(Originally published to Glitchwave on 1/29/2025)
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Contra: Hard Corps
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Genre(s): Run 'n Gun
Platforms: Genesis/Mega Drive
Release Date: August 8, 1994
…In all seriousness, from a business persuasion, Konami developing a title in their iconic, genre-defining run ‘n gun franchise for Sega’s console was a rather ungracious maneuver considering that every Contra game beforehand was released on Nintendo’s entertainment system and its “super” successor. Contra would’ve never received the renown it has for being one of gaming’s harshest ballbusters if Nintendo didn’t supply the foundation by supporting it with its hardware. Hence, why defecting to the company waging war with Nintendo for ultimate gaming glory makes Konami bigger turncoats than Benedict Arnold. Shockingly enough, Contra wasn’t Konami’s only series mutinying on Nintendo when the gaming titans needed them the most. Earlier the same year, Konami had released Castlevania: Bloodlines for the Sega Genesis. Similarly to Contra, this was the first instance of Konami’s gothic, quasi-horror series broadening its presence on a console that was not produced by Nintendo, or at least it was in the Western world. While an exemplary Castlevania title in its own right, Bloodlines failed to surpass the buttery smooth and glossy refinement of its generational peer of Super Castlevania IV on the SNES. Sega’s choice to implement limited continues was an uncharacteristic feature for the series that slackened the Bloodlines experience, but the grainy graphics and inappropriate sound design possibly provided empirical evidence that the Genesis might have been inherently inferior to the SNES. Does Contra: Hard Corps also inadvertently expose the cracks in Sega’s tank they’ve been driving to bulldoze Nintendo into the dirt of gaming’s graveyard? While it shares the same dynamic to Contra III as Bloodlines does with Super Castlevania, Contra: Hard Corps manages to achieve far more substantial than Bloodlines ever did while unshackled by the overseers at Nintendo.
Even though Hard Corps is marketed as a Contra III alternative, the game’s premise suggests that it’s still a direct sequel whose events take place soon after the falling action of the previous game in the franchise. The alien menace that finally seized our planet after two titles trying to safeguard the grasp of their horrid clutches have been officially expelled from Earth by the commendatory efforts of Jimbo and Sully (if you’re American, at least). Now, the concern of a hostile takeover has shifted towards another standby science fiction trope that often threatens the welfare of humankind: the robots and cyborgs we will no doubt create in droves when our technology reaches the point where they can be feasibly manufactured. Hey, now that the primary enemies of the series only drip oil when shot instead of gushing biological matter, Europe and Australia won’t have to take their censorship pen and cross out any unsavory content (oh wait, they did it anyway by keeping the playable characters as robots)! Still, whether or not Hard Corps’ futuristic warriors are organic life fighting to preserve their livelihood on Earth or cybernetic machines defending their human creators on their behalf, Hard Corps’ characters align with something that I’ve now realized is a distinctly Sega trait. In the menu before the game begins, the player is now given the choice between four distinct characters a la Streets of Rage and plenty of Sega’s other homegrown series. Ray is the most fitting character for Contra’s legacy of archetypal male action-heroes who bleed beer and steak juice. On the off-chance that a girl is manning the controller, the blonde Sheena is the spunky female equivalent they’ll most likely gravitate towards. Browny is a diminutively-sized robot who wields a gun taller than he is, and the fourth and final character in the roster is a cyborgian wolfman wearing sunglasses named Brad Fang. Finally, a Contra character fitting MY niche demographic of seriously hairy dudes with artificial body parts. It seems peculiar that this range of player choice seemed to be endemic to games published by Sega, but more elements of player choice incorporated into any franchise is always a fantastic addition.
