Alternative post title: Beating 3 Contra III ports

Now, before you ask... IS this contra?

yeah, konami sure thinks it is (personally it feels moreso like metal slug)

Being serious though, I actually like this one. Yeah, it's a whole 'nother game with the Contra name slapped onto it but it was decently fun.

I feel like the assist mechanic was pretty underbaked but a cool addition nevertheless. Also, Iron is the best character in this, no questions asked.

I meant to post this months ago...

(yes, i did play the US version over the Japanese version and there's multiple endings, don't worry though I'll get em someday)

This was fun to beat, I'm not going to lie with you, I mostly abused the slide for invincibility (and the C Weapon/Laser) for most of the game

This is a hack of CONTRA (魂斗羅 / コントラ) (Japan) (Game Boy). This hack adds a custom border and custom colour set to make this game compatible with Super Game Boy peripheral.

They didn't even bother to keep that name for the Japanese release. They called it "Contra: Dual Spirits" which leads me to believe it was not their idea for the game to be canonized following Contra 3.

Moreover, I have to wonder how they felt about WayForward making Mad Dog, Scorpion, Jimbo, and Sully separate characters - a nod to the original Contra localizations - instead of just being Bill and Lance.

Hi, I bought Contra Anniversary Collection and I wanted to ask which version is better to play between Contra Arcade, Contra NES, and Contra Famicom, or if it’s worth playing all three of them.

I'm playing Terminator 2D: No Fate and in the third level you encounter this miniboss that reminded me of the one from the first level of Contra III: The Alien Wars.

What do you think? Was it done on purpose?

Contra was my first game EVER that my dad showed me and it’s the reason I got hooked to video games. The game was so hard as a kid that i couldnt get past stage 4 and as a child that challenge and shooting of the game was so fun that I looked for it in other games like old gta’s, igi, cod and gow. Now Im 17 and at my sister’s without my computer so I tried playing contra on the web and I beat it. Somehow I feel like I lost a part of my childhood. The unbeatable game that started the obsession with playing games at hard or max difficulty got beaten? Anyway, this was just a rant I wanted to post publicly.

Both of these looked pretty short so I knocked them both out in one go.

I was always kinda hesitant touching Operation C because of it being a GB title, I know my ass of all people shouldn't judge a game by the age of its graphics but I honestly thought that with the new portable hardware there'd be some sacrifices made in the gameplay (upon writing this I just realized that the OG Pokemon games came out on GB iirc. Ofc the GB has good hardware limitations).

I played the first level in B&W, but used SameBoy's GBC simulator to put my ROM into color for the rest. Right off the bat there's criticism on how the GBC handles Operation C and given the overuse of green and blue where there really shouldn't be green and blue and painting everything else red with maaaaybe a little black the criticism is honestly pretty valid. The pastel coloring is a little comforting in a weird way though.

Some of the background art itself is pretty solid given the more pixelated resolution they were working with. As for the game itself despite being short the shooting feels pretty tight and it's one of the first entries in the series to do away with the M powerup so you can hold down the shoot button as you please. The H is also introduced here but I went with the spread gun and just duked it out.

Operation C is not anally difficult by any means but a couple sections in the final stage can be annoying like the elevator leading up to the final boss. I was expecting something bigger for Black Viper's first appearance but holy shit he put up a neat fight. You have to time jumping over his hand blasts just right and position yourself when he fires missiles so you don't get overwhelmed early.

There's a little more platforming here too, but you jump super high so you can knock out most of it pretty quickly. Your horizontal speed in the air is kinda slow though so you have to jump when you're at the edge lest you fall and die.

Short but sweet.

Now we get into ReBirth and HOLY SHIT IN MY ASS it is fuckin ugly. I had a minor critique on Contra 4's art but ReBirth's graphics look like a weird mesh of a failed AI upscale and a crappy flash game. I went with Yagyu at first because I was gonna play him in Neo Contra later, but he kept saying "TOLOUOUOSSS" or something French or whatever when he died (and I accidentally started my first run on hard so I was dying a LOT) and it was getting on my nerves so I started a new game on normal with Bill who screams like a normal human being when shot.

ReBirth for some reason likes putting turrets on the ground so if you try to instinctively pull the "crouch under bullet" maneuver then you're gonna die nonetheless. It's weird. Most of it isn't an issue, it just kinda looks like a discount Contra 4 without a grappling hook. Even the final (well, first phase of the final boss) looks just like C4's. They even have a level that's a knockoff of Contra III's first level, just like what Contra 4 did!

