Mega Man X: Command Mission (Spoiler-Free Guide)

I’m sorry, but the hero got done dirty in his own game: X is one of the weakest party members. His stats and abilities are balanced, but being a balanced party member has no niche in CM, because the game lacks traditional RPG class roles. He has about the same access to Sub-Weapons and Force Metal as anyone else, so his base damage, Action Trigger, and Hyper Mode need to distinguish him. The first two of those are lackluster, and while his Hyper Mode does decent damage, Hyper turns are too valuable for him to rely on Hyper Mode for most fights.

One benefit X has is his varied main weapons. Particularly, he has a wide range of Busters with different elemental properties, and exploiting particular enemies’ weaknesses, including bosses, can be as easy as swapping out X’s weapon. On the other hand, X’s weapons still gradually increase in power, so you can, for instance, go a long time before getting a second, stronger Buster with a Fire attribute. The extra damage from hitting weaknesses can offset a disadvantage in base attack power, but it still mitigates one of X’s potential advantages.

X’s Charge Shot is pitifully weak, but can deal with equally pathetic enemies from some encounters. See the Action Trigger section for more details and tips on how to use the Charge Shot.

However… X can become exceptionally powerful after completing certain sidequests. See the spoiler tab for more info.

I hate to say it, but the Charge Shot kind of sucks. It’s balanced for AoE damage, but the damage spread isn’t cumulative, so you don’t get a power boost if there’s fewer enemies. The generally optimal way to play CM is to take enemies out one by one, preferably before they can take their text turn, to cut down on wait time in battles. The Charge Shot is so weak that it’s unlikely for following party members to finish enemies off before they can move.

However, the Charge Shot isn’t completely useless. There are cases where enemies have such low HP that the Charge Shot can quickly finish them off, particularly when it comes to lightweight flying enemies and Bits. Give it a try now and then if you’re up against especially weak enemies, including those in previously-completed areas. Also, you can sometimes boost the power of your Charge Shot at the start of battles by using the Defend command, which can cause X’s next turn to come up immediately and provide him with more WE. Likewise, you can use Force Metal to raise his initial WE. During bosses, conserve all WE for Hyper Mode’s Action Trigger.

Another advantage of the Charge Shot is that it doesn’t have to expend all WE with each use, which is unique compared to other Action Triggers. You can estimate how much WE you need to destroy an enemy, then attempt to release the action button as the charge level reaches that percentage of WE. For example, if you’re fighting one powerful enemy and three weak ones. The weak enemies might be destroyed with only 50% WE, but X may be at 100% WE. You use Charge Shot, try and stop it at 50%, and maybe you’re slightly over or under. Regardless, the enemies can be destroyed, and X will have whatever WE left that wasn’t used. Now, his attack on the remaining, stronger enemy can be more impactful.

X Fire does make X significantly better, turning him into a true tank. His Sub-Weapons are replaced with Shell Buster and Power Charge. His normal attack changes from a Shot to Combat, and inflicts Fire damage, meaning enemy Fire weakness or resistance applies. Be mindful of that.

While transformed into X Fire, X should use normal attacks for enemies weak to Fire, while using his alternate Action Trigger, Charge Collider (now single-target), against anything else.

If you retrieve X’s Ultimate Armor Hyper Mode, it singlehandedly turns him into one of the most efficient attackers. His Action Trigger becomes Nova Strike, a timed, button-mashing onslaught of projectiles that can be aimed at any enemy. The number of attacks you can get is simply obscene, and the subsequent damage piles up to an extreme amount. With this, slap WE-boosting Force Metal on X, and spam Nova Strike every turn, if possible. X is now a force to be reckoned with!

Zero

Command Arts

Black Zero

Secrets (SPOILER)

Weapons

Zero does exactly what you’d expect him to do: he deals a lot of damage. Frankly, he’s a really good party member, if simplistic. He’s a little on the slow side, but isn’t as handicapped as Massimo. This is supposed to come at the cost of weaker attacks, but Zero’s unique Heat Haze Sub-Weapon and Command Arts Action Trigger overcomes that disadvantage entirely.

Zero’s low Speed naturally makes him slow to accumulate WE, which typically results in explosive damage early on, followed by recuperation. Heat Haze, a Zero-exclusive Sub-Weapon, functions as a superior Power Charge. With WE-boosting Force Metal, Zero can begin every fight by using Heat Haze twice, then attacking for big damage. If you’re decent with Command Arts, he can blow his WE on that, instead, and typically deal even more damage. Since that makes Heat Haze redundant, you may wish to equip Zero with utility Sub-Weapons like a Generator. That said, sitting through Command Arts every single battle might make you go insane.

Zero is definitely worth investing in.

In a nod to fighting games, Zero’s Command Arts involves the player performing certain inputs that correspond to different attacks. The required inputs are displayed onscreen while using Command Arts, so don’t worry about memorization. This Action Trigger is all about being able to quickly and accurately press buttons. Players have more time to input commands relative to Zero’s WE at the time of initiating Command Arts.

You might assume that it’s best to just spam attacks requiring more difficult inputs, as they could be associated with stronger attacks. However, this isn’t necessarily the case. Time is a concern, for starters, and two Zero Slashes (the easiest input) is stronger than one Zero Dragon Slash (the longest input at the game’s start). Zero Dragon Slash actually receives a damage bonus against flying enemies, so it’s best to use Zero Slash on grounded enemies.

In fact, I’d recommend spamming Zero Slash for most of the game, because Zero unlocks two additional inputs after performing 300 and 999 Command Arts inputs, respectively. Being the shortest input, you can reach those requirements faster. As an aside, there’s a damage penalty with each successive attack. It’s not especially relevant to keep in mind, since there’s not much you can do about it, and you still want to get as many attacks in as possible. Use your strongest attacks first, I suppose, though that’s not relevant to Zero Slash spam.

Once Zero Skull Crusher is unlocked, you should exclusively use that, with the exception of Zero Dragon Slash for flying enemies. The input may seem daunting, but simply draw a full circle across the entire outer rim of the analog stick, and make sure to press A only after ending on the 12-o-clock position. Don’t do the “inside” rotations that you might get away with when games ask you to rapidly spin an analog stick.

Command Arts is a very powerful Action Trigger, and should be used with reckless abandon! Once Zero can reliably obtain +50% WE, it should be his main method of attacking. Use a Generator Sub-Weapon or two to achieve this and/or boost his damage further by allowing for more inputs.

Black Zero is a very straightforward Hyper Mode that boosts Zero’s Power, Speed, and WE recovery, and has him receive 25% less damage from fire-attribute attacks. Use it when going all-in on damage, like with Command Arts, or when Zero’s in danger and needs the extra Speed.

If you unlock Zero’s alternate Hyper Mode, Absolute Zero, he can reach even greater heights of damage. Absolute Zero replaces Zero’s Sub-Weapons with powerful melee attacks, and his Command Arts with Calamitous Arts. Calamitous Arts is a timed sequence dependent on your WE when used, which randomly displays sequenced button inputs corresponding to specific attacks. Your goal is simply to input as many correct button combinations as possible in the time allotted. You won’t always get the best combinations/attacks, but since you have no control over that, it doesn’t change what you should be doing.

Calamitous Arts is significantly easier to use than Command Arts, and does comparable or greater amounts of damage. There is one notable flaw with Absolute Zero: the Sub-Weapon replacement. Absolute Zero can only be obtained late-game, and at this point, you should be phasing out damage-dealing Sub-Weapons for utilities that boost your normal attacks or Action Trigger. Zero in particular highly benefits from equipping a Generator (or two) to repeatedly use Command Arts, which he can’t do while in Absolute Zero, since they’re overwritten with different Sub-Weapons.

Two consecutive turns of Command Arts exceeds the damage from one Calamitous Arts, so does this make Black Zero superior to Absolute Zero? Well, sometimes, yes. But, if you’re persistent with using the Force Metal Generator, you can craft WE Gain+ Force Metal strong enough to allow for using Calamitous Arts every turn. You may not hit 100% WE as easily as with Command Arts, but as long as you’re over 50%, the DPT from Calamitous Arts should be able to compete. You can also utilize Cinnamon and her Energy Field and/or Iron Maiden Hyper Mode to further increase Zero’s WE gain.

Zero’s Sabers can vary somewhat, usually with regards to how many times they hit per attack. In Command Mission, multi-hit weapons usually outperform weapons with fewer hits, even if the latter weapons have a higher cumulative Power than the former. It’s weird.

