Super C (NES Review)

October 25, 2024 by 10 Comments

Super CSuper C
aka Probotector II: Return of the Evil Forces
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Released February 2, 1990
Developed by Konami
Included in Contra Anniversary Collection

Like most of Super C for the NES, this isn’t from the coin-op. And thank God for it.

And you thought Contra on the NES was a major leap over the arcade game. That’s NOTHING compared to the gigantic leap Super C made. A leap so high that the letters O-N-T-R-A didn’t make it! At least in the United States, and can you blame them? They had to jump over an ocean to get here. An ocean! Not “Ocean” though as in the game publisher that’s like “why does everyone hate LJN? Did you like any game made by us?” But, I digress. The bad news with Super C is that the top-down stuff from the arcade is here too. The good news is the top-down stuff plays better on the NES. It’s not amazing, and it still makes Contra as a franchise feel like an also-ran. Even mixing it with the side-scrolling genre doesn’t make it stand out in what is an exceptionally crowded field. It really doesn’t help that, for a brief window, Super C has ghastly visibility issues. I tried using a CRT filter, which works on some NES games with noisy backgrounds. It didn’t help with Super C at all. Hey, I love the effort to make an otherwise average game design stand out as a viable set piece. But, I prize being able to see what’s going on more than I do the facade of a new area. But, as much as I miss the third person bases, the two top-down levels don’t suck. Besides visibility issues, they ain’t too bad at all. They work better with the bigger playfield of the NES.

Can you see that I’m about to die?

The other good news is that Super C is so fun that, if not for those top-down levels, I think we’d be talking about whether or not it’s better than the original. It’s insane that they took a mediocre coin-op and turned it into THIS, because Super C is fantastic! They added several levels and set-pieces, and almost all of the additional content is of the side-scrolling variety. In other words, they added more of the stuff that would make people want a sequel to Contra in the first place! Everything wrong with the coin-op’s concept is fixed here, and everything that didn’t work there works here. Things I didn’t expect. For example, everything wrong with the jungle stage in arcades had nothing at all to do with the logical flaw of dumping the third-person areas. It was just a lazily designed stage that relies on foreground objects blocking your view for challenge, then dumps straight into what is the 7th boss in the NES game.

The section with earthquakes manages to be both fair and thrilling without any “gotchas.” This is such an impressive sequel.

In Super C, the jungle level is fine. While it still lacks platforms for the actual jungle part of the jungle level, the pacing of when and where enemies are utilized is smarter. No foreground to block your view, either. Then, they added a memorable mini-boss and a better finale. Instead of a jarring hard cut to the alien base, you run through the earthquake section pictured above. With it comes the first truly tricky platforming section in home Contra history. It’s almost like Konami had the same observations I had: why even have a platform game without edge-of-your-seat jumps? The historically awesome, effective jumping physics are copied exactly from the original NES game, so why not be equal parts platforming AND bullet dodging? The first NES Contra did that, and last I checked, it was pretty sweet. The coin-op doesn’t have a viable jump at all. You can’t even clear a gun with your jump. If a gun you don’t want lands in front of you, you have to wait for it to vanish. If it is possible to jump over it, I never accomplished it.

Super C leans hard into the platforming side of the game multiple times, something I really don’t think the original ever did. In this segment, the ceiling raises and lowers. It’s genuinely thrilling, and there’s multiple jumps that saw me holding my breath. What a wonderful game!

In retrospect, that might be the one thing missing from the original NES Contra. There, the platforming isn’t amazing. There’s hardly any thrilling jumps. I can’t and won’t hold it against that game, because platforming isn’t the point. It’s a means to an end for Contra’s defensive game. Even when it feels like a traditional platformer in stages like the Hanger or Energy Zone, it’s actually more timing-based than accuracy-based. That’s certainly not the case with the sequel, which elegantly steers into a platforming focus on multiple occasions. In the arcade, levels felt like straight 2D lines with only the illusion of platforming. On the NES, Super C is a run & gun with a heavy emphasis on platforming, and it’s remarkable how transformative that is. On the NES, the jungle might still be the weakest side-scrolling stage between the two real Contra games (Contra Force is coming up NEXT at IGC, even if it’s not next sequentially), and it still rises to the level of better-than-decent. It proves within the first third of the game that NES Super C is no half-assed effort. There’s new mini-bosses. There’s new full-sized bosses. They kept all the weapons from before except the flamethrower. Oh, there’s still a flamethrower, but it’s different this time. I don’t feel like a complete tool using it, because now, it looks like this:

It doesn’t look great in screenshots, but it’s awesome. Instead of bullets doing ridiculous corkscrews, the flamethrower now shoots the biggest bullets in Contra, which explode with splash damage upon impact. This was in the coin-op too, but it was made to look like a grenade launcher. I like shooting fireballs better!

Super C uses the same engine as the first game, and much like the first game, it’s not a lives code that trivializes the difficulty. Autofire and the spread gun will do it. Hell, even the flamethrower is now overpowered with autofire. So, I decided to use the same test I created for Contra: beat the game, without autofire, the lives code, or emulation-based shenanigans. First, I cheesed the game a few times with autofire (including a co-op game). The third game, I had a no-death, no-cheating run. I’ve played Super C significantly less than Contra, so that gives you an idea of just how much autofire and the spreader annihilates the challenge of the NES Contra games. It’s not like I’m a professional gamer over here, but with autofire, both Contra and Super C are some of the breeziest side-scrolling run & guns I’ve played. Hell, I think I would have run the table the first time around, but I messed-up several jumps along the way. Jumps I, if not clocked, learned to pace-myself and wait for during co-op. The real challenge came when I disabled autofire entirely and fired up the Japanese ROM. I made it to the second boss before I died, and I genuinely believe if I had never swapped the spread gun for the laser (which, in two previous solo sessions, I’d barely seen and hadn’t used), I would have gone a lot further without dying.

