Contra (MSX Review)

Contra
Platform: MSX
Released May 26, 1989
Developed by Konami
NO MODERN RE-RELEASE*

*For the purposes of this review, “modern” means “after Wii U”

The “lost” Contra, or in the case of American audiences, the “there’s another 80’s Contra?” Contra.

I really want to get on to Super C, but there was one last stop to make along the way. Instead of playing the DOS version of Contra, which apparently most everyone agrees is garbage, I decided to skip over to this Japanese exclusive. MSX appealed to me more, anyway. After all, the MSX was the closest we’ll ever come to Konami having their own platform. They were THE gaming face of the MSX, and in the not so distant future, I might be exploring their contributions further.

Some Konami MSX games I look forward to more than others. There’s an MSX version of Konami’s NES Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and it’s.. not going to be my favorite game ever. To say the least.

Contra on the MSX is a very different game from the Nintendo and arcade games. It might use those as a road map for what the game absolutely needs to pass for Contra, but it’s essentially an entirely new game that wears the Contra name. There’s no scrolling. There’s health, so a bullet doesn’t kill you, at least immediately. There’s no spread gun, aka my favorite gun. That one hurts, but at least the gun that replaced it is actually pretty helpful during boss battles: the “rear gun” which shoots behind you as well. Since one of the game’s go-to moves for challenge is having the grunts spawn on both sides of the screen during boss battles, it cuts down the busy work of shooting a guy on one side, then turning around and shooting again before you can go back to shooting the boss. This becomes very important thanks to the two worst additions to the Contra formula: sponge and small collision boxes.

It was actually kind of insane how many shots the final targets in the bases take to kill. Without hyperbole, these always took me over a minute of pinging them. They have a small collision box too.

I’m grateful for the MSX version of Contra because it validated my suspicion that speed and generosity play a big role in the success of Contra. On the NES, and even in arcades, Contra cuts a blistering pace. The MSX game isn’t “slow” for the most part. Instead, it’s too stop-and-go. When you’re making your way to a boss, it is a close approximation to Contra, only played one screen at a time. But then the bosses happen. They usually have small collision boxes. The best example of this is the jumping alien. In the NES game, you could shoot anywhere on its body and it registered damage. On the MSX, you HAVE to shoot it in the head, and it has a pretty tiny head. Everything is this way. The big ass tanks from the snow level? They’re here, but you have to shoot them in the gun. There’s an annoying little wrinkle that comes with all this: if you have muscle memory of Contra’s jumping from the NES or Arcade, it won’t help you with timing at all here. You jump a little higher and a little floatier on the MSX. I really struggled to aim, whether I was side-scrolling or shooting at the wall in third person mode. Speaking of which, you have to aim up in some levels in third person mode, but for most targets, that goes over them. But, your standard trajectory often doesn’t work either, so you have to jump and shoot as middle ground between angles. So annoying.

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For these reasons, Contra on MSX has a reputation of being especially hard, and yea, it’s true. By the way, there’s NO continues. Yikes. After a couple hours, I opted to use a popular ROM hack that gives you virtually infinite health and I still managed to lose a couple lives. It’s really telling how tough the collision is (not bad, but tough) because with the addition of these challenging aspects also comes the addition of straight-up cheese. Contra MSX’s screen-based scrolling allows you to run past entire sections of the game. The lead-up to the battle with the giant alien heart? It’s here, with the alien turrets that spit  “spores” out that heat seeks you. Only, on the MSX, it’s a cinch! You can just run past them with no consequence. They get a fresh spawn every new screen and need time to fire their first bullets, which in turn need a few seconds before they pose a danger to you. If you don’t care about your score, you have more than enough time to just run across the screen. Nothing chases you to the next screen. Not enemies. Not bullets. They cease to exist. This is almost certainly why they beefed-up the bosses. They had to, because this is a Contra that rewards cowardice. Thanks to that health bar that they chose to go with in addition to a life system, getting shot once doesn’t cost you a gun. But not getting shot at all costs you nothing. Why engage if you don’t have to? You know the bosses are going to be tough, so just leg it past enemies when you can and save your strength for the battle ahead.

“Hey.. HEY.. you can’t do that! That’s cheating!” “Duh! I’m using the ‘cheat enabled’ ROM! How did you think I was going to play? With honor? Hah!”

So, that’s Contra on the MSX. You know the drill. Swap between side scrolling and third person gameplay. Kill a few aliens. Shoot an alien heart to death, then watch the credits..

Hey, wait a second..

Why’s the game still going?

