This Week in Retro: Sasuke Vs. Commander [1980] (Patreon)

October 1980: Before Making Them Infamous, SNK Invents the Video Game "Boss"

by Diamond Feit

Just one week ago I had the privilege of discussing one of SNK's earliest NEO•GEO releases, and today I get to discuss one of SNK's earliest releases, period. Ten years before the NEO•GEO ever existed, and only two years into the company's life, SNK released Sasuke vs. Commander sometime in the month of October in 1980. In doing so, they introduced a new concept to the video game world: The "boss."

Let's set the stage here on both fronts. The video game landscape in Japan in 1980 was still dominated by Space Invaders two years after its initial release. So-called "invader rooms" were still popping up in any space that could support them, gathering too-huge crowds and 100-yen coins by the bucketful. There were other games of note by this point (Pac-Man launched back in May 1980) but as an industry, everyone was still looking for a piece of that "invader boom."

The Space Invaders craze meant that most video games were still, to varying degrees of explicitness, Space Invaders. You might already know that Nintendo's first big arcade hit, released in late 1979, was a space shooter called Radar Scope—even if it's more famous today for having been a flop in the U.S. SNK was founded in 1978 (the same year Space Invaders first appeared), and the company had already taken a stab at the genre with Ozma Wars, a game so closely modeled after Taito's hit that it ran on the same arcade hardware. Ozma Wars displays flashes of innovation—the enemy ships can move towards the player, and there are different "levels" rather than a single alien formation repeated forever—but it was still more similar to Space Invaders than dissimilar. Its sequel, Atom Smasher, would mix things up even further with enemies encircling a central orb, but it was still a game that centered on a heroic spaceship firing one shot at a time at flying enemies. In space.

Enter Sasuke vs. Commander, arguably SNK's first truly original title, as it contains many distinct features. Rather than being set in the void of outer space, the game takes place in Japan's ancient capital, Kyoto. A giant kanji (大) shines on a mountain in the background (yes, there is actual background art), suggesting that the game is set during the Gozan-no-okuribi Festival in August, when large fires are lit around the city to form burning characters in the hills. It's an image that would be familiar to any Japanese resident, but especially to those living in Osaka: A short train ride from Kyoto, where SNK was born and remains to this day.

The game opens with an actual tidbit of story as the player character is introduced as "Sasuke" and receives a command from the Shogun: "PROTECT MY LIFE FROM NINJA." It isn't much, but a video game with actual character names and dialogue in 1980 was extremely rare. Sasuke vs. Commander has a clear historical setting with recognizable Japanese imagery and features unmistakably Japanese people on screen. Compared to its peers, Sasuke vs. Commander's single introductory screen might as well be a 12-minute cutscene.

With the stakes established up front, the battle begins as Sasuke faces wave after wave of red and green ninja. These foes leap from treetop to treetop, slowly descending upon Sasuke as they rain throwing stars upon him. Sasuke can fire back; his shots are distinct from the enemy's shuriken, resembling an arrow or a sword. If two shots collide, both are destroyed, giving both player and enemy alike a defense against the other's offense.

If this sounds familiar so far, well, that's because Sasuke vs. Commander from a moment-to-moment gameplay standpoint is still very much derived from Space Invaders. Sasuke can only launch one shot at a time, and depending on which emulated version you play today, his shots may sound a lot like those from Space Invaders. But that's overly reductive, because none of Space Invaders’ basic principles apply to Sasuke vs. Commander. There are no shields in play, and the ninja are not locked into a formation; their movement is dynamic, even as it gains speed over time. There's also no penalty for allowing a ninja to reach the bottom of the screen, which means there is no ticking clock to beat. Most importantly, a slain ninja does not disappear but rather falls to the ground and becomes a hazard unto itself. This means firing too quickly and hitting too many enemies at once can pin Sasuke between falling throwing stars and ninja corpses.

If Sasuke vs. Commander were simply "medieval Japanese Space Invaders", it would still be an unusual 1980 release. What makes it extra special are the bonus rounds. After a couple waves of ninja, Sasuke faces off with one of two "oyabun ninja." While everyone knows the word ninja today, oyabun is a Japanese term that refers to the "leader" or "chief" of a gang (fans of the Yakuza series have almost certainly heard it said aloud). In English arcade flyers for Sasuke vs. Commander, the term oyabun is translated as "boss," thus laying the groundwork for what is now an industry-standard concept: Boss battles.

The bosses challenge Sasuke to a one-on-one fight against their ninja magic, which varies from stage to stage. Their special attacks include flames that fan out as they reach the ground, duplicate body doubles, or transformations into a giant frog. The longer a player survives in Sasuke vs. Commander, the more complex the bonus stages get, with later battles seeing multiple magic techniques in play at once—e.g., a boss might transform into a giant frog and breathe fire. These are not "boss battles" in the modern sense, as they take place during timed bonus stages; losing to a boss or running out of time does not halt the game, it simply means players miss out on earning extra points.

In many respects, Sasuke vs. Commander is a primitive video game. Features we associate with 1980s arcade games, like continues or high score lists, are simply not present here. There's not even a title screen to tell players what the name of the game is! But considering what SNK had made previously and the state of most arcade games at the time, Sasuke vs. Commander is an exciting take on the well-established framework of the "shooter." It is visually and culturally distinct, it rewards patient players over button-mashers, and it offers a new challenge in the form of boss battles.

That last innovation has a special significance for SNK. A decade or so later, the company would become notorious for creating some of the hardest bosses in all of gaming. Rugal Bernstein in The King of Fighters series, Geese Howard in the Fatal Fury series, or my personal bugbear, DIO in World Heroes 2—all of them far too strong and far too fast to be fair challenges for the player. There's even a name for the phenomenon: SNK Boss Syndrome, a nickname that dates back to online forums during the NEO•GEO era but remains in the vernacular even today.

It is a fitting legacy, considering SNK gave us "bosses" in the first place.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan and is an active Twitter user.