade Zone’s previous title, Legend) sometime between 1994 and 1995. Still, it was canceled after Sony discontinued its third-party publishing business on the Super NES to focus on the PlayStation, leaving the title orphaned without a publisher. However, a Japanese localization was still produced and published by Pack-In-Video’s Poppo subsidiary under the title of Iron Commando: Koutetsu no Senshi (アイアンコマンドー 鋼鉄の戦士, Aiankomando Koutetsu no Senshi, lit. Iron Commando: Iron Warriors), which was released on February 10, 1995.
Piko Interactive acquired the international publishing rights to Iron Commando, initially releasing the game digitally on Steam in 2016 before eventually producing a reproduction cartridge for the Super NES in 2017. BlazePro also had a reproduction of the Super Famicom version for the Japanese market during the same year.
Fast forward to 2023, and the game re-releases in a duo pack with Legend. A soldier named Jack and a kung-fu master named Chang Li are the Iron Commando field team. They must cross ten environments to save the world, fighting against punks, gunfighters, knights, and strange creatures. Like any good arcade game from that era, it’s tough as nails, and it took me a few good tries to master the controls and gameplay elements. You can use various weapons to beat up the enemies you face. It’s pretty straightforward and wouldn’t have been misplaced on the Nintendo Switch Online services instead of a solo release.
Legend
The second title in this collection is the game Legend. A side-scrolling hack and slash beat ’em up video game developed by Arcade Zone and initially published in North America by Seika Corporation in April 1994 and later in Europe by Sony Electronic Publishing on December 21 of the same year for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It is the first game to be solely developed by the duo of Carlo Perconti and Lyes Belaidouni at Arcade Zone, who both would later go on to found Toka and HyperDevbox Japan, respectively.
Taking place in the fictional kingdom of Sellech during the middle ages, players take control of the knight warriors Kaor and Igor in an attempt to defeat the corrupt son of the king of Sellech, Clovis, before he manages to harness power from the imprisoned soul of maleficent despot Beldor and conquers the land as a result. Inspired by several high fantasy medieval-themed beat ’em up arcade games from Capcom and Sega, Legend was conceived by Perconti and Belaidouni to create their action-oriented project.
Legend garnered mixed reception from critics since its initial release on the Super NES. While the graphics received praise, the gameplay was deemed by most as repetitive and lacking depth. Although Legend never received a direct sequel, Toka created a remake of the game for the PlayStation called Legend. In 2015, the original game was ported to Microsoft Windows by independent developer and publisher Piko Interactive. A spiritual successor, Konan, was also in development and planned for the Atari Jaguar by both Perconti and Belaidouni but was never finished or released.
Just like Iron Command, this a pretty straightforward release that wouldn’t have been wrong just to have been released on the Nintendo Switch Online Service. I had more fun with Legend than Iron Command, mainly because I like medieval themes more than the straight beat ’em-up streetfighting games.
Conclusion
So, to conclude! Both titles are great for fans of arcade-style beat ’em-up games or for players of the original games back in the day. You can’t go wrong with ten bucks for these two games, but it’s not like they made a lot of effort to rework these titles. They added save states and gave the menus a bit of a makeover, but that’s it? You get the original games, playable on the Nintendo Switch – fair and square.