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Okay, okay, yea, I can dig it. When you kill the heart in Contra on MSX, there’s still a lot of game left. As in “you’re only about halfway done.” After the heart battle, Contra introduces more gameplay elements that are new to the series. Like vertical levels where you travel down instead of up. Okay, that’s different. Sure, the cheese issue from before applies even more here. It’s very easy to just drop down to the next screen without engaging anything. But, the highlight is easily a pair of third person bases that are, in fact, mazes. You don’t know which way leads to the final chamber and picking the wrong way takes you back. It’s not that hard to find your way around, but I was impressed nonetheless. The only truly new set piece is a lava stage, and then the final boss is called the “vital alien organ.” As opposed to what? Shooting the Appendix of Contra? The Spleen of Contra? Oh, oh, the Tonsils of Contra! No, that one wouldn’t work. What if they’re infected? You’d be doing the alien a favor. Yea, taking out vital organs probably makes more sense.

The Vital Alien Organ. I will not make the most obvious joke here. You’re welcome.

Keeping it real, Contra on MSX is one of the least popular games among fans of the franchise for a reason. There are certain benchmarks that make for a good Contra game, and this is missing a few. There’s no co-op. Single player only. The gunplay isn’t amazing. It’s pretty basic, especially compared to the more famous NES and Arcade games, and that’s assuming the guns worked at all. The flamethrower from the coin-op/NES is here. You know, the gun that shoots bullets that travel in circles. Circles bigger than the collision boxes are in this version of Contra. You see where this is going.

Yea, the flamethrower bullets circled around the tiny collision box on the UFO. Every single bullet missed when I stood right underneath it. The flamethrower is WORTHLESS against bosses. I think it might be the worst video game gun invented before Goldeneye’s Klobb.

And I didn’t find the laser very satisfactory either. Not worthless. Don’t get me wrong, but just not as fun to use. It’s too subdued. Weirdly, the basic machine gun or the rear gun are the most satisfying and useful weapons. Oh, and this time around, the capsules that fly onto the screen don’t drop guns. They instead drop items that boost your movement speed and firing speed. They’re also much harder to hit. Again, tiny collision boxes. I have no idea why Konami’s team (it’s hard to find credits for a lot of MSX games) made the choices they did, but few of them are in service to the game’s enjoyment. Ultimately, Contra for MSX never feels like Contra. Even with replicated set-pieces and bosses, it doesn’t even come close. I make “dollar store knock-off” jokes all the time, but in the case of Contra, that really is the closest I can come to saying how it feels. If there were such a thing as a dollar store gaming knock-off, Contra on MSX would be the dollar store Contra.

Another change, and this is a very big one: you can’t destroy primary targets until you’ve taken out all secondary guns. Take the first boss, for example. Want to blow up the main target? Gotta take out the top two guns first. Even though it makes the damage noise, the main target won’t blow up no matter how long you pump bullets into it. I actually like this change. It adds stakes, and in fact, would be a positive addition to the NES version. Like the “Final Gate” boss before the alien lair, where you can just run up and hit the target before it even gets one shot off at you? That would be out the window. You’d have to take out the two cannons first. Contra MSX is full of those kinds of ideas that COULD work, but they don’t help this specific game for other reasons.

On the other hand, I genuinely enjoyed the extra levels and effort that went into coming up with replacements for the hardware’s shortcomings. No spread gun? That sucks, but the gun that replaced, while nowhere near as fun, got a LOT of use from this chick. That should count for something, right? And then there’s ideas that are totally out of left field, like how picking up new guns work. Once you pick up a gun, you have THAT gun, and every time you get to another spot where you can pick-up a gun, even if it’s an old one you already have, you can choose to equip any gun you’ve previously found via a menu. I don’t think I’d like that for NES Contra, but it certainly works here. I used it too, to swap between the laser and the rear gun a few times. There’s a lot of novelty here to make MSX Contra interesting beyond the raw gameplay. But, gameplay is king. The best thing I can say about MSX Contra is that it took the skeleton of Contra and boiled a perfectly fine gaming broth both out of it that might make for a lousy game of Contra, but it’s perfectly decent as a bland action game. Contra on MSX might not deserve to wear the Contra name, but it does, and it should be included in any collection of classic Contra games. This deserved a spot on Contra Anniversary Collection, even if it doesn’t feel like the Contra we all love.
Verdict: YES!

The names of levels are hilarious. The boss of the first base is called “Homicide Censor No. 1.” That’s hardcore. Meanwhile, the first stage is called “Asphalt Jungle.” WTF? Do you even know what an asphalt jungle is, Konami? Your game takes place in a LITERAL jungle, not an asphalt one.

PART OF THE CONTRA REVIEW SERIES!
IGC Review of Contra (Arcade)
IGC Review of Contra (NES)
IGC Review of Super Contra (Arcade)
IGC Review of Super C (NES)