Death #1. Oh, and this time the electrodes and laser kill you.

Like with Contra, playing Super C straight-up, on its terms, mostly made me focus on the item drops. This time, I learned how unevenly-distributed the guns are. It became pretty clean early into the game that Super C sometimes becomes more stingy with the weapons. It really started after the second level. At the start of the third stage, the first two items it gave me were rapid fire and a screen-clearing bomb. It was quite a distance from the start of the level that I got my first REAL gun, the machine gun. During a one-off set-piece where a cannon fires a series of bombs, I ate death #2 right before I collected the laser. Thankfully it was waiting for me when I came back to life. Death #3 came against the six-legged robot, at which point I learned that I could have stood on top of it, because I landed on it when I respawned. Except, you can’t shoot down at it. The target is underneath it. Death #4. Same f’n mini-boss. I was THIS close to a game over here, but it blew up at the last second. I got a free life too.

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I didn’t get my beloved spread gun back until I reached the earthquake section, but I ate death #5 on the base boss, followed by death #6. Game. Over.

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Rather than start over, I was curious if I could make it to the end with just the continues it gives me. Nobody expects gaming super heroics from me. Again, I’m certain that I’m capable of brute-forcing most games through repetition to the point that I could ace most games. There’s some that I feel are out of my reach. Like, there’s no way in hell I could do a no-death run through something like Battletoads. But, I think most people, if they chained themselves to one game and one game only, could drill a full ace into muscle memory. That’s not the barometer. Perfection isn’t. The question is “could an average gamer, with a normal non-autofire controller and no access to the 10 lives cheat beat Super C in 1990?” Yep. It’s not that hard. Like Contra or Castlevania, Super C’s difficulty is vastly overstated. And hey, I made it through the entire third level without dying. Not only that but I literally let out a cheer three times in this level alone: for the cannon, the six-legged robot, and the base. I made it to where the vertical section of level four starts before I STUPIDLY threw away a life by starting to climb before the bombs fell. Idiot. And then soon after, I gave up another death. Another change from Contra is there’s a lot more stuff to dodge, and the turrets take more hits to kill.

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The stinginess with the items was still in full force as I reached the elevator. When it finally spit out guns, it was only the machine gun and the rapid fire. Little redundant there, but hey, that’s literally how the first Contra starts. I died again and fell to my last life without any guns and without even seeing the 4th boss. Thankfully I shot the right canister to get the spread gun. I just needed to hold on for dear life, but I assumed that, even if I get an extra life, I wasn’t going to make it much further. I was wrong, and Super C totally confirmed to me that the spread gun is the most overpowered gun in the game. I did manage to beat the 4th boss, but no extra life yet. I was only 1,000 points short, and got it right after I started the next stage. In fact, I ran through level 5 without a single death. Spread gun kept. Scored another extra life from the boss. I made it through stage 6 without dying too, and was near the end of stage 7, and then it happened.

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I had defeated the egg thing, but it spits the aliens out in unpredictable trajectories, and it caught me. I had one floor left of these things, and the next one ate up every single life I had except one. I did end up getting another extra life, giving me two to fight the 7th boss without any special gun. I did manage to ping it to death, but I lost a life in the process too.

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Final level, no lives, no guns, but still on my 2nd continue and..

Yep, that’ll do.

I did it! One continue, no codes, and no cheating of any kind. And honestly, if I went again, I think I could probably make it without a game over at all. Swapping the spread for the laser in level two stupid, especially since this Contra is quite miserly with the guns at times. The next spread gun wasn’t spawned until right before the third boss. Hell, I’m pretty sure the first laser isn’t spawned until the second level. And yet, sometimes the game spits out weapon chances right after you just had one. The pacing is all over the place. Is that why Super C isn’t remembered as fondly as Contra? It can’t be because it’s a sequel. This is video games. Sequels being better is the norm.

My final death, and I was sh*tting myself because it happened early in the fight. But, I discovered that you can lean-up against the front leg of the final boss and aim diagonally for a direct line to the alien crab sponge monster’s weak point. It’s not a cinch after that. The millipede it spits out is invincible so you have to get a feel for its timing. Decent final boss. Sure beats ending the game on a top-down section, like the coin-op did.

Or, what if it’s something dumber? I’m absolutely open to the possibility that the lack of the Konami code is the reason. It’s not an accident that it’s gaming’s most famous cheat code. It’s harmonious. Rolls right off the tongue. But, it’s long enough that it has a secret handshake vibe to it. If you know the code, you’re in the club. The “I take video games at least seriously enough to know how to get 30 lives in Contra without looking it up” club. But, I’ve already talked about that excuse. Think EVEN DUMBER.

Too dumb. Little less.

What if Super C didn’t do as well because it was called “Super C” instead of “Super Contra?” I sure hope that’s not the reason, but you can’t rule it out. I’d like to take it for granted that kids of the 80s/90s knew a sequel when they saw it. Maybe they did. But maybe their parents didn’t. Mom & Dad might know that Junior loves a game called “Contra” but, when browsing games, it might not be self-evident that Super C is Contra. I’m guessing Contra had a lot of casual buys from parents for their kids. Great cover art. Trendy. Looks like the movies Junior likes. Super C has okay cover art, but nowhere near as eye-catching or memorable as the first game. The letter C is the same. That’s it. It’s not exactly McDonald’s-like memorable, especially back then.

Even if you assume the cover is close enough to the original (not even close), that doesn’t mean people not in the know will instantly connect the two. As dumb an excuse as that is, it had to factor in a little bit. It’s called “Super C.” Same engine. Same guns. Same alien invasion. Same platform. But, not the same name. And they did it because the word “contra” was topically hot for non-gaming reasons at the time. Guys, we can’t call it “Contra” because one or two newspapers compared our game to the Iran-Contra Affair! Branding? To hell with branding! Think of the frowny faces! They’ll wag their fingers SO HARD at us!