Zero’s ultimate weapon is the Red Lotus Saber. While the description doesn’t state as such, it hits three times per attack, which is the maximum number of hits across Zero’s weapons. As for downsides, it’s Fire-attribute, which screws you against certain enemies, and it gives Zero no bonus to Armor or Shield in exchange for its exceptional power.

On the topic of multi-hit weapons, using a weapon with optimal base Power can be preferable if Zero is using his Action Trigger instead of normal attacks, as the number of hits from an Action Trigger is dependent on the player’s performance rather than the weapon. In that case, each hit’s damage is calculated based on the base Power of Zero’s equipped weapon, which is obviously going to be lower for multi-hit weapons.

Spider

Fortune Hand

Trickstar

WARNING!

Spider is a relatively agile party member, possessing high Speed but unexceptional Attack and endurance. His weapons commonly have a gimmick where an extra effect is bestowed when a normal attack is performed at 75% or more WE. This can include earning more EXP or Zenny if the enemy is destroyed by the attack, or even an additional extra attack being performed.

Because Spider is decently strong with the latter effect, it may be best to equip low-cost Sub-Weapons on him in hopes of being at 75% or more WE more often. His default Item Capture Sub-Weapon is a fine example, costing only 7% WE per use. Alternatively, he does well with Power Charge and regular use of Fortune Hand, his Action Trigger.

Spider falls off in effectiveness over time, and I’d personally recommend swapping him out with the party members who join following Chapter 4.

Spider will open a five-card poker hand, and you’ll be able to select any number of cards you want to replace with new cards. You can only swap out cards once, and the final value of your hand determines what attack Spider uses and its associated damage. Naturally, the rarer poker hand you have, the more damage Spider will inflict.

If you aren’t familiar with poker, you may want to look up a few examples. The logic is fairly simple, however: you want cards with matching traits. If you have two Kings of any suit, that’s called a Pair. Same as if it were two 9s, two Queens, etc. As you’d expect, forming two different matches is a Two Pair, which gives you a more powerful attack than just a Pair. Cards of a higher number have more value in poker, so you’ll want to prioritize those. Jacks are counted as 11, Queens 12, and Kings 13. In Command Mission, only cards valued 8 or higher can be drawn during Fortune Hand, so you have decent odds of getting matches.

Your odds of pulling good hands increases relative to Spider’s WE at the time of using Fortune Hand. The best hands can even inflict instant death on enemies, though bosses are immune to this. Ultimately, Fortune Hand is all luck. I rarely see anything above a Two Pair, which is fairly unimpressive damage. However, it’s not too bad for a single-target attack during random battles. The best strategy for Fortune Hand may be to use it liberally and go for Two Pairs (hopefully better), simply to get higher damage than Spider’s basic attack. Fortune Hand just isn’t that great of an Action Trigger.

Trickstar, which is virtually identical to Axl’s Stealth Mode, makes Spider completely invincible. To anything, in fact, as even healing from allies will pass right through him. His Power stat doubles, but he receives a 25% reduction in Speed. Depending on how you look at it, this is advantageous, because it gives enemies more turns to have their attacks miss Spider.

The complete invulnerability opens up plenty of strategies, and Trickstar can be quite useful. Not having to concern yourself with HP recovery opens up more attack opportunities, and frees Spider up to provide allies support via items or Sub Tanks.

A Sub-Weapon, Bait, can be used to direct one round’s subsequent enemy attacks to Spider, which will, of course, be completely ineffective. To balance Trickstar, it’s only able to last two turns by default.

There’s a unique mechanic attached to Spider, but it doesn’t show up until later in the game. Since this is a spoiler-free guide, I hesitate to give too much detail, but this is important, as my advice is something you should begin following immediately before you make a mistake.

To compromise, I won’t state what the mechanic is, but I’ll spoiler tag what I think you should do. Basically, it’s advice without an explanation. Click below if you’re interested.

Click here if you want important advice on Spider.

Don’t use stat-boosting items such as Build [Stat] on Spider. Especially Build Hyper, even though Spider has a particularly good Hyper Mode.

Click here if you want to directly know why to follow the above advice, with as little detail as possible. Incoming SPOILER.

Spider permanently leaves the party at a certain point. This is unavoidable.

Massimo

Berserk Charge

Glint Armor

At a glance, Massimo really sucks. Every party member, while not equal, has something of considerable value (well, maybe not X, at first…). Massimo struggles find a niche. He obviously looks the part of a tank, and he certainly does take hits well, but his initial damage output is oddly underwhelming. It doesn’t help that he gets fewer turns than other party members, and has a tendency to miss attacks; a single missed attack neutralizes any increased attack Power he may have. In RPGs, characters with high physical defenses often have lacking magical defenses, and Massimo’s variation of this is his 150% susceptibility to all elemental damage. So much for being a tank, eh?

Massimo has one kind of cool thing off-the-bat: with his Massimo Plus Force Metal, he can automatically counterattack whenever he’s hit. This can potentially make up for his damage output, but counterattacks aren’t guaranteed, he still needs to hit, and, oh yeah:

Massimo’s animations are slow as shit. Let’s talk meta for a second: even if Massimo gets every counterattack, his move and attack animations are so slow that you probably wouldn’t be taking any less time to finish random battles. Even when he’s potentially helping you, he’s ultimately not. What a guy.

Still, if you’re patient, you can make some “fun” builds utilizing Massimo’s counterattack. If you get the Bait Sub-Weapon, which can be obtained much earlier if you do the Eternal Forest sidequest and have incredible patience, Massimo can direct enemy aggression towards himself. This is generally useful, as he legitimately has really high endurance, but he’ll also counterattack. Neat!

Before we write off Massimo completely, however, we have to consider his Berserk Charge Action Trigger. Berserk Charge starts out as Massimo generally does: it’s underwhelming. However, once Massimo does 3000+ or 10,000+ damage to any enemy, Berserk Charge permanently powers up and gains a critical hit and attack number modifier. After getting these, Massimo is finally a force to be reckoned with.

Unfortunately, there’s still some caveats. The 3000 damage benchmark is easy enough to hit, but 10,000 can take some effort. You obviously want to fully power up Berserk Charge as soon as possible if you’re using Massimo, and if you take too long to do it, his DPT can be surpassed by other party members. There’s an ever-shrinking availability for Massimo being one of the party’s heaviest hitters. When all’s said and done, his damage output is respectable, but an active party only has room for three members…

Without buffing Berserk Charge, Zero completely eats Massimo’s lunch when it comes to DPT, Marino can do the same with slight finagling, Axl can use DNA Change for efficiency, Cinnamon can equip Kitty Gloves, and X can become a monster with some secret unlockables. Of course, if you personally like Massimo, feel free to keep him in your party. Command Mission isn’t that difficult, so just play how you find most fun. If you become frustrated with him, though, consider replacing Massimo. I think Massimo is cool. I just wish he was a better party member.

Four buttons are associated with different properties which are applied to Berserk Charge relative to how much each button is pressed in the given time limit. Initiating Berserk Charge with more WE allows for longer input time.

Hm. If you’re good at button mashing, Berserk Charge can do a maximum of twice the damage of a standard attack for only 50% WE. On the other hand, Power Charge is 1.5x damage for 30% WE, and can stack to 2x for 60% WE. This does make stacking Power Charge on Massimo pointless, but is it that good? Probably not.

The second modifier applies status effects, with more severe statuses being added as you fill the meter. The order is Blind, Virus, Bind, and Berserk. To clarify, you apply all previous statuses in addition to the highest level you’ve reached. This could be cool, but Command Mission‘s status effects are typically not that impactful, don’t reliably hit, and bosses tend to be outright immune to them. This is the most mild form of “gravy” possible. If this worked on bosses, I’d consider it fine enough, but against normal enemies, they’re not going to survive long enough for the statuses to significantly contribute to the battle. If you find it hard to button mash for the other, better meters on top of this one, perhaps ignore it.

If Massimo inflicts 3000 or 10,000 damage on an enemy with a single attack, his Action Trigger unlocks its third and fourth buttons, respectively. The third applies a critical hit modifier to the attack, while the fourth increases the number of hits. These are extremely helpful, especially the fourth meter, so swap in Massimo on occasion to unlock these. You may want to deliberately create a situation for Massimo to get the fourth meter ASAP. Find an early-game enemy with an elemental weakness, equip Massimo with a weapon that targets it, then blow it up with Berserk Charge while in Glint Armor. You get the idea.

Glint Armor gives Massimo +50% LE, +25% Power/Armor/Shield, and +12% WE per turn. He’s also guaranteed to counter any attacks that specifically target him, with the exception of a couple special attacks.