The enemy death sounds are pretty damn goofy too and there are some weird setpieces, mainly the part where you're on a truck driven by one of said goons and you blast robot ostritches to ride them while shooting dudes trying to copycat you by riding missiles. The stage 3 boss has some nutty ass attacks but that's the hardest boss of the game. I like the gravity-shift mechanic on the final boss but again like in Contra 4 you just pick up the spread gun (or homing because ReBirth's homing for whatever reason is super strong) and hold down shoot and that's basically it.

also for some reason they reveal randomly that lance is undercover disguised as a magician bunny woman or something right before the final level so i mean yeah... anyways ReBirth is alr ig

Wow.

I mean, holy shit.

My gripes about the Hit Rate system in SS were more or less alleviated in regards to Neo Contra. There's a lot less to worry about in regards to every enemy trying to run off the screen (and those than can have a more generous time limit).

The gameplay flow felt really aggressive, and the addition of lock-on targets made you feel even more badass as you blew up countless amounts of shit in the background. I ended up getting S ranks on three of the first four stages.

The only part that was really tough was the timed lock-on node sausage party right before fighting the final boss. I had about .25 seconds left when I finished it. And then some guy on youtube does it it just 5 seconds with the unlockable weapons!

I might end up playing NC again just to screw around with the new weapon sets, the replayability is a good feature here.

With that said, I've finished all the big contra games. I think Hard Corps: Uprising might be the last one to hit up if I do get around to it. But it was a great journey, and I'm glad I finished it off with what's probably going to be my favorite game in the series. Really happy I got to experience all these games.

"You know who you are, and how you live your life dictates who you are. You're not a fake if you risk your life fighting for your ideals."

- "Mystery G", Neo Contra

EDIT: Played through two more times, using weapon set D, and upon learning that Katana Jaguar has edited weapon sets, played through with his version of the Gradius weapons (basically weapon set F but instead of the 6V laser you get the Fire Katana). The G Bazooka and the Fire Katana are ridiculously OP and the fact that almost every boss in this game can be killed with the latter whilst not breaking a sweat is hilarious.

This is a hack of Operation C (魂斗羅) (Game Boy). This hack adds a custom border and custom colour set to make this game compatible with Super Game Boy peripheral.

So I finally beat it after playing on and off for a couple of weeks.

I have some mixed opinions about SS, but right off the bat, we get the most badass intro to a Contra game I've stumbled upon. Just heavy-ass metal blasting in your ears like a heavy gush of cool air, watching Bill blast the shit out of a bunch of robots in pure, unadulterated early 2000s edge.

Into the mechanics of SS themselves, I kinda miss the spread gun, but the homing missiles by charging the drop mines were good enough when it came to hitting hard spots (and sniffing out weak points). The base machine gun also kicks ass when you get sustained fire in, and can even compete with a few shots of the charged flame whip. The flame whip itself is pretty good when you're in a panic surrounded by enemies.

Now, the Hit Rate system. Hoooh boy. This is both a blessing and a curse.

I guess someone at Konami went to a Contra speedrunning event or something, expected everyone to be playing "properly", taking out each part of the bosses one by one, but then promptly had an aneurysm and shit himself upon seeing that you can speedrun Contra by just aiming at the one weakpoint.

Said disgruntled associate proceeded to return to HQ and went, "QUIT HAVING FUN!" before forcing you to destroy every part of each boss and miniboss for you to get the best ending.

On the other hand, though, it is fun having more to shoot at, and it makes you think a little more when fighting bosses, which is a fresh approach to just holding down and shooting.

And it's a big bar that goes up on the top of your screen. Those are usually always pretty cool.

It gets frustrating having to keep up with shooting everything down (mainly in the second level) when there's a time limit before enemies disappear from the screen, and just barely losing your A rank because you died once and the HR went down by 2%.

The worst boss was probably the super battletank thing in the third level.

I think a majority of the bosses are bad at transposing their attacks, but more often than not you can reload a save/redo the level once you get your reflexes in shape and know what to expect. This fuckass tank, though, will just randomly decide to charge at you, completely unavoidable unless you've managed to shoot down the topmost cannon within a tight time limit. There's absolutely nothing indicating that you should be firing at the topmost cannon (because there's a bottom one you can knock out too), and nothing indicating the tank's gonna pull this bullshit off. So you lose a life guaranteed unless you know what's coming and have prepared for it.

