Contra: Hard Corps Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 1/29/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Contra: Hard Corps

Developer: Konami

Publisher: Konami

Genre(s): Run 'n Gun

Platforms: Genesis/Mega Drive

Release Date: August 8, 1994

How could you, Konami? How could you nonchalantly abandon Nintendo and philander with the enemy behind their backs? If you aren’t technically obligated to develop games solely for Nintendo by contract, shouldn’t you feel some sense of devotion for the console maker that propelled you to a household name in gaming? You ungrateful pricks.

…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.

Contra III: The Alien Wars Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 12/10/2024)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Contra III: The Alien Wars

Developer: Konami

Publisher: Konami

Genre(s): Run 'n Gun

Platforms: SNES

Release Date: February 28, 1992

Now that I think of it, Super C is quite a misleading title. Or, at least it became likely to be misconstrued once the 16-bit era came along. Once Nintendo launched the successor to their 8-bit console powerhouse that dominated the latter half of the 1980s, dozens of titles released for the system also brandished the “super” signifier in their titles as a stark branding method. SUPER Mario World, SUPER Metroid, SUPER Castlevania IV–the list can continue on until I lose my breath, and they are among the most essential titles released for the system. This pattern is the reason why Super C is an awkward title for a Contra sequel because it was released on the same 8-bit hardware as the first one. Admittedly, Contra’s immediate sequel was pretty “super” in how it tightened the run ‘n gun gameplay of the first game to balance the demanding challenge that Contra is infamous for. However, this is not what the word directly means in the context of an SNES sequel with the word “super” in its title. These SNES sequels connoted a total refurbishment of its NES predecessor in every conceivable fashion, and doubling the visual fidelity of the pixels is only a fraction of what the 16-bit console was capable of. Super C’s reworking of the first Contra’s formula is like physical therapy for one’s broken legs, but any Contra game on the SNES is comparable to removing one’s tender human parts and replacing them with robotic enhancements so the person can execute dexterous feats beyond their normal capabilities. As much as I enjoy Super C and its higher quality compared to the first game, it could never hold a candle to the subsequent Contra title released for a next-generation system. The specific game that I’m alluding to is Contra III: The Alien Wars, the true “Super Contra” even if its title doesn’t feature the word that would signify it.

On the hard reboot or direct follow-up spectrum that many SNES sequels fall under, Contra III definitely verges towards continuing the events of the Contra series even if there is no overarching story that connects every game in the series narratively. However, Contra III reversing the conflict dynamic found in the previous two titles is a mark of narrative distinctiveness that is arguably too dissimilar to be considered a direct continuation. Instead of defending the Earth from alien and Soviet scum, our heroes are now on the offensive side after the Red Falcon menace has somehow penetrated the military defenses of Earth/America and accomplished their goal of annihilating the free world. Bummer. However, the Hans and Franz of the future wouldn’t be torpedoing themselves into the usurped territory of the enemy if all hope was lost, so don’t let the sullen premise cripple your morale. Actually, to compound the devastation of Contra III’s premise, the two badass agents of the American strikeforce that we’ve come to know and love are not playable characters anymore. Or, at least that’s the case in the Western version of the game. Bill and Lance are still front and center in the Japanese version, but they’ve been replaced by two other musclebound beefcakes named Jimbo and Sully in the North American translation. Changing the faces of the series may seem like the developers are slighting the fans, but I actually enjoy the implication that Bill and Lance were both wiped out when the aliens blew Earth back to the Stoneage. It invigorates the player to take these new guys and use them to avenge the alien conquerors of old.

The Japanese version of Contra III is also the only one to reinstate the thirty-life Contra code, which is bound to upset Westerners more than swapping out Bill and Lance. Before any American decides to buy a one-way ticket to Japan to experience the “ideal” way to play Contra III, the developers have implemented plenty of quality-of-life features across each iteration. I’d advise not pressing start immediately and having a look through the game’s main menu, for the player will be delighted to find that the developers have implemented a difficulty setting as well as the option to choose between starting with either three, five, or seven lives. How anyone wouldn’t figure to pick the option that begins the game with seven lives would be odd. The player needs all of the additional aid they can get to survive that patented Contra onslaught before they expend all of their continues. Oh yeah, and one of the crucial quality-of-life implementations for Contra III is giving the player four chances to continue if all of their lives are depleted. If we do the math, multiplying the maximum seven lives with the four continues gives the player 28 total chances to die, which is only two less than the coveted thirty. Add the extra lives earned from score bonuses into the equation and the player is granted a safety net wider than any of the NES Contra games would allow.