This boss (no longer the final boss like it was in the arcade game) would later sign a two-game contract with Nintendo, and appear in the game StarTropics as the character “Zoda.” It even got top-billing in the sequel! Then, like so many other 90s bosses, it faded into obscurity. Today, you can meet it at Comic-Con, and for $10 extra get its autograph.

As far as games that slipped through the cracks of history, Super C might be the most inexplicable. It really does feel like a grander version of Contra. On the NES, the bosses are bigger, the challenge is harder, the flamethrower is better, the laser is.. well, actually it’s worse. But the spread gun is god-tier now, and the level design assures that Super C is literally non-stop fun. This is what you want in a sequel. I might not be a huge fan of the top-down levels, but compared to some NES top-down shooters, they’re clearly in an elite class for the platform. I can’t say it’s better than Contra because the pacing and platforms aren’t absolutely flawless this go around. But, it’s not that far behind the original. So, what do *I* think happened? Three words and one number: Super Mario Bros. 3. I think that Contra transcends tastes and genres TODAY, in 2024. I’m guessing it didn’t at the time. But, do you know what franchise absolutely did? Mario. And, in 1990, Super Mario Bros. 3 was the first new release EVENT of the modern gaming era (IE after Atari). A game that was such a moment in the industry’s history that, for the US release, an entire movie was part of the hype. When did Mario 3 come out in the United States? February of 1990. When did Super C come out here? April of 1990. Ouch.

The new set-pieces all work really well too. This feels a LOT more like an alien invasion than the first game.

It’s never just one thing, of course. I’ve come up with four valid reasons that, on their own, would be heartbreaking in their pettiness as reasons why the NES Super C has little-to-no historic clout. Top-down replacing 3rd person? Dumb. No Konami code? Not sure why they did that. Changing the name? Needlessly risky. Launching against what had been the biggest video game in history up to that point? Oof. Yet, none of them account for the complete lack of prestige Super C has to it. Add them all up though, and it’s a perfect storm of bad timing and bad decisions. In reality, Super C isn’t just a good sequel, but it’s a GREAT video game, all on its own. If this had been the first game in the series, I honestly think there’s a chance the conversation around Contra would be mostly unchanged, and the only difference is we’d be talking about Super C and not Contra as a legitimate contender for the Greatest of All-Time. There’s no insurmountable stakes. The action is non-stop, intense, but SO enjoyable. It’s epic, and beautiful, and one of the best co-op releases to grace 8-bits. What more could you ask for? Contra might be the dark horse of the GOAT conversation, but Super C is the clear favorite in the conversation “what is the most underrated NES game?” Hot damn, this franchise is awesome AND interesting, and I love it.
Verdict: YES!
With this YES!, I feel comfortable saying Contra Anniversary Collection is worth $19.99. Hell, it’s worth it for the two NES games alone. That means the 16-bit games are a spectacular end-zone dance.

PART OF THE CONTRA REVIEW SERIES!
IGC Review of Contra the Arcade Game
IGC Review of Contra on the NES
IGC Review of Contra on MSX
IGC Review of Super Contra (Arcade)

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What I’m Playing Right Now #08

October 24, 2024 by Leave a comment

Super C for the NES might be delayed until tomorrow. That’s because we’re starting work on Camp Bloodbrook right now. The first of two installments of Vice Versus related to Camp Bloodbrook will hit today or tomorrow at The Pinball Chick. In my household, dueling is one of the biggest attractions to pinball for us. We’re not just playing pinball, but trying to defeat each-other. Angela especially puts a LOT of stock in pinball as a competitive sport. “It’s not just about how a table shoots, but how fun it is to watch people besides myself shoot the table.” So, we’re spinning off that discussion into its own feature at the Pinball Chick. So, what AM I playing?

First impressions on Camp Bloodbrook: Yep, it’s a Dolby pin. Lots of amazing shots, but no consideration for how demoralizing houseballs are. I’m going to guess what happens in the above clip was unintentional. I’m also going to guess that Zen Studios is over the “normal physics.” Much like Xena: Warrior Princess, Camp Bloodbrook’s “normal physics” games are atrocious, but I really think this is a whole new level of atrocious. The bounces are so weird and random. The speed is. The gravity itself is. The ball is so floaty and its reaction to solid surfaces is so unnatural. So, how about this, Zen Studios: instead of this ridiculous two physics system you have, how about dump one and focus all efforts on the other? Because having to develop tables for two completely different forms of physics, IE reality itself is unreasonable. It feels like tables are always compromised by one physics or the other.

HJBT1171

Can’t get enough of that Sugar Crisp.

“Normal” physics have no value anymore except sucking resources that could be spent optimizing one version of the table. You can’t even say normal physics acts as a trainer for novice players. What is it training, exactly? Because the physics are so different that the angles themselves change based on the physics. Muscle memory that works on one set of physics doesn’t on the other. Normal physics seems completely detached from reality, and it’s certainly not the easy mode. Not when “normal physics” has completely baseless rejections on ramps to the degree it does. Realistic physics, depending on the table, are killing it. Maybe your designers will be able to bring out tables faster, with less need for patchwork, if there’s only one universal set of physics. Maybe it’ll also eliminate the expectation that new tables won’t fully work as intended until patches arrive well after the fact. With that note, Princess Bride was patched today as well, so our final ratings for that should be hitting soon as well.