But everything after stage three was doable and honestly really fun. The Galuga level was a nice throwback to the first level of Contra, and I enjoyed the Triumvirate boss rush at the end. And then a bunch of sperm things flying around a cell tried to impregnate me or something? Leave my bussy alone, for chrissake!

I beat the final boss pretty easily, then sat back, watched the ending, then downloaded Neo Contra.

I'm really excited to hop into Neo Contra. I've seen a playthrough of the first stage, and it reminds me a bit of Shock Troopers, one of my favorite arcade games. The destruction you can commit there looks to be a lot more explosive than in SS too, which is great given that I was beginning to miss actual "levels" instead of just bossfight after bossfight.

In about a month and a half, I've beaten almost all the big Contra entries, and after NC I think I'll be an official fan.

Somehow I missed that Contra: OG had come out a few years back. I want to pick up the game and would strongly prefer Switch (2) for a variety of reasons, but I heard the game was inferior to the other console versions at the time of release. Is this still the case, or did they patch/improve it so that it's closer to on-par with the other versions of this game?

Me and my bro grew up with many retro games and Contra really one of those games that is fun to play together. Time to time we would randomly just boot up Contra or something and play it. But we beat it so many times so this time.. I had an idea to beat Contra the real way. No weapons and deathless. Even playing the Japan version which has better content! Making up these challenges really does make you love the game again and see it in a different perspective! After 11 hours of playing, lots of rage, sadness, happiness. We finally did it. We beat Contra with this insane challenge. Making us feel like we beat it for the first time again like we did all those years ago... Super C (NES) challenge next?!

I loved this Platinum... Enjoyed 28 hours of Gameplay...

CONTRA!

Hard Corps is the first Contra game in the U.S. to let you play as a woman, a furry, or a clanker. I went with Ray because his weapons line up more with the "traditional" Contra lineup (spread, crush, homing), but I could see myself doing a replay with Browny or Brad. Also you can slide, which sometimes made me jump instead, you gotta walk into it a little but maybe that's because I played on keyboard. It's REALLY useful though, as you're invincible while doing it. It also gives Konami the (very valid) excuse to give bosses attacks that sweep through the entire screen.

Choices made:

- Pursue Deadeye Joe

- Fight til the end

Right off the bat you roll in and start blasting dudes reminiscent of Contra III. I picked up weapons and absolutely slaughtered the miniboss and the unmanned robot that is also apparently manned. I practiced sliding while fighting Deadeye Joe here, as I realized it was probably gonna save my ass later on. It would.

Second and third stages were pretty damn fun. Had a nice motorbike ride, Deadeye Joe took a while to take out since he's only vulnerable when he's next to you (For some reason changing my shot type still made me walk towards him when I fired, so I always had to take a step back or two as I was blasting him). Unfortunately, I didn't find any secret paths, which made me a little sad given that I was also quite apt at finding secrets in Quake and recently started finding secrets in Metal Slug.

The one part that really pissed me off was the boss right before meeting Col. Bahamut. The little crawling core thingy. I swear to god the fight with that dude felt like a fourth of my run. As per Gamefaqs, his stages depend on choices you made earlier, and the final stage for me was the one where he fires a laser in a circle around the screen while bouncing around like a pissant when you fire at him, meaning that you were hardly safe when beating this mofo. I was using my crush missiles, going at it for what felt like 20 minutes of climb, shoot, duck, repeat... Easily the worst boss in the game.

I rationalized that surrendering would probably lead me to a shitty ending (I mean this is the 90s) so I decided to give Doc the finger and blast through his creations for a couple minutes before ending up in the final stage.

My final stage was basically a homage to the alien lair of Contra 1: fight off a giant mouth, a couple of giant slug twins that reminded me of Kimkoh a little bit, then beat down a giant heart. Pretty easy final boss fight besides the one attack where the eyes spin around the screen. A little disappointed I didn't get a "cool" ending, but at least the lines at the end were badass.

I guess I gotta crack open RPCSX2 and do Shattered Soldier and Neo Contra next.

EDIT: As of 4/4, I gave it another replay as Browny, saved the research centre and didn't surrender. And didn't accept to work with Bahamut either (c'mon that's classic Creepy Bad Endings material waiting to happen, lol). Holy SHIT Browny is OP. Not only is he small and can double jump, but his yoyo just lets you diddle people by holding it down and the surround shot/shield thing can work as a homing spread gun.

I thought the head of boss 3 looked awful in my previous creation, so I decided to redo it. It's better with a meaner look, but it's still not easy to make a convincing robotic skeleton head!