Contra III also continues the influx of weapon capsules flying overhead that made Super C the favorable one between the two NES Contra games. They don’t quite flock in pairs like they formally did, but the player will still feel as if they’re constantly aiming up in the sky to catch these zooming contraptions. Unlike with Super C where every weapon was a slightly tweaked hand-me-down from the first game, Contra III showcases a genuine evolution for each of its iconic tools of alien destruction. The “fire gun” that blasted a bulbous ball of flame is now a bonafide flamethrower that blows a continual jet of fire that spans a great distance. The laser is no longer a languid electric streak that lags but a bolt of weaponized lightning guaranteed to deal massive damage to enemies. The barrier is no longer a rare item, suggesting that the player will need to be shielded from the enemy's firepower at a more frequent rate. The bomb is now a screen-spanning explosion, and the player is refreshed with one in their inventory each time they die. On top of each of these nifty enhancements, Contra III adds plenty of new deadly tools to the alien-slaying arsenal. The heat-seeking missiles aren’t as effective as some of the other weapons, but the gun that spurts them in a bevy of directions is perfect for eliminating weaker enemies that come in packs. Conversely, the cluster bomb weapon compensates for its limited trajectory by walloping bosses and sturdier enemies with a concentrated blast of nuclear energy. Unfortunately for the Contra veterans, the spread gun does admittedly get lost in the sauce among all of its new and improved weapon cohorts. It still eviscerates anything at close range in three separate angles, but the selection of weapons sort of dwarfs its effectiveness. If one is feeling sentimental, a quality-of-life enhancement present here is the ability to carry two weapons at once, swapping with the X button on the controller. Being able to use both L+R triggers with two weapons and pose a “lord of the hill” stance is macho as all hell, and I will puff out Jimbo’s chest like a gorilla whenever I have the opportunity. Still, the real appeal of having more than one weapon on hold is that if the player loses one upon dying, the alternate gun will be stashed in their back pocket so the player doesn’t have to revert back to the standard blaster. As sad as I am that the spread gun has practically been rendered obsolete, it’s a bittersweet sting that signals that better things have sprouted with the series' evolution.

Which Contra weapon dethrones the spread gun as the dominant tool used to eradicate those alien bastards? Actually, I can’t say for certain. Every available weapon, except for the spread gun, sadly, has its perks given the situation. Some might conclude that this statement means that a balancing act has been conducted to ensure that the player doesn’t sandbag the one particularly powerful weapon as they tended to do with the spread gun in the first two games. What my comment actually entails is that the player is forced to learn which weapons to utilize for specific sections of a level. The level design for the NES Contras had a point A to B kind of trajectory, with an onslaught of bullets swarming the player from all corners of the screen to complicate the journey to that area’s boss. In Contra III, the levels are heavily segmented by mini-bosses, and each of these brutal baddies that interrupt the side-scrolling action are almost puzzle-like in their duels. Sure, each of these bosses can technically be eradicated with the straight-shooting default gun. However, every player will soon notice that each boss has a hidden weakness. For example, the eye of the Tri-Transforming Wall Walker during its first phase can only be reached with the flamethrower from a safe distance from the jungle gym beam above. Otherwise, good luck timing your escape from its clockwise-moving arms when they start oscillating wildly upon its defeat. The player won’t even witness the full extent of what the monstrous turtle boss has in store for them if they are in possession of the cluster bomb gun. If you’re not one of the lucky ones, enjoy dodging his fire breath, his secretion of insects, and avoiding a piddly little energy speck that is bound to catch you off guard. I don’t even know how anyone destroys the shielded enemy ship without the heat-seeking missiles. The player is likely to be too preoccupied with swinging on every incoming rocket to keep their position while making sure the ship doesn’t shoot them out of the sky with a projectile. While the “scenes” spread around Contra III’s levels certainly make them more memorable than a constant stream of alien underlings, their memorability carries more of a greater context past impressionability. Only with repeat playthroughs will the player learn the effective method of defeating one of these bosses, and it's through an unfair trial and error curve rather than organically mastering the game’s mechanics.