However, the characters of Hard Corps all possess more mechanical depth than simply widening the gamut of faces for the player to potentially attach to for arbitrary reasons. Beyond their stark aesthetic differences, the character that one selects in Hard Corps greatly impacts the way that the game is played due to each of them accessing entirely unique arsenals of weapons. As one could tell from his physical similarities to previous Contra protagonists, Ray carries a plethora of classic Contra weapons such as the Spread Gun, the homing missiles, and the laser that shoots a continual beam. Sheena’s selection of firearms seems almost identical to Roy’s at first, but then reveals some quirks later down the line. Her standard blaster can be augmented to shoot bullets the size of boulders with an upgrade, and the scattered laser modification that she flaunts is truly devastating. Fang’s arsenal collectively has the most destructive range, modifying his pea-shooter as the flamethrower stream from Contra III along with wave beams and a blast of energy that can be charged to unleash a magnificent amount of damage. Browny is the wildcard with the most unusual weaponry, fitting for the game’s most unusual character. His arsenal may not be as powerful as Fang’s collection of military-grade toys, but the little robot’s boomerang ring, automatic yo-yo beam, and rectangular laser that can stretch over a 180 degree span of the screen will absolutely decimate the throngs of common enemies across the screen. Needless to say, making each of the four playable characters distinctive with completely dissimilar arrays of weapons will surely entice the player to keep playing beyond the campaign of a single character.
Some commonalities between all four characters are channeling Mega Man with a slide maneuver that requires expert proficiency to avoid the enemy’s exhausting rate of firepower. Mastering the grounded acrobatic move will ensure swift evasion, but I was not inclined to practice it on account of being accustomed to jumping to dodge incoming bullets. I didn’t feel safe learning a whole new mechanic amid the tense, hostile environment. I also didn’t stray from my comfort zone to use the alternate shooting mechanic that locks the player’s movement to ensure sharper accuracy, for I felt too vulnerable in a state unable to dodge at all. Another shared gameplay aspect is that each character has access to the screen-spanning bomb intended to clear out an overwhelming raucous of enemies in a pinch. Not only is it disappointing that the blast radius of what is supposed to be a juggernaut explosive has been reduced, but having to scroll to it on the game’s weapon select pad while the action is roaring like an open flame is greatly counterintuitive to the convenience that this weapon once had in Contra III. Other than failing to consider that the bomb should’ve been assigned to a separate button, Hard Corps’ method of organizing the player’s stacked arsenal is a wonderful quality-of-life enhancement. Instead of accidentally trading off your favorite weapon by tripping over another capsule in the heat of action, the flying units are now labeled with letters that coincide with where they fit in this grid. With this system in place, the player is less likely to be trapped with the piddly base weapon after a slight mistake. Plus, the condensed selection of weapons per character removes the dud ones used as filler that disappoint the player when they float overhead.
The question still lingering in the air with all of the weapon variety Hard Corps exhibits is if it still fosters that distinctively diabolical difficulty curve that gave the series a dire reputation. Is the Pope still catholic? If Bloodlines is any indication, Sega’s interpretation of a series usually featured on a Nintendo system is the rougher counterpart with more austere mechanics and sterner attitudes on failure penalties. As to be anticipated, Hard Corps retains the harsh, unflinching atmosphere that elevated the series in infamy. Where Hard Corps differs from its Nintendo predecessors is that the onslaught that the robot menace inflicts is seemingly more brutal than anything the aliens unleashed onto the player. Hard Corps pumps up the high-octane, incendiary energy of the run n’ gun gameplay to eleven. If the introduction where the character mows down a lane of robots in the city streets before hopping out of the vehicle doesn’t set an exhilarating precedent, there are plenty of other instances in Hard Corps that will get the player’s adrenaline running like a substitute for cocaine. When the player reaches the jungle, they are greeted with a swarm of savages leaping from every conceivable border of the screen. One moment sees the player sprinting down an empty highway chasing a sturdy boss robot, and the visual gimmick of sprinting towards the screen doesn’t distract from the concrete gameplay elements like the Mode 7 top-down sections from Contra III. Any instance where the player is hanging on a helicopter or traveling quicker than a plausible pacing on foot sees the screen move so dizzyingly fast that it's bound to trigger epilepsy. There isn’t a single instance of downtime or a slight calm moment before the storm–every second of Hard Corps launches the player in a hurricane of explosions and destructive mayhem, and you better bet that this motherfucker is a category five level of severity. I guess the Genesis has its idiosyncratic “blast processing” attributing to this unforeseen realm of extreme chaos, which is one aspect of Sega’s console that exceeds Nintendo’s in this case. As one could likely infer from the rip-snorting threshold of action that Hard Corps is injecting to a point of an overdose, the constant bombardment of dangerous scenarios makes the player more likely to perish at an inordinate rate. Truthfully, this is a caveat to Hard Corps that will make the player struggle as equally as they stare in awe of the bodacious presentation. In what is perhaps the most shocking piece of context to Hard Corps, the Japanese version of the game marks the addition of health points to stave off dying immediately after being grazed by the smallest bullet. If the homeland of Konami that typically treats Western gamers as babies who need pacification finds it imperative to keep the aid to themselves for good measure, you’ve got a real barn burner on your hands.