UPDATE: Only the “realistic physics” have the straight down the drain problem with the locker seen above. We’re likely to vote that Camp Bloodbrook is OUT OF ORDER until this is fixed. On the other hand, I became the Xbox World Champion of Classic – Normal Physics. #2 all time at the time, but it’s already fallen to #3. Still champion of Xbox though.

PJJS6330

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What I’m Playing Right Now #07

October 24, 2024 by Leave a comment

This part lasts about two seconds. UP OR DOWN? OMG! I can’t deci.. it’s over. Back to running in a straight line.

It wasn’t until after I hit publish on the review of the Super Contra coin-op that I stopped and thought “did platforming even matter?” In the side-scrolling stages, you’re mostly running along the ground. Sure, you might go up a hill or two, and later in the game the path zig zags a little. But, you’re mostly just jogging. Since the jumping is ineffective towards dodging most bullets (nowhere near as effective as ducking), Super Contra feels like a game of just brute force and nothing more.

So, what AM I playing?

The Super C NES review hits later today. Let’s face it: the coin-op side of the Contra equation was never going to be the highlights of the marathon. The best thing I can say about both is that I’m happy with how the reviews turned out, and I’m happy I never have to play either ever again. Well, assuming Konami doesn’t get it together and realize they’re in a position to do a prestige collection of their classic games. Which, in fairness, Contra Anniversary Collection sort of was. It offered US, European, and Japanese ROMs and a “bonus book” that really isn’t that interesting. There’s also two games I’d consider to be “missing.” Did the MSX game belong in the set? Yes. Does the set hurt for its absence? Not really. Contra NES alone is worth the $20 asking price, in my opinion. It’s not just any game. It’s one of the greatest games ever made, and I suspect you’ll get enjoyment out of other games in the set. Hell, I’ve still got the 16-bit Contra games left, and the Game Boy games, the second of which (1) was made by Factor 5 (2) uses the Super Game Boy and (3) also isn’t in Contra Anniversary Collection. That’s the other missing game, and it makes even less logical sense to skip it. Game Boy was a global platform, unlike the MSX. It’s critically acclaimed, too. Some decisions I will never understand.

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Super Contra (Arcade Review)

October 23, 2024 by 10 Comments

Super Contra
Platform: Arcade
Released January 28, 1988
Directed by Hideyuki Tsujimoto
Developed by Konami
Included in Contra Anniversary Collection
Sold Separately via Arcade Archives

Well, it looks the part. But, it doesn’t do a good job of playing the part. At least on a full-time basis.

I get it now. I get why Super Contra didn’t reach the legendary status the original did, and I get it before I even reach the NES game. It’s not the Konami code. It really is the top-down sections. In what has to be one of the most historically bad decisions in game design history, Contra’s sequel, released just under a  year after the original, dropped the third person base segments and replaced them with generic top-down sections. What a stupid move. War-themed action games were smoking hot in gaming at the time, but there were a LOT of top-down shooting games that feel exactly the same as Super Contra’s top-down levels, surrendering the original game’s uniqueness.

Real subtle, guys.

I assume that’s why they used third person areas instead of top-down in the first place. How do you stand out in a crowded field in 1987? Mix genres. Side scrollers are popular, and top-down shooters are. Why not do both? Great idea, but top-down is too commonplace, from Front Line to Commando to Ikari Warriors. Hell, Ikari Warriors’ sequel, Victory Road, came out in 1986. You don’t want people to think you’re playing follow the leader with SNK or Capcom, do you? So instead, you mix a side-scroller with unique third-person levels that shift the focus from run & gun platforming to intense bullet-dodging in a tight space, but in a way that retains the acrobatic movement and jumping from the side-scrolling levels. Neat. Novel. Original. Tantalizing. And ALL YOURS. Now you’re the one doing the innovating! Anyone that follows is eating your dust, not the other way around. So, why move away from that? I honestly don’t know. Maybe they got bad focus testing or early reviews specifically on the third-person stages. I hope that’s not it. If you’re a game critic or participated in a focus group and sh*t on the base levels in Contra, thanks so much for ruining the sequel. You’re a bad person, and you’re going to gaming hell, where you will be forced to play Super Contra. I kid, because it’s Konami’s fault. What a truly stupid decision.

Okay, this IS kind of funny. See the two probes with the electricity running between them? They don’t kill you, or damage you, or anything. They do nothing. You stand right over them. Not even the energy hurts you. Cutting Room Floor, aka my favorite gaming site in the whole wide world, generously describes this as an “oversight.” Yes. Yes, “oversight.” I don’t think they just forgot to program that as a lethal element. It feels like an adjustment made by play testers, because I genuinely think if they hadn’t done this, Super Contra’s reputation would have gone from “meh” to outright scathing on account of extreme difficulty. There’s just not enough room to fight it without those being nerfed. Once again, the coin-op feels like it fails to make the best use of the vertical screen.

And it’s not like the top-down sections of Super Contra stand out in any way. They’re short, unmemorable, and generic. When Super Contra drifts aimlessly away from its bread & butter, hell, it could be ANY top-down game. The level design is so basic that, all by itself, it turns Contra as a franchise from coattail wearer to coattail rider. Like the previous game has to catch up to sh*t like Ikari Warriors. I’m not slamming Ikari Warriors. I’m saying Konami had a good thing going and threw the brakes on for no good reason. Those top-down levels feel like you’re running through hollow boxes and only occasionally have to change directions, but otherwise, they make for boring set-pieces. It doesn’t matter if you’re fighting aliens. They don’t feel alien. It’s especially jarring because the side-scrolling levels do a good job of that even when things like a normal helicopter shows up that you have to blow up. At only five levels, the game is pitifully small, but only three of those levels offer the type of action that feels like the sequel you want Super Contra to be. The word “super” was overused in gaming, probably thanks in large part to Super Mario Bros. In the case of Super Contra, it does such a bad job of feeling like an evolution of the Contra concept that calling it “super” feels like a lie. It also doesn’t help that this is also the owner of the first bad level in Contra. Or, more accurately, the first bad side-scrolling level. This level:

You can’t see it, but that guy is shooting me.

