Think of The Children! Bionic Commando

[Welcome to Think of The Children!, my weekly column about censorship in games. Each week I will talk about a game or a series of games that got edited for it's release in a different country. Please enjoy.]

Oh Bionic Commando, how I love it. Even though it beats me up and takes my lunch money (so to speak) every time I try to play it. Being a game from the old school of Nintendo-Hard, I never got that far in the NES version (at least not without savestates). But nevertheless it’s still an awesome game. Just think about it, a platformer with no jump button! It will drive you nuts the first time you play it.

First a little history lesson, because I like to explain things. The original name of Bionic Commando is Top Secret. Capcom US decided to rename it to advertise it as a sequel to their top down shooter Commando, which it had no connection to whatsoever (Or maybe to make people think it had a connection to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s movie Commando, who knows?)  Soon after its release in the arcades in 1987, it got ported to a series of home computers and consoles like the Amiga and the Commodore 64. For the rest of this article I will concentrate on the NES version (which is arguably the best), released in 1988. As with quite a few of Arcade to NES ports, the port is a lot better then the original in many ways. Apart from the concept of using your bionic arm to grapple your way through the level pretty much everything else got changed. While most changes improved the gameplay, Nintendo decided to censor have Capcom change things a little for the domestic release in the US/EU.

You see, it was called Top Secret: Hitler no Fukkatsu (Translates to something like Hitler’s Resurrection) in Japan. Yes, that Hitler. Basically you fight the Nazis and their leader “Weizmann”, who are trying to resurrect Hitler. They need him to complete “Project Albatross”, a doomsday weapon that never got finished by the Nazis. But according to Nintendo (at least back then), you can’t have references to Nazis in games. So here’s what Capcom changed, apart from having it translated in a hilariously bad way:

They used the Bionic Commando name from the arcades, for recognition’s sake I guess. The Nazis became the Badds in-game, but interestingly they are called the Nazz in the instruction manual for some reason. They probably translated the manual at an earlier state then the game and simply forgot about it, or didn’t care. Of course all the swastikas got replaced with eagles (as pictured above), and Weizmann got changed to Generalissimo Killt. Hitler got renamed to Master-D. But why they didn’t bother to change his portrait in-game is beyond me. Every 9-year old under the sun had that one figured out in an instant.

It makes even less sense considering that they altered the official artwork for the US, painting over Hitlers face with a hat, beard and glasses. My guess is that they thought that most people (read: parents) will not see the end of the game anyway. They also managed to sneak a single swear word (damn) past the censor. Maybe he was just having a smoke or something when they where checking the final build.  It’s not a big deal today, but in 1988 bad words where an absolute no-no. On the other hand, they didn’t care for the close-up of Hitler’s exploding head.

In the recent remake called Bionic Commando: Rearmed, they tiptoe around this issue quite nicely. Nazi symbols are nowhere to be seen, but it’s pretty clear that you fight Hitler at the end even though they never call him by his name. It’s always “The Leader”. So yeah, go figure. But of course, the close-up, shown from 3 angles, exploding head was cut from the german release. Well, what did I expect…

So kids, what did we learn? Americans can’t handle Japan’s wacky interpretation of foreign history, but having people’s heads explode is A-okay. Especially if they are long dead German dictators.

(Thanks to the good people of Hardcore Gaming 101 for the scans of the artwork)