Super C (NES Review)

October 25, 2024 by 6 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.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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)

Filed under Retro Reviews Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

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)

Filed under Retro Reviews Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

The Difficulty Gateway

January 5, 2019 by 1 Comment

I usually say that I feel my reviews as Indie Gamer Chick represent the average gamer, but the truth is I’m probably above-average in skill-level for most genres. Some, like puzzlers, I chew through so easily that I usually hand games off to my family to make sure they’re not too easy for normies. But being a fairly hardcore gamer since the age of nine and being a game critic is a tough balancing act. One that doesn’t get discussed enough, because we’re all probably better at games than Fred and Ethel shopping for something on payday to kill a weekend with on their dusty Xbox One. When a game doesn’t have adjustable skill-levels, challenge is hard to quantify on your own. You’re playing the game based on decades of experience, and can only assume how others will take it. Even if you have friends or family to observe, it’s not like you’ve been studying them in a laboratory your entire life and can fully approximate the ceiling of their ability.

Of course, being a game critic, if I’m not being told that the only reason I didn’t like a game is because I wasn’t “objective enough”, the most common thing I’m told is that I just suck at games. I didn’t like Cuphead, ergo I suck at games. I didn’t like Hollow Knight, ergo I suck at games. I didn’t like Hotline Miami, ergo I suck at games.

Ah yes, Battletoads. A game so fondly remembered that it could go completely dormant for twenty years because it was so prohibitively difficult that very, very few would ever remember it as an all-time great.

I don’t think I suck at games. Maybe some games. Like fighting games aren’t my thing, and an early running gag at Indie Gamer Chick was me noting that I couldn’t ever get the hang of throwing a Dragon Punch with Ken or Ryu (I’m proud to report I can now, suck it Kris & Jesse). It doesn’t mean I don’t like fighting games though. I got Mortal Kombat XL for Christmas and took delight in violence so awesome that it would make even the most dead-inside grizzled veteran become physically ill. But something like Cuphead? I actually don’t think I was that bad at it. I got all the contracts (IE I beat all the bosses on the standard insanely crazy hard difficulty) for the first world and beat all the bosses on the lowest difficulty for the first three worlds, something nearly 90% of all Cuphead owners either couldn’t do or couldn’t be bothered to do. As for Hollow Knight, I’ve heard fans of the game tell me how hard a boss was that I downed without breaking a sweat. I wasn’t dying all that much while playing it and only once did I die without retrieving the shit I dropped, thus losing it.

By the way, I sucked at Spelunky. I really sucked at Kingdom. They’re both IGC all-timers. Trust me, if talent was required for me to enjoy something, I wouldn’t have any hobbies at all.

I’m not a fan of the notion that games are supposed to be hard to prevent undesirables from playing them, or any game. That the measure of a true gamer is being able to finish these hard games. What an absurd notion this is. It’s snobbery of the lowest order. For games like Cuphead, I’ve come up with the phrase “prohibitively difficult” to describe them. I think Cuphead crosses the line where even above-average players will be gated-off from large sections of content without any hope of ever being good enough to reach them. And for those who say “practice harder”, this isn’t an activity where increasing your skill level will lead to greater things in life. It’s a video game. I’m not going to put in eight hours of practice a day just so I can fight a giant animated stack of poker chips.

By the way, Cuphead wiki, this is based on Amarillo Slim. Only the Babe Ruth of Poker. “Duhhhh, we think it’s based on poker. You can tell by the chips.” Good lord, you people need to get out of the house sometime.

Far be it from me to tell anyone how to make their games. If you feel your dream project should only be able to be finished by 2% of all gamers, so be it. But, maybe you should consider telling your fans to stop calling those who can’t beat it a bunch of pussies. I’ve seen players far above my skill level who enjoy quality run-and-spray games walk away broken and shaken from Cuphead, wondering if their skills are depleting as they grow increasingly decrepit or if it’s the game. It’s the game.

And what’s the point of gating, anyway? Contra is an all-time classic, and one of my personal favorite NES games. It’s kind of a travesty that it wasn’t part of the NES Classic. Instead, we got inferior sequel Super C instead. Contra is hard, but it has the most famous means of overcoming that difficulty in the history of gaming: the Konami Code. If that wasn’t in the game, nobody would talk about Contra today. The Heart of Contra wouldn’t be one of the most legendary bosses of all time. It’d just be one of those NES games people say “cool, I remember it. It was hard” and then talk like blowhards about how games were better back in the day while reminiscing about all the titles they never got around to beating.

Has it ever been confirmed this is actually supposed to be a heart and not, you know, the Gonads of Contra?

So how is someone like me, an above average player, supposed to quantify the value of a game that didn’t just destroy me, but destroyed even better players I know? Indies are dependent on word of mouth, and “this game left me blistered and defeated” isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement to your average gamer. A critic isn’t an asshole for telling people the game is too hard to recommend, nor are they a pussy. You’re who gated the game off. And for what? So a small percentage of players who will never help you move a single unit outside their clubhouse can have a secret handshake “we’re the only real gamers” crowing moment? If they tell you that you’re selling out for including adjustable difficulty, you tell them to pony up a few hundred thousand dollars so your kids can go to college. I’m sure they’ll get right on that.

Filed under Editorials Tagged with , , , ,