Well, that’s not very exciting, is it? Glint Armor is the worst Hyper Mode in the game. Its only unique property is the guaranteed counter, which is utterly insignificant compared to everyone else’s advantages, and it doesn’t even trigger on AoE attacks. The +25% Power boost is absolutely pathetic. For comparison, X Fire grants +50% Power, while Zero, Spider, and Axl get +100% Power. Massimo is supposed to be the party’s juggernaut, but his DPS is undercut by his conservative Hyper Mode. What gives?

Oh, and it only lasts three turns. Wonderful.

Marino

Emotional Reel

Quicksilver

Weapons

Marino is an interesting character. She’s the archetypal “thief” class, but that doesn’t mean much in a game where everyone can equip the Item Capture Sub-Weapon. She has low HP/Armor/Shield and modest Power, but her exceptional Speed gives her the highest turn priority, which is handy for destroying enemies before they can move.

One of Marino’s quirks is her access to multi-hit weapons, which few party members can top. This means that any increase to Marino’s attack is effectively multiplied; a Build Power is three times as effective if Marino has a three-hit weapon. If you take advantage of this, Marino can compete with the strongest normal-attackers in CM. Eventually, however, multi-hit weapons can fall behind newer weapons with fewer hits. Experiment on occasion to see how the math checks out and find the right time to switch weapons. I believe Beam Chakram S is Marino’s ultimate weapon, despite how early it can be acquired. Once you find it, stick with it, unless you want to exploit elemental weaknesses.

In my opinion, Marino is the best party member in the game. Emotional Reel has great utility, and Quicksilver is downright broken. Don’t underestimate the power of taking up to 17 turns in a row. Marino can singlehandedly defeat the ultimate superboss of Command Mission, Ninetails, which no one else can do without him taking a turn. Other party members may have her beat for DPT, but Marino can pile on damage while also being the best at support. Her versatility is unmatched, and that easily overcomes any damage disparity. Again, her damage can compete; it just requires her taking more turns via Quicksilver.

On a minor note, Marino joins X as one of the only two characters who can change their attack type to either C or S. Unlike X, who does this via X Fire, Marino’s damage type is determined by her currently equipped main weapon or Emotional Reel attack. Your Life, Please! and Scattered Flower both inflict S damage, while all others are C.

Slots appear and the player must stop each spinning column in an attempt to horizontally line up matching symbols. The symbols determine the attack Marino performs. Higher WE when triggering Emotional Reel results in slower-spinning slots, making it easier to line up the desired symbols. The order of the symbols is always the same relative to how many attacks have been unlocked for it. Each attack’s properties and damage are the same regardless of WE.

While it may sound tedious to get lucky with the slots, it’s actually very easy to consistently land a desired result, even at low WE. If you learn the timing, Emotional Reel becomes quite good, as it’s reliable damage relative to its cost. In fact, I’d say Emotional Reel becomes easier as it powers up, because more symbols-per-column are adjacent to the same symbol. If you time your button presses for when two or more of your desired symbol are lined up, then even if your timing is slightly off while aiming for the earlier symbol, you’ll still hit the same one. No harm, no foul.

Marino adds two additional symbols to the reel as she levels up, with a third “null” symbol that’s intended to make the minigame harder. There are no “harmful” results, ala Cait Sith in Final Fantasy VII.

Marino Stamp (Any invalid combination): C damage at 130% Power. This sucks, and it’s actually inferior to any attack with Power Charge applied, since that’s a 150% boost.

Hyper Dive (Boot): 200% Power C damage. Pretty simple. At the start, this Marino’s best DPT unless she has a multi-hit weapon equipped, particularly the Beam Chakram series, which can outperform Hyper Dive with a Power Charge. Hyper Dive also has a chance to miss, especially against flying enemies. It’s a fine attack when you first get Marino, but it becomes outdated in short order. In my opinion, this should have been the default/failure attack.

I’ll Take That! (Chest): C damage at 100% Power that’s guaranteed to hit and steal an enemy’s item. By becoming proficient at Emotional Reel, you no longer have to deal with the cruddy odds of Item Capture. This is an excellent ability, and you should be making routine use of it whenever you spot any item you don’t have a full stock of. Steal, steal, steal!

Your Life, Please! (Heart): S attack that recovers LE equal to the damage inflicted. This one’s pretty disappointing. The added utility might be fine, in theory, but healing in Command Mission is incredibly abundant, and this attack is too weak for the healing to make a difference. If it healed the entire party, or did enough damage to be a justifiable compromise, that might be something, but no; either go for DPT, or use a Sub Tank/Angelic Aid on your entire party.

Scattered Flower (Reaper): Six S-based attacks. Three just inflict damage, while the other three have a chance to inflict DOA (instant death). Supposedly, Scattered Flower deals 250% cumulative damage, but that doesn’t appear right to me. More testing is needed. Anyway, bosses are obviously immune to DOA, but standard enemies are more vulnerable than you may think. If you have no means of destroying an enemy in one attack, consider Scattered Flower. There’s a decent chance that DOA will proc. This is also an option when you simply need S damage, like for flying enemies, barriers, or counter abilities.

Mirage Dive (Marino): 250% Power C damage to all enemies. Seems like it always hits? This is essentially a linear upgrade for Hyper Dive, but it’s harder to lineup the symbols, as only the third reel has two consecutive Marino symbols. Once you’re good enough with Emotional Reel, you should always go for it if pursuing damage.

In my experience, Marino with a Beam Chakram and Power Charge inflicts almost the same amount of damage, so you may wish to not take your chances on Mirage Dive. That is, unless you need the AoE. Unless I’m overlooking something, Mirage Dive is the strongest AoE attack in Command Mission. Since Marino tends to move first in the turn order, immediately using Mirage Dive can often end battles right there.

Marino’s best quality, hands down, is her Hyper Mode, Quicksilver. Quicksilver boosts Marino’s Speed to absurd amounts, often letting her take several actions in a row until her HM expires. Build Hyper items increase this even further, naturally, and this advantage potentially makes Marino the overall best party member in the game. Giving every Build Hyper to Marino can give her 17 consecutive turns.

At the very least, Quicksilver is the best HM in the entire game, providing an extremely helpful niche that no other party member can replicate. Given enough turns, there’s basically no situation you can’t recover from, and not needing to recover frees your team up to go all-in on offense, as well. With Quicksilver, it’s possible to beat the optional Rafflesia boss fight as soon as you can encounter it, which is a testament to its power.

Marino has many interesting weapons, which tend to be sorted into sub-groups. For instance, any Beam Chakram has a three-hit attack. She has a series of weapons that boosts an enemy’s held Zenny if Marino delivers the final blow. Another series allows Marino to always attack every enemy at once, albeit at low damage. Some weapon series have elemental properties, which she can use to exploit enemy weaknesses.

When going for DPT, I recommend a Beam Chakram, unless an enemy has an elemental weakness, in which case I recommend one of her five-hit attribute-based weapons.

Cinnamon

Angelic Aid

Iron Maiden

Cinnamon, of all party members, is the closest to a dedicated support role. This may seem odd, considering how most Sub-Weapons and Force Metal are equippable on anyone. Rather, Cinnamon has unique Sub-Weapons to assist party members, and her Action Trigger heals allies without the traditional need of Sub Tanks. Her weapons have some very strange properties, and her ultimate weapon actually turns her into a potent physical attacker. Cinnamon has very frail defenses, particularly with regards to her HP, which is the lowest between party members.

Cinnamon’s best weapon, the Kitty Gloves, has 16 power but hits five times per attack. Don’t be fooled by the low base power; this weapon is exceptionally strong. It single-handedly turns Cinnamon into one of the game’s most effective attackers, and it becomes viable to equip her with offensive Sub-Weapons like Power Charge instead of her exclusive support ones.

Rapidly spinning the C-stick within a limited amount of time makes hearts appear onscreen, and the more hearts you accumulate, the more HP is restored for your active party. More WE when activating Angelic Aid results in more input time. More hearts can be unlocked depending on how many total battles Cinnamon has participated in, up to a maximum of 10 hearts.

Angelic Aid is one of the very few ways to restore HP outside of Sub Tanks, and because it’s essentially infinite, strategic use of it can help you conserve your Sub Tanks. I think it’s overkill, but if you find yourself running out of Sub Tanks, you may want to use Cinnamon more often.

Iron Maiden gives Cinnamon +50% LE, +25% Power, and she and other active party members receive +25% WE each turn. She also obtains the ability to randomly, automatically Defend against each enemy attack.

This is a pretty great Hyper Mode. While Cinnamon’s DPS doesn’t explode or anything, the boost to Power matters once she’s walloping things with the Kitty Gloves. The +50% LE and auto-Defend are fairly major, as Cinnamon’s base LE is pathetically low. Hyper Mode is already worth going into for defensive purposes, and that goes double for Cinnamon.