Speaking of the game’s mechanics, the ones present during the alternate levels take some serious adjustment to overcome. As per tradition, Contra III changes the gameplay to another perspective in order to spruce up the whole experience with some diversity–except that it’s the second and fifth stage in this instance. Contra III continues the top-down perspective that Super C intuitively changed from the first game’s alternate levels, but the objective has been shifted from simply running and shooting from a bird's-eye view. In the settings of a dilapidated turnpike and a desert canyon, the player must scour these settings and find all of the enemies that are barricaded by a titanium shield atop a manhole or a spider-spurting fissure in the ground. Once they locate all of the targets, the boss will appear. The objective sounds elementary enough, but the challenge of these sections surprisingly isn’t the spraying of bullets from the enemies. Unlike the simple controls involved with the top-down sections from Super C, Contra III decided to take advantage of the SNES’ gimmicky graphical feature Mode 7. Because of this pixelated parameter buster, the player can shift the placement of the entire stage with the left and right triggers, which is necessary when the standard movement controls do not cooperate with the intended trajectory. Not only is the additional layer of control too much for a mere two levels, but the cracked sections of the road and the jagged corners of the canyon are far too wary and precise for a game whose focal gameplay is dodging and shooting. The swirling quicksand pits of the fifth level make the Mode 7 movement absolutely nauseating. The “advanced” control scheme intended to make the vanilla top-down sections from Super C more engaging only mars them in execution.

If you couldn’t already tell, Contra III more than upholds that ball-busting reputation the series is renowned for despite all of the next-generation advancements it implements. The player might be tempted to change the difficulty setting to easy in order to ensure that their voice becomes less hoarse from screaming obscenities at the TV, but Contra III is also the first game in the series to make one’s struggles worthwhile. In the game’s version of the alien hive, which looks effectively creepy and foreboding now thanks to the 16-bit graphics, the player will face a gauntlet of reinvigorated foes from previous nest climaxes before they face off against the toothy, saliva-covered smile of Jagger Froid and his sentient tentacle arms again. If this fight is finished on the easiest difficulty, the game ends there. On medium, the player continues the battle against Jagger Froid’s brain whose attack patterns coincide with a roulette wheel of options that the player can control with impeccable timing. On the hardest difficulty, the brain regains energy and coats itself in a metallic casing to chase the player in a last-ditch effort to squash them. By obscuring content from the player on the lower difficulties, it motivates the player not to give in to the temptation of squandering their full capabilities, even though the pain of constant failure is easy to yield.

Even though I prefer many aspects of Super C to Contra III, it’s hard to argue against the third entry of the Contra series as the superior way to experience the iconic run ‘n-gun franchise compared to those that came before it. Is its superiority inherently based on its advantages on an advanced piece of hardware? Duh. It’s the same case for every SNES sequel, so why would Contra III be any different? It exhibits far too many objective improvements on the foundation of the series to champion either Contra 1 or Super C as the greatest game the series offers. It features plenty of appropriate accommodations for a brutally difficult game, offers a larger variety of gameplay attributes, and can fulfill ambitions for the franchise that never would’ve been capable on 8-bit hardware. Mode 7 is admittedly one of those ambitions that muck up a few levels, and perhaps the developers were too blind to their enterprising goals to notice that they might have been too unforgiving to the player. Still, Contra III sparks high-octane invigoration through my system moment to moment more consistently than Super C ever did. The refurbishment effort that Super C made was admirable and effective and does fit the definition of a “super” game to a sequel on a Nintendo console. Still, the thrills and frills of Contra III’s 16-bit panache equally fit that categorization, and it’s just too cool to compare.