Besides being the definitively fastest and most intense Contra title, Hard Corps surprisingly manages to be the most cerebral entry in the series as well. How does Hard Corps achieve what seems to be contradictory to all of the defining traits I’ve discussed thus far? Yet another first for the series that Hard Corps debuts is the inclusion of cutscenes in between bosses, displayed as text conversations between the player’s selected character and the opposing foe in their vicinity. Not to mention, the game reverts back to the home base in the menu where the commander of this taskforce gives them new intel on their mission, keeping the player up to date on how the mission is unfolding. The plot that unravels through the dialogue is the harrowing prospect of the terrorist hackers behind the robotic pandemonium expanding the growth of a rare cell of the alien race that once ruled Earth and using their biological experiment to upset mankind’s dominant reign on the planet once more. The stakes are thrilling and the twist that happens is a nice surprise, but what impresses me regarding the story is how player choice determines how it progresses. After the first level, the player can decide whether or not to intervene in a laboratory attack or pursue an evil mercenary named Deadeye Joe. Obviously, the player cannot do both simultaneously, so the choice made leads the player down a completely different path from the other. Fans of Konami’s other IPs should be reminded of the alternate routes in Castlevania III that change the player’s trajectory and the levels they experience. However, whereas every path eventually intersects to the same conclusion in Castlevania III, there are six (good) possible endings per route plus four different final bosses depending on the route. They all result in defeating Colonel Bahamut, which ends his reign of terror, but the levels that lead up to this falling action and the bosses that the player faces will be so radically divergent that it’s like playing a whole different game altogether. If the four distinct protagonists didn’t persuade the player to sink more time into Hard Corps, then experiencing a new pathway per character provides an even better incentive.
Holy fucking fiery shitballs, Batman. Did Contra: Hard Corps just melt my fucking face off with its righteousness? I feel like I’ve been on a rollercoaster whose velocity was so intense and electrifying that my hair is sticking up. Still, the rollercoaster ride in question provides far more lasting appeal than havoc and commotion aplenty, even though that is a prime selling point. Admittedly, Hard Corps is still beset by the same snags as Bloodlines being developed on Sega’s hardware, or at least the shortcomings are more noticeable with the Nintendo counterpart by comparison. However, Hard Corps seems more aware of the blips of the Genesis and intuitively works around them, providing plenty of quality-of-life enhancements still achievable despite the more rudimentary hardware. Also, the staggering amount of content that Hard Corps implements provides one of the most impressive replay values of any game I’ve played, like going on the rollercoaster again with different loops and inclines to keep the player stimulated. I’ve attributed plenty of superlative adjectives to Contra: Hard Corps compared to the previous games in the series, such as it being the hardest, most thrilling, biggest, and smartest Contra game to date. Should I just name it the best game in the franchise for the sake of brevity? No fucking doubt. I’ll be damned, but Sega actually has what Nintendon’t for once, and it’s frustrating that Sega couldn’t realize that it wasn’t Sonic.
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