The real clincher, however, is the party-wide WE recovery bonus. Speaks for itself, doesn’t it? Your dedicated DPS attackers become stronger with more WE, and Cinnamon can even stack this bonus with her Energy Field Sub-Weapon, though I personally find that to be overkill. It also means she can personally use Angelic Aid more often, but that does mean Cinnamon has to give up a turn to attack with her boosted Power. Before she gets Kitty Gloves or other late-game weapons, that doesn’t really matter, though.

Axl

DNA Change

Stealth Mode

Unless X’s full potential is unlocked via sidequests, Axl is pretty much a better version of him. His DNA Change Action Trigger is great for random battles and certain bosses, and Stealth Mode is identical to and as useful as Spider’s Trickstar. A few of Axl’s weapons have the unique property of inflicting increased damage against certain enemy types, which can make him quite powerful.

DNA Change allows Axl to transform into any previously-defeated boss and perform a signature attack. The attack is dependent on the transformation, and it’s always the same, so you’ll want to choose the best transformation for the situation. This is arguably the best Action Trigger in the game for random battles, as it deals high amounts of damage (sometimes AoE) for very little WE. Higher WE only increases the time you have to input a transformation’s button sequence, having no effect on attack power. This is unusual for ATs. On the other hand, the AT’s relatively fixed damage can make Axl lackluster in boss battles, unless he can exploit elemental weaknesses.

Wild Jango is DNA Change’s best single-target damage, at first. Silver Horn and Mach Jentra deal AoE elemental damage. Rafflesian is an upgrade in that department, dealing decent, non-elemental, AoE damage. Mad Nautilus can inflict a variety of status effects on enemies, but even if you’re lucky enough for them to hit, they’re typically lower-impact than trying to outright destroy enemies. Ninetails does decent damage, but by then, you’ve beaten the game’s hardest boss, so what does it matter? It’s still not the strongest attack in the game, because its damage is fixed.

Stealth Mode is identical to Spider’s Trickstar Hyper Mode. I recommend reading his section so I don’t have to repeat text. Axl’s Stealth Mode is indirectly superior to Trickstar, because Axl has more weapons with innate multi-hit properties, and both characters’ Hyper Mode increases their critical hit rate for normal attacks.

General Tips

Weapons that hit multiple times per normal attack appear to be inflict higher DPT than weapons with higher Power values. For example, a weapon might hit three times per attack with a Power rating of 22, which implies it inflicts cumulative damage equivalent to 66 Power. However, in my experience, its damage exceeds weapons that have above 66 Power.

Honestly, I don’t know why this is. I’ve looked into Command Mission‘s damage formulas, and unless I’m misunderstanding them, I see no explanation as to why multi-hit weapons overperform. Online consensus appears to validate the superiority of multi-hit weapons, but I don’t see anyone explaining why.

Without an explanation, I also can’t tell you exactly when weapons with a lower number of hits will deliver higher DPT. Multi-hitters aren’t innately better; it’s entirely possible for whatever DPT advantage they have to be overcome by an extreme difference in base weapon Power, but I don’t know exactly when that happens. As such, my best advice is to swap out a new weapon every time you obtain one with higher Power than the cumulative Power of a multi-hit weapon, and compare damage for yourself. Keep in mind that final damage is slightly random. I’m sorry I can’t provide more precise info at this time.
Hyper Mode turns don’t start counting down until someone’s first turn after transforming. If you end a battle before that comes around, you can get one “free” Hyper Mode action. Therefore, it’s ideal to use Hyper Mode when finishing off enemies.
Hyper Mode is not only immune to status effects, but also removes any that you currently have. Instead of using recovery items, transform into Hyper Mode and end a fight before you expend one of your turns.
Don’t simply reset if a battle is going poorly. A game over allows you to retry from the beginning of every battle, in the exact state you were when it began. If you want to change your party setup, however, you’ll have to reload a previous save (or win the fight).

The Deployment Center: Use It!

Following Chapter 3, players can use the Deployment Center. After recovering inoperable enemy units found in dungeons, those enemies can be sent to retrieve items and resources from previously-cleared areas. At first glance, this sidequest may seem like just a way to get Sky Room bonus material like concept art and music tracks, as well as some spare Zenny.

However, there are major discoveries hidden within and exclusive to the Deployment Center. There is no cost to using the Deployment Center, so you should regularly stop in to check the results of a deployment and send more units out. Even if you only have a single unit to send out, do it regardless, because there’s a decent chance they still succeed. If they don’t, you’re not punished for it.

Multiple sidequests and their powerful rewards are locked behind things obtained via the Deployment Center. A lot of what makes Command Mission fun is its side content, so I think you’ll unilaterally receive a worse game experience by ignoring the Deployment Center.

Successful deployments have the potential to level up any surviving units, raising their general effectiveness at retrieving items and returning safely. Level 10 enters them into the Hall of Fame, but this doesn’t actually mean or do anything. It’s just a fancy conveyance that their level has capped.

A Warning for Completionists

If you want to cap the level of all units for completion’s sake, you have some serious considerations to make. You see, the resources found in each area are finite—even Zenny. Once an area has been completely cleared out, you can never deploy there again. If you fully clear out all areas in Command Mission before capping your units’ levels, they can never reach level 10. And yes, this is very possible to do.

So, how do you avoid this? Well, I wish I had a detailed, foolproof strategy; but I don’t. I do have a general strategy that worked for me, however. When deploying units, you’ll eventually notice groups that return safely but without any items or Zenny. This means that the group has adequate-enough stats to survive the area, but lack the traits needed to locate what’s left in the area. Certain item types are discovered via specific stats, and a team’s composition determines the potential for finding them.

If you find a situation like this, you can repeatedly deploy that same team composition to effectively “grind” that area for EXP. It seems to me, though, that there’s a major EXP modifier for finding items. Since you’re not getting anything, be prepared for this method to take a while once you’re “doing laps” with high-level units. Still, if you want to ensure you max everyone’s level, you don’t have much of a choice but to do this at least partially.

That said, it’s possible to naturally max unit levels without grinding. You could try a compromised approach, like sending out balanced team compositions instead of what’s ideal for the items/area you’re exploring. The goal would be to maximize the number of deployments that return with some items, instead of getting as many items as possible in as few deployments as possible. I can’t personally vouch for this method, because I haven’t tried it. If my understanding of Deployment Center mechanics is correct, though, it should work. I make no guarantees!

Stealing Items: It’s Worth Your Time

Items can be stolen from enemies using the Item Capture Sub-Weapon or Marino’s Emotional Reel Action Trigger after lining up three treasure chest icons. Item Capture has a random chance of success that I haven’t been able to verify, while Emotional Reel is guaranteed but requires you to properly time the slot machine. You’ll have to determine which method is easiest for you, but I think it’s worth practicing Emotional Reel, in general.

Items received depends on the enemy, and enemies always carry the same items. Some enemies can carry two items, and it’s random as to which you’ll receive first, but almost every enemy has at least one item to steal. It’s even possible to steal non-items, such as Sub Tank energy, though that’s not super common.

It’s a good idea to learn the inventories of each enemy you encounter, because even basic enemies can carry valuable items: weapons, recovery items, attack items, Force Metal—basically anything is fair game. If they have something you want, be prepared to steal it every time you run into that enemy. For example, some enemies carry a Reboot, which is used in many Force Metal recipes. Buying Reboot items can be expensive, so stealing them helps you save Zenny.

As you may guess, bosses tend to carry especially rare items. They’re not always “essential,” but you may as well grab them. This is where being skilled at Emotional Reel is really helpful, because it’s naturally harder to stay alive for dozens of turns against a boss, if you’re unlucky with Item Capture. Four Build Hyper items can be stolen from four different bosses, and they’re extremely valuable. Build Hyper items are limited in quantity, so you really should steal these.

If you steal two items from every boss, you’ll get them eventually, but in case you’re worried or otherwise want to know which bosses have them, I’ve spoiler-tagged their identities below.

Click here to learn which bosses carry Build Hyper.

Steal from Ferham, Eject Epsilon, Fourtails, and Ninetails.

Build Hyper: Optimizing Their Use

Build Hyper is the most valuable item in all of Command Mission. It increases the maximum number of turns a party member can remain in Hyper Mode by 1. Players can obtain no more than 12 Build Hyper items, with two being permanently missable due to needing to be stolen from certain, one-time bosses. There’s no cap to a party member’s Hyper Mode turns; or rather, there’s no cap that can be reached without cheating. It’s possible to funnel every Build Hyper into one party member.