Hey, let’s make visibility a major challenge factor! Trees in the foreground that block your view. What a desperate move for a game that feels like, after a solid first level, it just lost faith in the formula. The first level is rock-solid. The fourth level is rock-solid. Levels 2, 3, and 5 stink. Super Contra is just fundamentally not fun 60% of the time. It’s not even the case of the NES version out-classing it (though that’s absolutely the case yet again). On its own, the set-pieces are much less memorable. The bosses are. The level design feels uninspired and arbitrary. I literally can’t believe Electronic Gaming Monthly named this the 9th greatest arcade game of all time. Apparently they did in 1997. So.. what you’re telling me is they only played 9 arcade games, right? Was the first Contra one of them? Because I’d rather play that. Nothing blocks me from seeing bullets in that game, and there’s no dull, far-too-basic top-down sections in that one. Was it a typo? Did they mean Contra? Because this is a cookie cutter action game that briefly becomes a Contra sequel. But it doesn’t last. EDIT: Come to think of it, it doesn’t have as much jumping as the first game did. Even the side-scrolling stages usually only offer one path and no options or flexibility.

Okay, FINE, the last boss is pretty damn cool looking. But, the giant heart was unforgettable. I’m not sure I’ll remember this next week. I’ve beaten this before.. sober.. and for the life of me I couldn’t remember what the hell the last boss was. Also, the game ends on the lame-ass top down sections. So deflating.

Easily the most fascinating aspect of the arcade version of Super Contra is that, completely unprompted, it feels like a game that’s grasping at straws. As if it’s some kind of knock-off game instead of the sequel to a bonafide milestone in gaming. I’ve never seen anything like this, but actually, it totally makes perfect sense. They didn’t wait long enough to make a sequel, and since this came out a month before the NES/Famicom Contra released, they had no way of knowing what Contra was about to become. Hell, they didn’t even know that after it came out. Contra on the NES did good, but it wasn’t even one of the seventy-five NES/Famicom games verified to have sold a million units. That’s something even I didn’t realize when I wrote the previous reviews: at the time, Contra was something of a cult hit, not a hit-hit. I assumed it was a massive hit, but Konami alone had at least six NES/Famicom games outsell it. At least, and likely even a couple more. Contra was a sleeper that, in the decades since, woke up as a giant. But that took time. And that’s why Super Contra turned out so bland. Konami didn’t have enough time to observe the type of reaction and feedback Contra, as a coin-op or a home game, would have. You need that to make a GREAT sequel. All sequels are fan service, after all.

It’s a f’n vertical screen, and they still screwed up everything. Look at this! THE SCORE COVERS THE BOSS! Did you guys even care? This isn’t a nit-picky thing. It’s immersion you’re messing up. In an action game, if you don’t have immersion, you don’t have sh*t!

It’s taken three decades and a lot of historical reevaluations for NES Contra to reach the phase it’s at, where it’s mostly agreed upon that it’s one of the greatest video games of all-time. As recently as Contra Anniversary Collection five years ago, which is when I REALLY got into the original games, I didn’t realize what it accomplished. I just thought it was a really fun game. Safe bet Konami had no idea what they had either. It happens in gaming more than you would think. Namco didn’t realize what made Pac-Man work. Super Pac-Man and Pac & Pal proved that. Super Contra proves Konami didn’t have a clue either. Unlike the original, this can’t even fall back on “it’s only bad in comparison to the superior NES game.” I don’t think it’s actually a well-made game in general. This feels even more cramped than the first coin-op Contra. And, just like the first coin-op, that squeeze doesn’t come with a sense of tension. The jumping is not as good as before. You can’t even jump over a gun you don’t want, and there’s no jumping in the top-down sections. That button is used for the one screen-clearing bomb they give you per stage. Bosses and “event” enemies are spongy now, too, a genuine first for the franchise since the MSX game technically came after this. The only legit positive is the machine gun now fires rockets as bullets. Hey, that’s cool, but this is just not as fun as its own game or as a sequel. Super Contra is mostly boring, and that’s where it’s stuck, forever. At least we’ll always have the NES version.
Verdict: NO!

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

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What’s I’m Playing Right Now #06

October 23, 2024 by 1 Comment

I think my first post-Twitter week is going swimmingly. I’m pretty happy with the Contra reviews. They’re tougher to write-up than you’d think. Legendary games, bad or good, are tricky reviews. You don’t want to state the obvious too much. I assume people read me because they want to hear someone else’s perspective on games, and that’s why I try to at least look for little things that stand out that my readers might not have thought about. Like with Contra on the NES, the gap between weapons pick-ups might be the game’s secret sauce. Everyone loves the variety of guns. That’s the self-evident part. Nobody needs to hear that from me. My job is to figure out “why is it that way?” And after playing through it, I came to the conclusion that if the game wasn’t generous with them, I don’t think people would talk about Contra today. I think it’s the amount of opportunities for upgrades that made the game what it is. For all its flaws, even the coin-op is generous with guns, a semi-rarity in arcades.

Smash TV has some of the weirdest item drop pacing in gaming. Actually, change that. Smash TV is more stingy with its usage and not the drop rate itself. Speaking of which, I’m holding out on doing a Midway Arcade Treasures review. I really did think we’d have a release for current platforms by now. I was almost certain it was going to happen, and it hasn’t yet. The only one currently for sale is a previous-gen version called Midway Arcade Origins, which I found to have mediocre emulation and options. I’m really crossing my fingers for Atari and Digital Eclipse to secure the rights for a Midway version of the Gold Master Series. Digital Eclipse has worked on these licenses in the past and presumably has the contacts to do it again on the grandest scale of all. I think it’ll happen in 2025. I hope so. It would be one of the greatest collections of games in history.