Super C Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 11/8/2024)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Super C

Developer: Konami

Publisher: Konami

Genre(s): Run 'n Gun

Platforms: Arcade, NES

Release Date: January 8, 1988

As far as the remembrance of the assorted Contra games is concerned, the series second outing, Super C, has received the short end of the legacy stick. Diminishing the legacy of the second title is a common trend for several of gaming's classic franchises that churned out several titles during the early, pixelated eras of gaming, namely on the NES. Because Super C was rarely spoken of compared to the two Contra entries chronologically between it, I assumed that it was yet another example of a sophomore pratfall. Was Super C an instance of a misunderstood deviation in gameplay like Zelda II, or was it a half-assed experiment like Simon's Quest that attempted to execute a methodical approach to gameplay? I highly doubt it's a case of mistaken identity like the American Super Mario Bros. 2, even if the first Contra inspired several imitators. No, to my surprise, Super C is an exemplary run n’ gun experience on the NES. Dare I say, it’s even better than its predecessor which manages to still receive all of the due credit when discussing the iconic examples from this early era of gaming.

If we must assess every aspect of Super C to properly critique it, the only instance of sequel fatigue is that its narrative replicates the one from the first game. The Soviet soldier and extraterrestrial imperialist coalition has returned to enact another attempt at laying waste to the Western world, enslaving the American population either economically or erasing all autonomy completely. While their persistence is honestly admirable, the two causes of their first failure, the testosterone-oozing duo of Bill and Lance, are still ripe and ready to defend the inalienable freedoms given to everyone born in the US of A. Even though our courageous heroes aren’t hesitating to jump into the line of fire again, the player(s) will likely approach this second Contra outing with a cautious sense of dread. If we can confidently state anything regarding Contra’s legacy, Konami’s series is notorious for being so goddamn difficult that playing it will instill a gaming PTSD as deep-seated and intense as stepping into the role of a soldier and experiencing combat in real life. One piece of context regarding Super C, in particular, is that Konami has eliminated their namesake code from this title. It was a precious ten-digit sequence that better ensured the player’s survival during the first game. Now that it’s disappeared without a trace, any player’s confidence is bound to burst from their being like a disembodied soul. Before the player begins to cope with the inevitability of eating borscht and whatever unholy diet that aliens subsist off of for the rest of their lives, I can say with conviction that they won’t struggle to the same extent in Super C even without the generous safety net.

Immediately, Super C’s comparative accessibility should be apparent by the first screen. Unlike the jungle where bullets were shaking from the trees like little lead coconuts, the commie military base presents a more reasonable barrage of deadly objects to contend with for an introductory level. All angles of the screen will see firepower flying toward the player as they move, but they’ll have ample opportunity to react accordingly because the bullets seem to move at a glacial pace. Enemies from behind proceed towards the player at a brisk jog, and the turrets are situated at an incline above a pit in the route. If the player uses the sunken support to their advantage, they can eradicate the machine while avoiding its projectiles completely. If there is one noticeable consistency with Super C’s level design, it’s that the developers decided that the bottomless pits that were littered throughout the first game’s battlegrounds were too common for comfort. In a game where the protagonists will become lifelessly cold and stiff as cardboard by even the slight graze of anything in this environment, they figured that misstepping platforms was too extraneous of a casualty. When the player returns to the jungle in the third area, the humid wilderness has been flattened to a crepe. Swimming in the neck-deep water doesn’t even put the player in a spot of vulnerability as it once did, for they can duck beneath the surface to protect themselves from the whizzing offense of bullets from above. One might state that Contra’s level design has been streamlined, but areas with intensive platforming are still available–just later in the game as an additional obstacle to overcome along with keeping an eye out for enemies and their projectiles. Platforming becomes an intense bout of timing and precision during one particular section in the surreal and sublime alien hive where the roof sequentially rises and falls on the player like a piston. Ascent levels also return from the first Contra, but the player can climb at their own pace without having to worry about being consumed by the screen. Just be wary of enemies materializing on screen and a rogue purple boulder falling from the sky in the fifth area and all other sorts of enemy onslaught can be flexibly mitigated.

Super C also continues the trend of swapping the perspective of level progression for every other area to shuffle the gameplay up a bit. Instead of charging through a facility from a quasi-third-person perspective, Super C adopts a top-down drone view more appropriately fitting for an 8-bit title. From this perspective, Bill and Lance have a clearer view of everything closing in on them, plus the player isn’t forced to readjust entirely to a different control scheme. Discerning where one’s bullet trajectory is also much clearer, for the angle at which the player was aiming at was hard to determine from the backs of Bill/Lance’s thick skulls. Overall, the change that occurs with every other level in the name of diversifying the gameplay isn’t as jarring. The alien base infiltrations were essential to the narrative of the first Contra, but I vastly prefer levels that feature something more compatible with the 8-bit hardware.