You should find and covet every Build Hyper that you can. Not every Hyper Mode is equally useful, so a Build Hyper ought to be spent on the best ones. There’s debate as to which Hyper Mode is the absolute best, but there’s consensus on which are worthy of a Build Hyper.

These are:

Quicksilver (Marino): Quicksilver’s enormous boost to Speed allows Marino to take several actions in a row. This has virtually limitless benefits, and those only increase if she has more actions to take. No other party member has a comparable trait to this, making Quicksilver a priority for Build Hyper. In my opinion, this is the way to go.

Stealth Mode (Axl): Axl is completely invincible while in Stealth Mode, yet enemies still target him, taking a lot of pressure off of your team. By default, Stealth Mode only lasts two turns.

I also think it’s ideal to use your Build Hyper items on one party member. This is because Gain Hyper items restore anyone’s Hyper Mode turns to max. Therefore, the value of Gain Hyper increases relative to the number of turns it’s recovering. If you have two party members with a maximum of five Hyper Mode turns, the value of a Gain Hyper “caps” at five turns. If you have one party member with ten Hyper Mode turns, then the value of a Gain Hyper “caps” at ten turns. Getting the same value out of the previous example would require two Build Hyper instead of one. Get the picture?

So, in my opinion, give all Build Hyper items to Marino. If you don’t want to use Marino, then give them to Axl. If you don’t want to use either, then give them to Cinnamon. Iron Maiden increases WE recovery for allies, raises Cinnamon’s defense, and boosts her offense (even further if she has the Kitty Gloves). Following those three, go with X or Zero. It’s not a big deal at that point, because the attributes of their Hyper Mode aren’t unique; it’s just increased damage, rather than new strategic options.

Sub-Weapons

Each party member can equip up to two Sub-Weapons, which provide anything from supplemental damage to dozens of other beneficial effects, usually for varying amounts of WE. Sub-Weapons must be fired before using your normal attack or Action Trigger. Sub-Weapon animations may appear as though there’s some sort of timing mechanic to them, but there’s not. You can wait a whole year between firing your first and second Sub-Weapon; it won’t affect the outcome. You can double up on the same Sub-Weapon, if you’d like, and certain Sub-Weapons are exclusive to specific party members.

Which Sub-Weapons are ideal to equip depends heavily on the party member in question, your expected opponents, and even your Force Metal setup. I’ll go over some general Sub-Weapon types.

Power Charge: For 30 WE, Power Charge boosts that turn’s normal attack Power by 50%. Eventually, Power Charge will be your most efficient means of dealing damage. 30 WE is a lot, but it can be offset with Force Metal and Build WE items. It’s possible to stack Power Charge in order to deal 100% damage, but I think it’s not worth the cost at that point. Towards the end of the game, you ought to be recovering enough WE to swap between Power Charge and your Action Trigger every turn.

Generator: This Sub-Weapon breaks the game’s balance by increasing your WE by 20. The only “cost” is the Sub-Weapon slot itself. But riddle me this: who cares what Sub-Weapon you could have used, if it makes your Action Trigger significantly stronger? Would you rather fire a Missile, or use Command Arts every turn? The answer should be obvious. Zero and Massimo greatly benefit from a Generator(s), and so does X, if he can use Hyper Mode. This Sub-Weapon is a mistake of balancing, in my opinion.

Get EXP/Zenny/FME+: For a paltry 7 WE, an enemy hit with one of these will increase the associated value by 10%. The weapon’s description doesn’t explain these well, however. An enemy has to be destroyed during the same turn that they’re hit with one of these. If Marino uses Get EXP+, she has to then destroy that enemy with her normal attack, Action Trigger, or secondary Sub-Weapon, or the effect is lost. It’s possible to stack each Sub-Weapon to receive a 20% boost (or two different 10% boosts), but it can’t be stacked any higher than that, since you’d need to end your turn to fire more.

These aren’t too impactful, but you’ll come across enemies you can reliably destroy without exhausting all of your WE. In these cases, it helps to slap a Get+ on a party member(s), just because it’s better than a Sub-Weapon slot going unused. A 10-20% boost can be significant when used on enemies with high base values, however, such as bosses.

Force Metal

Force Metal is a huge part of Command Mission, and you really should take advantage of it—it will make your life much easier. Force Metal is basically a passive ability you equip to your party members, and each Force Metal has an Erosion “cost” attached to it. You can equip whatever Force Metal you want, so long as you have enough slots for it, which are fixed depending on the party member. Also specific to party members is their Immunity stat, which is the total “cost” of Force Metal they can equip before accumulating enough Erosion to be at “Caution” or “Danger!” status.

If a party member is in either of those categorizations, they’re at risk of entering a battle with a special handicap—a “super status effect,” if you will. One condition may be that the party member’s maximum LE is capped for the duration of that fight. They’ll return to normal once it’s over, but they won’t recover any LE they were forced to lose, requiring healing (unless you don’t mind it, as usual).

It’s a simple practice to keep your Force Metal Erosion costs under your Immunity stats. Since Immunity increases by leveling up, you’ll gradually be able to equip more powerful Force Metal as the game progresses. However, you should consider going over your Immunity stat, in some cases.

For example, if equipping powerful Force Metal helps you end battles before enemies can even take their turn, does your halved LE even matter? Outside of random turn order or Enemy Blitzkriegs, no, not really. Battles rarely last long enough for any status effects to have an impact, and if you’re facing a long battle like a boss fight, you can just change your Force Metal beforehand. Simple!

What Force Metal are worth using? That’s a complex topic, and it mostly comes down to what’s available to you at that point in the game. At the start, you won’t have a lot of options, and the benefits of what you have will be quite simple. Power +1 and Speed +1 are obviously more useful than Armor +1 and Shield +1, but they do have a higher cost.

The Force Metal Generator (FMG)

The Force Metal Generator can be used shortly after finishing Chapter 3. To use parlance less common during the era when Command Mission first released, the FMG is a crafting system. By expending specific “ingredients,” which can include anything shy of main weapons, you can create new Force Metal. A significant number of Force Metal are exclusive to the FMG, and even for those that aren’t, the FMG allows you to obtain them earlier than you would otherwise, giving you an advantage in combat.

A universal requirement for generating Force Metal is Force Metal Energy (FME). This is essentially just an alternate currency, like Zenny, that’s used only by the FMG. Also like Zenny, FME is obtained from defeating enemies and occasionally found in Item Boxes. Your accumulated FME isn’t displayed until the FMG is unlocked, but from the start of the game, it’s actually always being tallied “behind the scene.” As such, when the FMG unlocks, you’ll already have some FME to spend.

A special way of earning more FME is via Final Strikes. The more hits you make during a Final Strike, the greater the target’s Force Metal value will be multiplied. For example, if you get enough hits to earn FME +50%, then that enemy or enemies’ Force Metal will increase by 50% of its base value. Like EXP and Zenny, an enemy’s Force Metal value is specific to them. This means it’s particularly beneficial to try and set up Final Strikes against high-value enemies such as bosses.

You shouldn’t hesitate to use the Force Metal Generator. You might be worried about expending valuable items, but it’s pretty obvious when the costs are high. From what I saw, the FMG never requires finite items. However, on very rare occasions, it may request items that are difficult to obtain, or can only be obtained long after you unlock the ability to generate something using them.

The big example here is Item Capture. This Sub-Weapon is initially equipped to Spider when he joins your party. It allows you to steal from enemies, which is extremely useful. If you lose it in any way, your only other opportunity to get one is from a random drop past the game’s halfway point, on an enemy that can only be encountered in very specific rooms. You’re likely to never even encounter that enemy without deliberately seeking them out.

Even in this example, losing Item Capture isn’t the end of the world. Once you recruit Marino, you always have a way to steal from enemies (with 100% success!) by using her Emotional Reel Action Trigger. After this point, losing Item Capture is more a matter of convenience than anything else. This is as “bad” as the Force Metal Generator’s requirements get, so yeah: don’t worry about it. Make Force Metal like crazy! It’s fun!

Once you notice certain patterns in required ingredients and such, you can predict when you may want to conserve items and FME for future Force Metal. Some Force Metal recipes only unlock after completing various objectives, which are noted in the FMG menu. Also, Cinnamon needs to be at a certain level to generate some Force Metal, which effectively places a cap on how far you can take the FMG at a given point. It often takes so long to reach these level thresholds, that you should consider burning through your resources instead of waiting. By the time you gain five levels or whatever you need, you’ll probably have obtained more than what’s required for your desired Force Metal.