This is something indie developers making action games should consider. In almost any arcade-like action game, the first level and/or the first life will always have upgrades early. That’s the hook of the game, not all that different from how slot machines are rigged to make players think they came close to winning. Even bad games tend to drop good power-ups early. But, once the player is hooked, a lot of games scale back the opportunities for those upgrades. Some do it far too much. Darius II had this problem (read Taito Milestones II: The Definitive Review for my full review on Darius II). And Darius II is a very good game. It’s also one of the rare novelty coin-ops that withstands the test of time (if you consider ultra-widescreen to be a novelty, which it certainly was in 1989). But Darius II was so stingy with power-ups that it’s practically miserly. That’s literally the only thing that held it back from all-timer status. Why are games like Gradius or Life Force/Salamander all-time classics but Darius is on the fringe as a very good and very popular B-lister? Item drops. I really think that’s all. Action movies don’t front-load all the action scenes at the start of the film, then do all the boring parts for the rest of the run time. When making your games, bring the goods early, and keep bringing ’em. Fun matters more than challenge, and if you need to be Scrooge-like with your items, you’re doing challenge wrong anyway.

So, what AM I playing?

Super Contra is coming later today or early Thursday, and the NES version will follow soon after. I have no clue why Super Contra’s reputation is buried to the degree it is. Actually, I do. No UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A START for it. What if they had done that? Would Super C on the NES have been as big, or bigger, than Contra? Do you think anyone at Konami stares at the ceiling at night thinking “we could have been Call of Duty big if we hadn’t taken that code away?” Hell, it has a lives code. Just not THAT lives code. The famous one. The one that rolls off the tip of your tongue, and I think it hurt Super C. You can’t rule it out, because nobody really thinks Super Contra/Super C suck. If replacing the memorable third person stuff with top-down stuff isn’t the reason it slipped into oblivion, maybe it’s because gaming’s most famous code isn’t there. What a horrible thought.

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Xena: Warrior Princess (Pinball FX Table Review)

October 23, 2024 by 2 Comments

Xena: Warrior Princess
First Released May 16, 2024
Main Platform: Pinball FX
Switch Platform: Pinball FX
Designed by Anna Lengyel
Set: Universal TV Classics ($14.99)

Special Consideration – Half-Broken Physics Options: Xena has a problem specifically limited to the “normal physics” setting in both the main modes (Classic & Arcade) and all four challenge modes. The left ramp (the third shot from the left, with the wooden bridge) has something horribly wrong with it. It’s one of the most reject-heavy ramps in Pinball FX and there’s no rhyme or reason when it will work, but it absolutely won’t work from a trapped ball shot dead solid perfect at full speed at it. The ball stops before getting to the top of the shot and is flung back down. The most basic, tried-and-true shot you can make in pinball, even if the shot literally can’t be more accurate, still doesn’t work. This is NOT affecting our overall rating of Xena, which we’re awarding our Certificate of Excellence to, but please note our review applies ONLY to “realistic physics” at this time. We consider “normal physics” played in any mode on Xena to be OUT OF ORDER. This should be an easy to spot and easy to fix patch for Zen Studios. But please be careful not to damage anything while fixing it, Zen, because right now this thing plays so good. Might want to give a longer grace period on the kickbacks, though. And tone them back too. And give Anna a high five, because she earned it with this one.

What a turnaround Xena made. Upon release, it was basically unplayable. Thanks to patchwork, the maddening difficulty was toned way the hell down, and the end result is Xena is now unquestionably one of 2024’s best pins. Let’s get the problematic aspects out of the way first. The kickbacks aren’t well done because of Zen’s continued insistence that they be violent, unpredictable trash fires. Go through all the trouble of lighting both kickbacks only to have the ball go down an outlane, be launched out and go down the OTHER outlane, be kicked back out and straight down the opposite outlane. Instances of both kickbacks being lost from a single triggering is high enough that it feels deliberate. The mini-table is, like so many Zen mini-tables, circular in shape and boring. It’s like they have a cookie-cutter template for these things, because they feel so samey and usually have similar objectives regardless of the theme of the pin.

Signature Mode – Caesar Roman Assault: Holy crap! Look at all those cardboard targets! There’s no way this has any sense of grace to it, right? WRONG! The placement is as perfect as a spam-it-all target gets. Ironically, even though you’re shooting enough people to count as a “crowd” there’s absolutely no crowding! There’s also no blocking, so there’s multiple safe angles for each target. Instead, the challenge is from the sheer volume of targets and the fact that the offensive-oriented Xena temporarily becomes a pick ‘n flick-style defensive shooter. There are lethal angles to the targets, but in that good, pinball type of way. Really nice. We all really loved this mode.

Finally, and this is a weird one that my friends and family mostly disagreed with: I didn’t find the Chakram that exciting of a shot. I have no clue why that is, either, because by all rights this should be one of the stronger skillshots and gameplay elements in Pinball FX, but it just didn’t “do it” for me. Maybe because there’s a similar shot in Marvel’s Women of Power: A-Force that just does the same thing better. Sometimes these things are inexplicable. But, with all that said, whoa! Xena is packed-full of fantastic orbits, unique modes, thrilling shots, and some of the best uses of cardboard targets in Pinball FX. The sheer volume of cardboard targets in the above mode is jaw dropping, but the angles they take aren’t designed to ice your ball. In fact, this is one of the few modern Zen tables that doesn’t feel mostly defensive in nature. This is a SHOOTERS pin, and that’s such a breath of fresh air. Even the grind isn’t that bad, and when modes require a little too many shots, at least the payouts aren’t ridiculously back-loaded. In fact, I think Xena’s rule sheet might be its greatest triumph. The scoring is fine-tuned to scientific perfection in a way that would make Lyman Sheats proud. Anna Lengyel’s Homeworld is going to be lambasted by us, but it’s Xena that proves that she’s an elite pinball designer.
Cathy: MASTERPIECE (5 out of 5)
Angela: GREAT (4 out of 5)
Oscar: MASTERPIECE
Jordi: GREAT
Sasha: GREAT
Dash: GOOD (3 out of 5)
Elias: GOOD (Nintendo Switch)
Primary Pinball FX Scoring Average: 4.16 📜CERTIFIED EXCELLENT📜
Nintendo Switch Scoring Average: 4.2 📜CERTIFIED EXCELLENT📜

