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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