Your Force Metal Database

You may also notice that the name of a Force Metal is hidden in the FMG menu until you’re capable of generating it, or you obtain a copy of it somewhere else (from an Item Box, etc.). If you haven’t obtained a Force Metal before, and you lose one of the ingredients needed to generate it, the name will once again be hidden from you. Once you acquire a Force Metal, however, the game permanently remembers it. Even if you lose all copies of it, its identity will forever be viewable in the FMG menu. This means the FMG essentially doubles as an encyclopedia of all Force Metal you’ve obtained. The FMG even displays unique Force Metal that it’s not capable of generating, just for this purpose. It’s technically possible to obtain a Force Metal before you unlock the means to refine it, in which case its name will still display despite it being unrefinable, but that’s an unusual occurrence.

Note: I haven’t been able to clear the “NEW” icon next to the FMG, even after refining every Force Metal. I’ve yet to test if you need to have one of every Force Metal in your inventory at the same time. If anyone knows, please tell me.

Notable Force Metal

Battles

Stat+: The most basic kind of Force Metal. These tend to be cheap in every way, and they’re mostly only valuable at the game’s beginning or when needing to find low-Erosion FM to round-off a party member’s FM slots. The gains from these FM become less relevant over time, as they begin to constitute around 1% of a party member’s associated stat. Does a 1% boost to damage sound worth it to you? The one exception is Speed, which rises slow enough to where small boosts can be palpable. Endgame Speed stats don’t even reach 100. Speed+ FM still isn’t necessarily worth equipping (I mean, just look at Cutting Edge), but they’re relatively better than the other boosts.
Initial WE: The first type of overpowered Force Metal you can acquire, Initial WE boosts the WE a party member has on their first turn. If your WE is high enough, you can end battles so quickly that the FM becoming “useless” after the first turn is irrelevant. Initial WE Erosion costs are shockingly low, allowing you to stack their effects with ease. Initial WE is partly responsible for the Command Mission meta becoming Action Trigger and Power Charge spam. Whee.
Build WE: And here’s Initial WE’s partner-in-crime. This gives your WE a bonus every turn. At the very least, it appropriately has far greater Erosion than Initial WE FMs, but virtually any price would be worth its powerful effect. You may think that the effect only starts applying past your first turn, but nope—Build WE also increases your initial WE. Great! With enough of these two, you can use your Action Trigger and Power Charge every turn.

Encounter Meta

Analyze: I know “analysis” abilities in RPGs are often mocked, but Command Mission is an exception—it’s actually really convenient. The geniuses at Capcom made it so using Analyze during battle never takes up your turn! This means it’s actually worth equipping. You can easily check enemy weaknesses, what stealable items they carry, and which items they’re capable of dropping. It’s super helpful for any dedicated item thieves, which is a playstyle I encourage. Also, Analyze has a cost of 0, so the expended Force Metal slot can be partially made up for by equipping higher-cost Force Metal in a party member’s remaining slots.

For whatever reason, Analyze can only be used if it’s equipped on the first party member of your roster (the one who appears on the right during battles). If you change your formation, either via the menu or during battles, you can make Analyze inaccessible. I don’t know why Capcom gave it this quirk, and it barely matters, but keep it in mind. Despite this, if Analyze is equipped on your first party member, any party member can use Analyze on their turn, further increasing its practicality.
Exodus: While equipped to the first party member in your rotation, Exodus guarantees successful escape from any battle you choose to Run from. The same rules as Analyze apply. Of course, battles that can’t be Run from, like bosses, are an exception. Exodus helps offset the absurd encounter rate in Command Mission, as running is much faster than fighting. Don’t get too carried away, however, and be left without resources like Zenny, EXP, and FME.
Cutting Edge: A party member equipped with Cutting Edge always moves first at the start of any battle. This even takes priority over an Enemy Blitzkrieg! What really makes Cutting Edge worth it is how its extra turn is added. It doesn’t move a party member’s first turn to the front, but rather starts them with an additional turn. Your party members essentially get to act twice at the start of ever battle! It’s an incredibly good effect, for only costing 5 Erosion.
Good Luck: Increases item drop rate by 3%. Speaks for itself. Enemies often carry highly valuable items, whether it be Build items, exclusive, powerful weapons, Force Metal, or any extraneous items you can spend in the Force Metal Generator. Item drops really add up over time, and I recommend equipping as many Good Luck as you can. That’s easier said than done, however, because refining them requires Item Capture. Item Capture is very difficult to get. Regardless, I would recommend getting even one Good Luck as soon as you can, because you can just use Marino’s Emotional Reel to steal items.

Good Luck does appear to stack if you equip multiples. If the description is correct about it giving a 3% boost, the maximum boost to your drop rate is 27%, which is a major difference. Theoretically, you can have a maximum of 11 Force Metal slots across your active party, but because item quantity caps at 9, you can only ever equip 9 Good Luck. So yeah, a maximum boost of 27% on top of an item’s initial drop rate (which varies).

Note: Good Luck does not apply to 1% drop rates. I know that sounds absurd, but Command Mission is deliberately programmed to not apply Good Luck to any drop with a default rate of 1%. It’s still a good FM, but be prepared for a lengthy grind whenever seeking 1% drops.
Attractor/Caution: These Force Metal influence the random encounter rate, which is great, because Command Mission‘s is way too high. Attractor doubles it, as if anyone needs that. In all seriousness, you may as well equip it when hunting certain enemies for any items they carry, or whatever you may need.

Caution halves the encounter rate, and I sure as hell rarely left home without it. You have to wait until level 30 to craft it, which really sucks, but that’s just how it is.

From my testing, Attractor and Caution do not seem to stack. You can’t increase or decrease the encounter rate any further. Their effects are likely binary, i.e., they set the encounter rate to a certain value. Therefore, equipping multiple just tells the game to set it to the same value multiple times, which is redundant. Amusingly, Attractor has a cost of 3, while Caution has no cost at all, despite it being the more generally advantageous Force Metal.
Initiative: Increases the chance for a “first strike,” where all of your party members can move before the enemy has a turn. I believe it must be equipped to an active party member to apply, and it doesn’t seem to stack with Cutting Edge. Cutting Edge makes your priority consistent and nulls enemy blitzkriegs, but Initiative costs 0 Erosion and only needs to be on one party member.

Character-Exclusive Force Metal

X

Zero Shift

Bluff

Massimo Plus

Fat Slicer

Lucky Girl

Once per battle, X is immediately revived upon defeat with 10% LE. Not bad at all, especially considering when you get it and its 0 Erosion cost. X has four FM slots to spare, and you won’t have much competition at the start of the game. This is genuinely a nice advantage that other party members can’t have without using a Decoy, which are consumed upon use. X Heart isn’t useful the entire game, as you should eventually become too difficult to kill with your surplus of Sub Tanks, Cinnamon’s Angelic Aid, and so on. Even then, it can be a fine option for the rare boss capable of instantly destroying party members.

With this, Zero nulls any damage equal to or less than his current level multiplied by five. So, at level 99, he would block damage equal to or less than 495. Sounds useless? Well, a little bit. Zero Shift isn’t quite as bad as some think, because it does apply to multi-hit attacks, which aren’t uncommon. If any hit of an attack is under Zero Shift’s threshold, it’s blocked, typically meaning that an entire multi-hit attack is blocked. So, Zero Shift does come up at times.

That said… it’s still not good. Zero Shift takes too high of a level and too many resources to create, and it even has a relatively difficult unlock requirement. You need to successfully input 16 commands using Command Arts, and my record is 17. Use Command Arts at 100% WE, then spam Zero Slash or Dragon Slash, depending on whichever you feel more comfortable with. There’s about a half-second after a successful input before you can begin another, so you’ll have to feel out the rhythm for yourself. Don’t just mash commands, as that buffer will ruin your pace.

Also, Zero Shift directly conflicts with Zero’s ultimate weapon, which has a gimmick of providing him no Armor or Shield. With that, almost nothing won’t be able to clear the Zero Shift threshold. Great. Zero is, by default, the second-tankiest party member behind Massimo. That’s probably why Zero Shift is defense-oriented, but it also means he doesn’t especially need its assistance. Not the worst FM in the game, but definitely not a worthwhile one.

Spider automatically dodges the first attack made on him in every battle. Another decent effect. This saves you some Sub Tank use, and battles are short enough to where most damage is obtained at the start of combat. It’s a pity that it’s forcibly used even for weak attacks, but that’s just how things go, sometimes. If you have extra space, keep it on!