Pictured: something not as exciting as you would hope. Makes for a fun track toy, though. This is kin to Getaway’s supercharger, but not a SHOT that you have to factor in.

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What I’m Playing Right Now #05

October 22, 2024 by Leave a comment

Hey everybody! Well, this IS a blog and I’m going to start treating it like such. That means more updates. So, what AM I playing?

In a time before patches..

Xena: Warrior Princess is the next review coming to IGC Wednesday. What a turnaround this table has made. Upon release, it was unplayable, with some of the most mind boggling rejections in Pinball FX. Now, if you play Xena today in the standard physics mode, we’d still consider that build to be OUT OF ORDER. Don’t play it. Don’t base your opinion of Xena on it. It still has nonsense rejections where a flush shot right on line will still reject. Check to make sure you’re playing with realistic physics. Because, with those physics, Xena is saved. It’s not perfect yet. They should continue to patch it. But, following a patch, Xena’s excellence has been revealed. This is a FANTASTIC table by Anna Lengyel, who is getting her first ever MASTERPIECE ratings with this pin from Oscar and me. Yep, I went there. Angela, Jordi, and Sasha think we’ve lost our mind. They think it’s REALLY good, but not upper-echelon good. Xena is going to win an award. The only question is what’s the margin? That post is coming to Indie Gamer Chick and The Pinball Chick shortly.

Yo uh Adrian, where’s uh, you know, my royalty check?

It’s Super Contra time, and this time around, I’m starting with the coin-op, THEN doing the NES game. Even though I’ve played through both versions once, when Contra Anniversary Collection came out, I really don’t remember much about them. That’s an ominous sign. I’m not going to do any other version of Super C besides the arcade and NES. I also have this:

That’s Contra Force. It’s not even a real Contra game (it started life as a non-Contra game called Arc Hound) and it never came out in Japan. That’s ominous, but I’m reviewing it. And, I have a weird NES Super Contra bootleg that James Rolfe fans might recognize (and I only say that because he’s listed on the Wikipedia page for Super Contra) that I’ve had a few people ask me to look at it. It’s called Super Contra.. 8? WTF? Needless to say, I’m not close to finished with Contra. Oh, and what about the SNES game? One of the downsides to taking down my Twitter was all my #IGCvSNES stuff is gone. But, the big games I will redo as proper IGC reviews. Contra III will be part of this marathon. Don’t worry, Sega fans. Hard Corps will be too.

And this will go last, if at all. Seriously WTF? (Contra “8”)

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Contra (MSX Review)

October 22, 2024 by 13 Comments

MSXContra
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.

Contra (3)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)

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What I’m Playing Right Now #04

October 22, 2024 by 2 Comments

I’m enjoying this so far. And thanks to everyone who’s been leaving comments. I’m on Facebook too. So, what am I playing?

This.

Well, I teased on Facebook a few surprises with this Contra streak I’m on. Indeed, before I move onto Super Contra, I wanted to give the MSX2 build of Contra a shot. I really need to do more MSX games at IGC. Then again, isn’t it time that Konami and everyone else who programmed games for this wonderful platform pull the sticks out of their butt and celebrate it? As an American born in 1989, I didn’t know crap about the MSX until recent years. I first learned about it via Metal Gear. When I looked into the NES version, I found out that a lot of people consider it vastly inferior to the MSX game. That and its version of Castlevania is “the weird one. No, not the arcade game. The other weird one.”

It’s called “Vampire Killer” and it is, indeed, weird. Single screens. Keys. I’ll be doing this one sometime soon.

I’ve played enough games for it now to know it deserves to be known in the United States as more than a curiosity from across the ocean. This thing is a bonafide gaming juggernaut, with a seriously loyal fanbase, so I’m not sure why everyone who made games for it has allowed it to fade into oblivion. In the late 90s, there were a whopping three 10-game compilations for MSX on the PlayStation and Saturn, plus an all-in-one collection of those three collections (30 total games) exclusively on Saturn. Sadly, those were Japanese exclusives. It had the best name ever for a collection too: Konami Antiques MSX Collection. Antiques! Come on, that’s precious! Also, MSX got Virtual Console releases on Nintendo Wii and Wii U, but again, only in Japan.

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I think with retro collections as scorching hot as they are right now, the time has come for MSX to be celebrated globally. I think Americans would be chomping at the bit to play these, and from what I’ve played so far, the games of MSX stand out. Take Contra. It’s NOT Contra like you or I know it. It has 19 levels, among other things. Oh, and no scrolling. I’m pretty sure MSX doesn’t really do scrolling in most action games. So far, I’ve only reviewed four MSX games. The first came in February with Parodius, which I didn’t love. Then there were three in Pac Man Museum: The Games They Couldn’t (or Wouldn’t) Include. I didn’t love the MSX builds of Pac-Man and especially Pac-Land (one of the worst games I’ve ever played), but the MSX Pac-Mania was genuinely fun and scored the first YES! for an MSX game. I suspect the second YES! will happen later today. And it won’t be the last MSX game of 2024 that I review. Oh no. Tetris for MSX will be a bonus review in Tetris Forever: The Definitive Review. Much like with Making of Karateka, I’m tacking-on some games not included in the collection as “just for funsies” reviews at the end that have no effect at all on the main reviews. It’s 2024 and I’m most excited for a Tetris game. Party like it’s 1985! Let’s all drink New Coke and sing We Are the World!