The developers also evidently noticed that players tended not to fall as frequently as leaves in autumn when they were properly equipped with effective weaponry. I’m not stating that the standard blaster should be removed or that reverting to using it upon death is an inappropriate penalty. Still, the punishment extends to being stuck with the default weapon in the game for a long swathe of time, and the player is likely to exhaust plenty of lives in that vulnerable period. In Super C, the developers have granted the player with a Berlin Airlift of aid. Flying weapon capsules appear nearly thrice as much as they did in the previous game, and each of them is generous enough to bring a friend if one of them doesn’t suit your fancy. Every single weapon and enhancement item from the first game transfers over as well, so the player should already be accustomed to how each of them will serve their mission. However, even though one’s inkling for a certain weapon should be subjective, it’s guaranteed that every player will be salivating at the chance of a capsule revealing an “S” to signify the almighty spread gun. While the divine beast of weapons technology will still eradicate all that stands before it in three different directions, I’m afraid that our beloved has lost a bit of its unabated luster. Don’t worry–the nerfing of the spread gun is like tweaking an atomic bomb to disintegrate a city instead of an entire country when dropped.

I noticed the spread gun’s relative decline in destructiveness when I was faced against the level-ending bosses of Super C. Unlike the enemies that crumble with one strike of a spread gun bullet, the bosses are obviously heftier challenges. The helicopter boss at the climax of the first level shouldn’t have had enough time to deploy any auxiliary defenses when I was sticking spread gun shots up its ass like an enema. Alas, liberally using the once-divine weapon did not relieve me from dodging its obstacles to prevent losing it upon death. Illustrating this experience may connote that the bosses of Super C are a more formidable bunch but really, it just conveys how the developers knocked the spread gun down a peg so the other weapons stood a fair chance. The reality of the situation is that like every other aspect of Super C, the bosses are another example of comparative ease. The aforementioned helicopter and the Krypto-crustacean unleash smaller enemies on the player, which are far more detectable than swarms of bullets. The Laser Chandellier’s blast pattern is learnable like first-grade arithmetic, and the “Babalu Destructoid Mechanism” will short circuit in seconds when the player notices that his top doesn’t have a cannon attached. The two-phased Jagger Froid fight is as difficult as any of the bosses from the first Contra, but I wanted to highlight him anyway because his horrific alien visage the player will be bombarding with bullets is quite the Gigerian spectacle. The same could be said about the final bosses’ design, achieving the same balance between cool and grotesque. In terms of it's position as the game’s final challenge, it’s a perfect test of one’s proficiency without stepping over into the territory of impossibility.

Is Super C inherently better than the original Contra because it’s easier? Yes, any other questions? Accessibility isn’t always imperative to enhance a gaming experience, or at least that’s an applicable statement for modern video games. In the case of the cruel and unrelenting NES era, I’ll take every helping of sugar to make this medicine go down smoother. Reworking the assets of the previous game to reach something smoother should always be an integral goal of any sequel, and it’s a wonder why so many other franchises of the NES era decided to abscond entirely from the first game’s fabric instead of fixing its foundation. As a result of giving Contra a coat of fresh wax, Super C is one of the most agreeable experiences I’ve had with an early, pixelated video game. Why then isn’t Super C the prime representative for the Contra franchise, or why is it still undermined by the first game? I’ve explained this before, but NES enthusiasts gaming when the system was released are like ODB in that they like it raw. Sorry oldheads, but I don’t think we share the same kink.

Contra Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 8/4/2024)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Contra

Developer: Konami

Publisher: Konami

Genre(s): Run and Gun

Platforms: NES

Release Date: February 20, 1987

Disclaimer: Yes, I realize that Contra was originally an arcade game, but I played the NES version. No one can deny that the title is widely recognized as a title on Nintendo’s first console anyway.