+1 to all stats, and Massimo is guaranteed to counter any single-target attack made on him, with the exception of specific, non-counterable attacks. It’s kind of neat, and it helps offset Massimo’s slow action speed. You can combo it with a Bait Sub-Weapon for even more counters. What screws Massimo Plus is actually Massimo’s two Force Slots. He doesn’t have the luxury of extraneous slots where he may want to fit low-Erosion FM. This means you’ll eventually want to use all the space you’ve got to equip things like Build/Initial WE. The +1 to all stats is bizarrely pointless, and it really should’ve scaled up over time.

…Weird name. Fat Slicer gives Marino +10% dodge rate against C and S attacks. That’s pretty much every kind of attack. It’s a substantial increase relative to Command Mission‘s limited methods of boosting evasion, but it’s nowhere near good enough. Yes, Marino is frail and would appreciate dodging more attacks. But an average of one extra dodge per every ten attacks? Hell, just nine attacks is more than enough to kill Marino. Use other FM to raise her survivability, if that’s your concern. Or, better yet, raise her offense so she can end battles quickly and not risk taking damage at all.

Boosts Zenny obtained from battle by 10%. Well, nothing wrong with more Zenny, and it’s convenient that it’s passive, unlike Get Zenny+. However, the meta is what kills the practicality of Lucky Girl. Cinnamon has to be level 35 to refine it, and you need to generate 30 FM using the FMG to unlock its recipe. It also requires a Good Luck to refine! What the hell!? By the time you can get a single Lucky Girl, you’ll have very little need for Zenny. Ironically, you’ll probably already have the Kitty Gloves, which raise Cinnamon’s offenses to the point you’ll probably want combat-oriented FM equipped.

If you’re an extreme completionist—like, “get 9 of every item” levels—Lucky Girl can be worth the investment. Otherwise… it’s not gonna happen.

Axl has no exclusive FM. So sad. Other than Zero Shift and Lucky Girl, all character-exclusive FM are unrefinable. Never sell them! Even if they go unused, the Zenny for selling them is chump change.

Especially Bad Force Metal

Parry Impact: The equipped party member recovers 1% WE each time an enemy hits them. On the bright side, this does apply to multi-hit attacks. On the other hand, how much are you getting attacked per turn? Think of how many attacks it would take to gain advantages comparable to Initial or Build WE FM? The only even slightly worthwhile use of this would be to equip it on Massimo, use a Bait Sub-Weapon, and counter every enemy attack with Massimo Plus while protecting your other party members and building WE. Since Massimo only has two FM slots, he has more trouble stacking Initial and Build WE than the rest of the party. Does that make Parry Impact good? No. It takes several highly-valuable items to refine it, and even Massimo can equip an FM to lower Erosion costs and a Build WE FM.

Note: It appears to me that Force Metal does not have to be equipped on active party members to work. You can get the bonus from Good Luck, etc., by equipping them to your inactive party members. This frees up FM slots for your actual fighters. Any FM that outright specifies needing to be equipped on an active party member, like Exodus, still requires such.

Treasure Radar

On the GameCube version only, shortly after finishing Chapter 2, the player will receive access to the Treasure Radar. The Treasure Radar requires using a GameCube Game Boy Advance cable, meaning that it’s impossible to reach true 100% completion in Command Mission without additional hardware or means to spoof it. I know; it sucks. It is what it is.

Once connected, the Treasure Radar displays a radar on the GBA screen. More importantly, sparkling items will now be viewable on the main game field, and the GBA will beep more rapidly as the player moves closer to them. These items are picked up by examining their location, which is distinct from how you must dash into Item Boxes. These items are in fixed locations and can each be obtained only once.

I say “items,” because that’s what the game calls them. In truth, all Treasure Radar items are Treasure Tokens. These are used at special Vending Machines to get more Figurines. Essentially, the Treasure Radar is just a “key” to make these items spawn on the field. Think of it like really lame DLC. It’s all worth it to get a Figurine of Marino in her Quicksilver outfit, right? Wait, that’s not even obtained from Treasure Tokens? Okay, I guess it’s all just lame busywork.

You can press various buttons on the GBA to change the display’s appearance, but the functionality is unaffected. I’ve only ever used the Treasure Radar with an actual GBA SP, and I found it helpful to conserve battery life by turning the backlight off. The Treasure Radar is often best kept active for play sessions that can span an hour or longer, so this matters. The Radar’s beeping is so loud, consistent, and precise, that needing to see the GBA screen for the exact Token location is completely unnecessary. After acquiring all Treasure Tokens, which you can check via the Sky Room’s “View Data” function, you can shelve the Treasure Radar forever. Hooray!

Permanently Missable Items

Command Mission has quite a few items that are finite in quantity and/or have only a brief window of availability. The former tends to concern Build Hyper and starting weapons, while the latter usually involves items stolen from one-time encounters, such as bosses. Here’s a list of items that can’t be freely obtained, to the best of my knowledge.

All initial weapons: Each weapon a party member joins with cannot be obtained again, should you sell them. This includes party members who leave the party and rejoin with a new weapon. Zero, for example, has two unique Z-Sabers. Starting weapons are, naturally, not very strong. Preserving them is only relevant to players who want a complete inventory, a completion metric that isn’t tracked by the game.

Unique Force Metal: Some Force Metal can’t be refined or purchased, so if you lose those, they’re gone forever. These are very rare and typically obvious. I think every unique Force Metal is one that’s character-exclusive, such as X’s X Heart or Spider’s Bluff. Just don’t sell those. Not all of them are worth using, but the paltry Zenny you get from selling them isn’t a good trade.

Build Hyper: The most valuable item in the game. Four of these are stolen from bosses. Please view this section to learn which bosses those are, as well as advice on how to best use your Build Hyper items.

Heat Haze: A Zero-exclusive Sub-Weapon. Three of these are obtained from moments when Zero joins the party, and a fourth can be stolen from a boss. Since Zero can only equip two Heat Haze at once, the extra copies are presumably just there in case you have seller’s remorse. Sell the extras if you want, or keep them for thoroughness.

Click here to see which boss carries Heat Haze.

Ferham (Chapter 8).

The Path to 100% Completion and a Perfect Game

“Now the real fun starts!”
-Marino

Command Mission is not a very long game, but you can really stretch its playtime by going for 100% completion. As for what that entails: it’s subjective. I consider 100% completion to be finishing tasks the game directly incentivizes or acknowledges. If it unlocks something, or the game tracks it in a specialized manner, it’s part of earning 100%.

A “perfect game” goes above and beyond. It entails not only reaching 100%, but being as comprehensive as possible with every game mechanic. Not only will there be absolutely nothing left for you to do, but it will have been impossible for you to have done it better.

So, here’s two lists of what you’ll need to do in order to achieve 100% completion and a perfect game. You can decide for yourself when enough is enough.

100% completion entails:

Obtaining all items on the field, including Treasure Tokens (GameCube version only), and Sub-Tank recovery.
Clearing out all Deployment Center areas.
Defeating all optional bosses: Rafflesia, Duckbill Mole, and Ninetails.
All Force Metal (i.e., complete the Force Metal Generator list).
Obtaining all Figurines (including Secret Collections, if playing the GameCube version).
Completing all “achievements” in the Sky Room’s Data Files. Since these give rewards, such as Figurines, or are attached to sidequests like defeating optional bosses, this is typically done while pursuing other tasks.

A perfect game entails:

Obtaining all permanently-missable items.
A full inventory with as many copies of each item as possible.
All Action Triggers fully powered-up.
Every Deployment Center Mechaniloid in the Hall of Fame.
All characters at level 99.
All characters with maximum stats (using Build items).

And, if you’re really a lunatic:

Maxing out all records in the Sky Room’s Data Files. This means every party member needs to have destroyed the maximum number of enemies, you need to cap the Zenny record, etc. Not even I had the wherewithal to do this.

Boss Strategies

Required Bosses

Dr. Psyche / Mad Nautilus

Click to reveal strategy.

This boss fight can give first-time players trouble. Indeed, Dr. Psyche’s attack strategy is more overwhelming than previous bosses, forcing you to handle both high damage and various status effects.

For the first phase, Dr. Psyche, if no other enemies are present, will almost always use Summon Needles to summon three allies. To prevent damage from piling up, prioritize defeating two of these enemies and leaving one alive so Dr. Psyche won’t summon more. Eventually, all Needles will use an ability where they destroy themselves to inflict random stat adjustment effects on random participants, including Dr. Psyche himself. The effects can be either beneficial or detrimental for allies and enemy alike, and don’t appear to favor either one. This makes dealing with this technique a low priority, as the positive and negative effects should balance out.