Rotating is down? Buttons are instadrops? Yea, I’m going to need to remap.

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Contra (Arcade Review)

October 21, 2024 by 6 Comments

Contra
aka Gryzor 
Platform: Arcade
Released February 20, 1987
Directed by Koji Hiroshita 
Published by Konami
Included in Contra Anniversary Collection
Sold Separately via Arcade Archives

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When I reviewed Contra for the NES yesterday, I didn’t mention the arcade game at all. That’s because I think the conversation belongs here, in the arcade review. I don’t know if the fact that the NES game is superior to the coin-op is impressive or shameful. Maybe a little from column A and a little from column B. By any metric, the NES has the better game of Contra. Yes, that includes the graphics. I think Contra in arcades is pretty ugly. The graphics look washed-out, but not in a cool, stylized type of way. It’s just so drab looking, especially compared to the NES. But, who cares about looks? Gameplay matters, and I’ll still take Contra on the NES. Despite being a coin-op, Contra Arcade feels like a smaller game. Which is technically true because the NES game has more levels, but what I specifically mean is probably more related to the use of a vertical monitor. The game doesn’t benefit from a taller playfield, even on the waterfall stage where you climb upward. All the vertical screen does is subtract from the playfield without adding any benefits like a sense of claustrophobia or heightened urgency. It’s just cramped, period. The whole game is. By all rights, the arcade game should feel more grand and epic, but here’s the third boss in the NES game that came out a year after the coin-op:

Giant alien monster with two tentacle arms that shoot fireballs.

And here’s the original arcade version:

Two normal turrets, a five-gun turret, and a target.

One is unforgettable, and the other is so pedestrian that it could be any game. The NES version is a gigantic alien. In arcades, it really is just a base, and not even as grand a base as the first boss. It doesn’t even have to be an alien base. It could be a G.I. Joe‘s Cobra-like terrorist organization you’re fighting that has a bad H. R. Giger fetish. It’s just so generic and forgettable. The funny thing is, most of the bosses are almost identical in appearance and gameplay to the NES game, except they feel less important, and others genuinely are. By that I mean they’re bosses on the NES, but not in the arcade. The jumping alien isn’t. The giant UFO that drops smaller UFOs isn’t. Hell, you fight two of each of those in the arcade version. And the base boss before the final level from the NES game? It’s not even in the coin-op. In fact, after you beat the second base, the rest of the game kind of plays out as one large, continuous level. It’s strange, and it doesn’t work. I’ve always felt that bosses are a game’s metronome. They set the tempo, and build a player’s anticipation. Levels are always a little more exciting when you know you’re inching closer to a boss. Contra gives up on that design mentality early on, and it’s not better for it.

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I had a developer friend once half-jokingly tell me something to the effect of, “thank god we started with transistor–transistor logic. If they had access to today’s computing power in 1972, we might still be waiting for the first great video game in the 2020s. They would have had so many options that they wouldn’t have known what to do with themselves!” In essence, great games wouldn’t have happened because the steps that created great games happened due to limitations and not despite them. He was kidding, but I’m not. He was right! Look no further than the arcade Contra. It’s the first game. Not based on anything (well, any video game). Much more powerful hardware than home consoles had at the time. And, when home releases did happen, such as the NES game, it’s pretty dang close. All the set pieces from the arcade game are on the NES, and in fact whole sections of some levels are. The NES game is a faithful adaptation, all things considered. But even with all the potential advantages in terms of hardware and resources the coin-op had, the NES just totally outclasses it. Remember how the vertical screen didn’t improve the waterfall? The one vertical-scrolling stage? Well, it did even less for the bases. They’re much smaller in scope and scale on the arcade version, with the only exception being the illusion of moving left and right at the end of them.

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Some people really don’t like Arcade Contra, but it’s fine. It’s not amazing. It’s alright. If it seems like a bad game, it’s only by virtue of how amazing the NES game was. The arcade port has less personality and none of the charm. It has fewer levels. But, it’s still an okay game. Harder for sure, and there’s limited continues (the NES has this too, but the arcade has no 30 lives code). Except the laser is especially valuable now, and probably crosses the line into overpowered territory. It cuts through enemies like butter, but admittedly in a fun way. But, otherwise, it’s just a lesser game. I once said the SNES version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time was perhaps the first coin-op action game outclassed by the home version, but I was clearly wrong. Contra on the NES completely blasts its arcade counterpart. And yet, what has the arcade version done so wrong? It controls fine. The action is good. Bosses are fun. Co-op is decent. The finale is memorable. It is Contra, only if Contra was okay instead of phenomenal. I’ve played hundreds of bad versions of great games. This isn’t bad. It’s just not as good.

Golly, this review sounded like a eulogy.

Don’t get me wrong. Even if the NES game didn’t happen, Contra would not be an elite arcade game. It would be a B-lister Konami coin-op, and there’s a lot more of those than I realized when I started my retro adventures. Yet, none of those are vilified to the degree Contra is. I kind of feel sorry for it. History will continue to look back more and more kindly on NES Contra. Its reputation is not done growing. Ironically, that’s why the arcade game’s fate is sealed. There will be no historic reevaluation. Contra Arcade is what it is: an okay game, and nothing more. Except, it does get credit for being a proof of concept for a superior game. The blueprints to one of the greatest video games EVER made. That has to count for something.
Verdict: YES!

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

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