Revisiting Toy Commander

[marurun]

So, I love Toy Commander, but I haven't played it in a LOOONG time. I got through the first level, but I'm still 3 seconds behind the top record. This game is HARD, and the controls take a lot of adjustment. I have the feeling a lot of folks probably got turned off to this game because they didn't stay with it. I wouldn't blame them. I found myself regularly saying "Oh, come on!" to the vehicles when something went wrong. They are, indeed, very picky.

I remember playing some great VS matches with this game, that's for sure.

[CRTGAMER]

So, I love Toy Commander, but I haven't played it in a LOOONG time. I got through the first level, but I'm still 3 seconds behind the top record. This game is HARD, and the controls take a lot of adjustment. I have the feeling a lot of folks probably got turned off to this game because they didn't stay with it. I wouldn't blame them. I found myself regularly saying "Oh, come on!" to the vehicles when something went wrong. They are, indeed, very picky.

I remember playing some great VS matches with this game, that's for sure.

For me it was the time limit on some of the levels. You are right, persistence sometimes is needed to unlock the next level. Congrats on rediscovering such a great game. One of the Exclusive and great forgotten Gems on the Dreamcast. What I really like is the versatility in the game; flying, driving and staging the soldiers. There are also a couple of additional exclusive versions of this game on the Dreamcast that are even more unknown. New levels to discover!

Toy Commander Review - viewtopic.php?f=32&p=307530#p307530

[jay_red]

I couldnt get past the first level, dont entirely remember what I didnt like about it, but the controls were at the top of the list for sure. Ended up trading it away pretty quickly.

[Barracuda]

I love this game! I remember playing the heck out of it back when the game was new. Beating the game was oh so satisfying.

[fastbilly1]

I never finished the campaign, but I played the mess out of the multiplayer. Sadly my cousins who owned it liked to limit multiplayer options (ie cars only, planes only, this part of the map only), since they claimed the maps were too big. While true in some aspects, they got really mad when I figured out how to get my car into the aquarium.

[TheSegaSaturnGuy]

Ive said many times before that Toy Commander is IMO the greatest gem on the DC. The game brought and still brings me hours of enjoyment. I can agree that it is pretty tough for what it is but it is not so hard that I don't hit that retry button every time I fail lol.

[TheBrick]

I've never been fond of this game. It's original, I'll give it that, but I hated the clunky controls, and I could never finish inside the time limit on the missions, no matter how much I tried.

[G-Darius]

I liked the idea of the game being so small in a large environment like Micro Machines but i do remember it was lacking something and i became bored quickly.So i simply moved on to other games.

[bacardipr05]

I havent played it in a loooooong time.I remember it been a great concept a cool game but tough.

[Original_Name]

I'm surprised that this game produces such polarizing opinions! It's a complete classic in my eyes. After Sonic the Hedgehog, it was probably the first game that I ever put in extra time to manage a 100% completion of -- I still remember unlocking the secret garden level for the first time. I think a lot of my love for the game lies in the themes -- I always had an interest in model train sets, films like "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" where they made gigantic models of tiny household objects, as well as those novelty images where they make complex scenes of pubs or city streets out of everyday objects like erasers, crackers, safety pins, and the like. And to see the Dreamcast processing such a massive array of textures and geometry in order to create those complicated, sprawling worlds with charm and creativity oozing out of every corner was a sight to behold back in 1999.

I imagine that part of the charm has diminished a bit in the decade and a half since its release for people coming back to it now, but it likely still stands alongside Chibi-Robo and Pikmin (and maybe The Minish Cap as well? I haven't played it myself...) as the best titles working under this theme. I'd really like to see more of it -- miniature perspectives hold a ton of potential for creative game design. I remember some of the missions being extremely difficult, but I never had trouble progressing to the next room... it it was more that there would be pesky ones that I would go back to that would torment me. That's not a bad thing, though... those challenges create a ton of replay value. The control for any one vehicle isn't poor outside of the intended challenge of each mission -- it's more a matter of having the patience to adjust to how varied and demanding the gameplay is across the game's many levels.

I've heard it described as a jack-of-all-trades, but a master of none... but then, I think that's missing the point. It absolutely does master its theme. The focal point is on the alien worlds made out of every day miscellanea, and although the gameplay shifts in every angle imaginable, the game always accommodates because its thematic focal point is strong enough to effectively adjust itself to the countless gameplay styles that the developers built around it. On a system that built its reputation on typing zombies to death, Taoist puzzle-shmupping, fish with human faces, Apache helicopter attacks on roller-blade gangs, motion-controlled maracas, and at least one tentacle-fellatio scene, Toy Commander really manages to stand out in the Dreamcast's library for me. It also stands as one of the very best European-developed video games in my mind.