If you’d like, X’s Charge Shot actually defeats the Needles rather handedly. For around 55% WE, you should be capable of putting the Needles in range for a Final Strike, if you don’t outright destroy them. This makes Dr. Psyche waste turns summoning more Needles, but you’ll eventually require a turn to build WE back up.

Conserve everyone’s Hyper Mode for Mad Nautilus. Hyper Mode has the innate property of making a party member immune to status effects, shutting down one of the boss’s means of damaging you. If you can’t avoid statuses for whatever reason, consider ignoring statuses of low impact, like Virus. Using Defend also blocks statuses.

You should generally pass turns defending and accumulating WE, then use Hyper Mode when Mad Nautilus opens its glowing, green core on its upper-half. Its defenses are otherwise too high to be worth bothering with, so use this opportunity to unload your built-up WE.

Optional Bosses

Rafflesia & Belladonna (x2)

Click to reveal strategy.

These two enemy types have similar, unique abilities, but with a critical distinction. Rafflesia receives a permanent boost to all of her stats at the start of each of her turns. The Belladonnas are capable of the same, but their stats only increase upon receiving damage. All enemies recover varying amounts of HP on each of their turns, and the gimmick of this fight is that they’ll eventually become too powerful for you to outpace their healing, if they don’t just eradicate you with super-powerful attacks.

You may think it’s optimal to destroy the Belladonnas first, as it’s usually better to defeat a boss’s support first in RPGs. But, since you can control the Belladonnas’ growth by simply ignoring them, but can’t do the same for Rafflesia, you ought to destroy Rafflesia immediately before she accumulates too many boosts. Rafflesia recovers half of her remaining HP every turn, further incentivizing you to get her HP down as fast as possible. For Rafflesia, you’re racing against time, while the Belladonnas test how much damage you can inflict with a limited number of attacks.

While this is one of the game’s more challenging battles, it’s possible to defeat this trio as soon as they become available if you exercise good strategy. I’m going to structure my advice around fighting them as early as possible, because you can otherwise wait until your general offense increases enough to where there’s countless ways to quickly destroy these three.

When defeating Rafflesia & co. early, you should have, at minimum, two things: Marino and her Quicksilver Hyper Mode, and a burst damage-dealer. Ideally, that’s Zero, but X works fine. You should have a generous stock of Gain Hyper, and if you’ve spent Build Hyper on Marino, you’ll be better off.

When the fight begins, all enemies are likely to move before you. If you have good RNG, you might have someone move before Rafflesia. Take the opportunity to do any damage at all to her before her first boost kicks in. For the first few turns, consider using items to raise your stats, such as Boost Power. These need to be applied outside of Hyper Mode, because Hyper Mode innately blocks status effects, including beneficial ones. Apply your buffs while wailing on Rafflesia, and keep your HP near 100%. Rafflesia’s defenses only go up over time, so don’t bother withholding WE. It’s a good idea to begin the fight with WE-boosting Force Metal so you can maximize your offense. Attack, attack, and attack. The Power Charge Sub-Weapon is your friend here. Or Heat Haze, if you’re using Zero.

After a set number of her turns have passed (four or five?), Rafflesia will use Sunburst, an obscenely strong attack capable of killing early-game party members at maximum HP. This is a simple damage check—if you can’t survive at least one Sunburst, this fight will be unwinnable. You can try to equip LE-boosting Force Metal to get over its damage threshold. Otherwise, try and keep your HP topped off when Sunburst is due to come around, be Defending, and be in Hyper Mode (general stat boosts, including LE). The Decoy Force Metal can also work, but it has the downside of becoming a wasted slot once it’s used.

If you survive Sunburst, you may be capable of defeating Rafflesia before she fires another one. God willing, because each Sunburst will be stronger than the previous one. Marino should almost always be in Hyper Mode, using Power Charge and normal attacks, while X should do the same in order to preserve Hyper Mode for the Belladonnas. If you have enough Gain Hyper, use X’s Hyper Mode for Rafflesia, too. Depending on your DPT, it may be necessary. Zero should be using Command Arts whenever possible, and otherwise be using Heat Haze. The same practices for X’s Hyper Mode apply to him.

Your third party member should provide ancillary support. Massimo isn’t recommended. His bulk is helpful, but speed is critically important in this battle. Also, he risks counterattacking the Belladonnas and triggering their boost. Spider or Axl are fine choices, as they have decent Speed and can use their Hyper Mode for temporary invincibility when in a pinch. Keep in mind, however, that their Speed actually drops when in Hyper Mode. Have your third party member use items, like Gain Hyper on Marino, and Sub Tanks to free up the turns of your stronger fighters. If they’re free to attack Rafflesia, go for it. You may want to consider using attack items, if their fixed damage output exceeds that party member’s normal attack/Action Trigger.

The enemies can inflict Berserk or Bind on the entire party, and while those techniques are rare, they can be a huge problem. If affected, restore the status immediately, because losing turns in this fight can make things go poorly, fast. All enemies have Ice-attribute attacks, so Force Metal to boost Ice resistance is a fine consideration to keep damage manageable. However, Rafflesia alone also has Thunder attacks, so you could have bad luck with her AI.

Once Rafflesia is destroyed, the battle becomes much more straightforward. Now, you’ll just want to Defend until your party caps out their WE. Then, wait for their turns to line up before your target Belladonna’s turn. Transform to Hyper Mode and let it rip. Belladonnas recover 25% of their remaining HP each turn, so as long as you can clear that threshold with each attack, you should be able to outpace its successive boosts. Still, don’t waste attacks. After enough boosts, a Belladonna can completely null all damage, so don’t tap it for small damage, therefore triggering its boost and lowering the damage output of your future, stronger attacks. You’ll have to gauge for yourself when to go for attacks based on when a Belladonna’s turn will come around. This is a large part of why Quicksilver is so important, because it gives you more opportunities to attack without a Belladonna restoring its HP.

With a bit of luck and patience, you can clip the petals of these plants. If you’re struggling, consider the recommendations I made regarding Force Metal, etc. If you can’t get the hang of it, come back and try the fight later. There’s one other optional battle featuring only Belladonnas, but my strategy should work just as well.

Consider stealing Rafflesia’s Force Tomahawks. There are only four of them in the game. It’s not an amazing Sub-Weapon, though, so this might only be relevant to completionists. If you don’t mind risking a loss, you can steal every enemy’s other items, too, which are helpful Build items.

F.A.Q. (Frequently Asked Questions)

Q: Is either the GameCube or PlayStation 2 version of Command Mission better than the other?

Click for answer.

The GameCube version is generally considered superior, as it runs at 60 FPS relative to the PS2’s 30 FPS. However, this does indirectly give the PS2 version an advantage. Because the PS2 version runs at a lower frame rate, there are fewer frames that the game checks for random encounters, meaning that the PS2 version alleviates Command Mission‘s otherwise high encounter rate. It’s up to you as to what you prioritize.

Also, the GCN version has an exclusive feature that utilizes the Game Boy Advance adapter cable to find special Tokens for obtaining Figurines. These have no impact on broader gameplay. Depending on who you ask, this is just another tedious aspect to achieving 100% completion.

The PS2 version has an exclusive demo of Mega Man X8, though that’s pretty irrelevant nowadays.

Q: Where can I find Mettaur Gigant?

Click for answer.

Mettaur Gigant is found on Basement 3 of Gimialla Mine behind a locked door. The key is found outside of Gimialla Mine.

From my experience, Mettaur Gigant has a fixed location and is not a random encounter. It appears when traveling under the archway at the southernmost region of the area. If you want to encounter it subsequently, leave the area and return to the Basement 3 hallway, then return to Mettaur Gigant’s spawn point.

Q: Is there a point of no return and/or a post-game? If so, how do they work?

Click for answer.

There is a point of no return, and it happens early on in the Final Chapter. It’s immediately obvious when you can’t go back, as characters will say as much if you attempt to. From then on, you’re stuck in the final area, though there are vendors selling everything you could buy back in Giga City, as well as a way to recover LE/WE for free. There’s no pressure while stuck here, but you are prevented from sidequests that require going to other areas, and you can’t use the Deployment Center.

Once the game is completed, you can save your file, which marks it with “clear” status. Loading that file places you at the start of the final chapter, before the point of no return, freeing you to tie up loose ends. This also unlocks the ability to fight some optional bosses. You retain all items, EXP, etc. obtained during the final chapter. While the story treats things as if those events never happened, gameplaywise, you don’t lose a single thing. If you’d like, you can replay the remainder of the final chapter as many times as you want for EXP, items, and even rare, stealable boss items.

There’s no New Game+ of any kind. You’re in this Final Chapter limbo for all eternity.

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