Raise your hand if Contra has vexed you, brutalized you, or made you question your skill as a gamer. If you didn't answer yes to all of the options listed above, you're lying through your teeth and need to confess your sins of dishonesty. It’s quite alright to feel overwhelmed, for Contra is arguably the video game that first instilled the aggravating sensation of “NES hard” that the 8-bit console and this primitive era of gaming became synonymous with. Admittedly, the NES wasn’t a bastion of breeziness before Contra arrived to shake things up with a world-shattering earthquake, disrupting the balance of fair difficulty forevermore. Hell, Konami, the development team behind Contra, sufficiently traumatized gamers of the 1980s with the wavy flight patterns of the Medusa Heads, the armored defenses and acute reflexes of the ax-men, and scythes materializing out of thin air in Castlevania a year prior. However, certain contextual evidence behind Contra suggests that it was the first game where the pain became so excruciating that it could no longer be ignored.

The title “Contra” is not an accepted word in the English dictionary, so don’t try to use it during a game of Scrabble thinking it's a shrewd maneuver. Rather, it’s a prefix that encompasses a definition of opposition for every word that it provides the former half of (ie. contraceptives combating pregnancy or contraband defying the regulated methods of commerce). Using the stem of these words broadly for the game’s title connotes that the game’s themes involve, but are not limited to, varying degrees of dissension, contention, and civil unrest. But between whom, you might ask? Well, depending on the localization of the game, the antagonists causing the strife will vary. In the Japanese and North American versions, Bill and Lance, the two playable beefy dudes who obviously stem from Arnold Schwarzenegger's platoon in Predator, are on a mission to annihilate an alien threat that crash-landed from an asteroid that fell to Earth. The Japanese version is the only one that illustrates this conflict in the opening cutscene, while the American version simply brushes by the context and catapults the player into the fray of action. Due to the lack of contextual clues in the American version, many players believe that Bill and Lance are enlisted government soldiers tasked to eradicate a plaguey communist presence. Given the outlying context of the Cold War era during this game’s development, the shiny red armor of the enemies, and the “Red Falcon” faction that they belong to that will clearly ring “Soviet Army” in the minds of every player, American Contra is a game that will strike a feeling of pride for the good ol’ stars and stripes if that’s how you roll. Any traces of alien activity that would render this story speculation void can be explained by the commies collaborating with extraterrestrial forces to insidiously squash the West’s freedoms. Those vile fiends. Contra’s depiction in both Europe and Australia is so radically different that the game, and the series of Contra titles that would follow, is called “Gryzor” and “Probotector” respectively. In both versions, regardless of the title, Bill and Lance have been shifted into gray, metallic robots who are ambushing a squadron of other androids that come in multiple different colors. The reason for this drastic warping of Contra’s characters and thematic makeup is that Germany, a peacemonger country completely unaffiliated with war and instigating conflict, wanted to censor the game’s “violent content” to protect the impressionable sensibilities of their children. I guess the entire continent of Europe complied, and Australia did the same because the land down under has always jumped at any reason to censor video game content. Did they stop to think that our future robot overlords would find the premise of a savage robot civil war to be unsavory? Someone at Konami will eventually pay for their lack of foresight.

However, no matter how one’s homeland decides to depict Contra for its denizens, the game’s “run and gun” gameplay will fortunately be an indelible core to Contra’s gameplay. For those of you unaware of this genre with the fun rhyme scheme, it’s a subsector of the “shoot ‘em up” orientation of games where the objective is to spray the screen with a ceaseless burst of bullets while dodging an equal amount of firepower discharged by the opposing forces. Contra was admittedly not the first title in the genre, but it certainly holds an Elvis Presley status of being the first of note that spurred the inspiration for the following run and gun titles moving forward. Contra was a surefire success on the NES because it combined the overwhelming excess of screen-spanning obstacles with the platformer-intensive trend that defined most of the acclaimed titles on the NES. Because a large portion of a platformer’s fabric is predicated on the design of its levels, Contra displays quite a varied array of level themes for a game whose primary goal is focused on shooting rather than jumping. The opening jungle area is arguably the set piece most vividly conjured up in the memory banks of the ye-olde NES era. Disintegrating bridges will lead to the player swimming in the drink adjacent to the earthy, verdant ecosystem above, with a striking color contrast between the greenery of the jungle and the crisp blue of the waters. The hailstorm of bullet fire here culminates into a blockade barrier armed with cannons, a sizable first boss that stops the scrolling entirely. The jungle reappears after the first level but in this instance, the player will be ascending upward avoiding the bottom ground as it's being eaten by the screen. Contra often switches up the trajectory of how its levels progressed through, and the most apparent instances of this change are with the alien base stages that occur between jungle areas. Here, the character’s movement is confined to a horizontal space while they dodge enemy fire facing directly toward them, and each section is completed when the player destroys the glowing central unit usually found in the center. The snow level adds a polar opposite climate to the jungle while providing the same side-scrolling progression, and the energy zone’s protruding flame beams effectively complicate the straightforwardness of running and gunning. The standout area of Contra is the alien hive finale, despite the linear progression it shares with plenty of previous levels. Its otherworldliness is quite spellbinding with its general haze of alien activity. Considering that the fellow NES title Metroid shares the same graphical architecture, it's time that gaming historians start citing H.R. Giger as an integral influence on the medium in its early days.

Contra is also associated with the broad arsenal of firearms at the player’s disposal. That is if the player manages to catch the flying capsule that contains the winged ammunition modification to the player’s standby automatic weapon. The piddly little marbles that spurt out of the standard gun simply won’t be sufficient enough, so keep watch for these trinkets that appear periodically. Actually, keep this advisory statement in mind, but not as a rule of thumb. Refrain from acquiring any other alternative ammo once you’ve secured the Spread Gun. Sure, the rapid-fire alteration, the laser, and the swirling flame launcher are certainly improvements on the standard method of offense, but I need to highlight how the Spread Gun dwarfs all of them to the point of irrelevance. With the large and bulky bullets firing from three different angles, the player can practically let the gun just mow down all of the single-hit enemies that might appear from multiple places on the map without too much skill with one’s reflexes. Getting up close and personal with any formidable enemy like a turret or any of the bosses will still result in the Spread Gun obliterating it in a matter of seconds. I may have a nostalgic attachment to the Metal Blade from Mega Man 2, but the Spread Gun easily matches its outstanding, unparalleled power in its respective franchise and its massively celebrated repute.

Realistically, the player will still have to settle on whichever weapon modification passes by, for, likely, they’ll only retain their augmentation for a minute in any best-case scenario. The NES has a pension for whipping the players into submission with their difficulty but good fucking God, is Contra the lord of the NES challenge hill. The run and gun gameplay already connotes that a splash of bullets and other deadly progression snags will constantly swarm by the player from all angles, but Contra adds insult to the probable possibility of injury by only giving the player only three lives for the entire duration of the game. I should also note that Bill and or Lance will shed their mortal coils upon receiving any sort of damage, so the stipulations reveal themselves to be three hits before the player is forced to restart from the first screen of the jungle. And here I thought Konami was one of the few benevolent NES developers who tried to accommodate players with safety nets like health bars and unlimited continues, using Castlevania as an example. It turns out that I was duped again and that Konami is capable of crafting a horrible beast ready to barbarically devour player’s souls and shit them out all over the sidewalk. Fear not, concerned gamers, for the only way to attenuate the harsh circumstances surrounding Contra is perhaps the game’s greatest contribution to the medium. At the first screen of the game before pressing start, the player can enter what is colloquially known as “ the Konami code,” a sequence of specific button presses that will grant the player a bountiful thirty lives as opposed to the miserly amount typically given. Youths of the 1960s had “the twist” and the youngsters of the 1970s were attempting to “do the hustle,” the kids of the 1980s continued this trend of memorization to this code to ensure a (marginally) smoother pathway to the end credits where the Red Falcon menace is wiped clean from Earth’s surface. Gradius was technically the first game to feature the Konami code, but its popularization in Contra paved the way for the utilization of this auxiliary enhancement.

Contra’s reputation truly precedes itself. It’s an unquestionably essential game in the historical sense of gaming. Yet, I question whether or not a game that’s only enjoyable if you cheat is an indictment of its overall quality. Admittedly, one could still have a blast charging through the throngs of alien forces with only three lives available, but the select few people who can accomplish this have been practicing since the game’s release. I, and many others, do not have the time or patience to overcome Contra’s strict difficulty curve, which is why I will always resort to using the iconic code to simply stand a chance past the jungle. Frustratingly absurd error margins aside, Contra is still high-octane fun to be had on the NES with marvelous presentation and diverse gameplay styles. Contra is also at its best with another person manning Lance but proceed with the utmost caution.