And we’re back with the Month of Contra, and we conclude the 8/16-bit era. Again, before we get to the main game, it’s time to take a look at…OK, this isn’t a Contra game, nothing about it is Contra in any way, even the running and gunning is crap…OK, to explain everything.
Contra Force, developed and published by Konami and was released in 1992 in the US only.
So how did this game come into fruition? Well this game was originally developed as an entirely different game, titled Arc Hound (アークハウンド Āku Haundo). The game was an original game and was even advertised in many Japanese gaming magazines. The game was cancelled but Konami decided to release it in the US and re-titled it to make it a Contra game. Well now this all makes sense doesn’t it, it’s another game where it was meant to be something else but became something else to make more money.
Say, didn't Nintendo do something similar to a game a British developer was making and it also became the black sheep of the series? Foreshadowing much?
The game is set in 1992 (canonically a prequel to the Contra series…if you accept the game being canon, the C-Force, is formed to protect Neocity from terrorism…non-brown people terrorism, different times you know. Burns, who is the team leader, gets a phone call from Fox, an informant who informs him that the Head of Intelligence is under threat by the D.N.M.E. But something went wrong and it’s up to Burns and his team to defeat the criminal organisation and save Neocity.
You can select up to four characters; Burns is the team's leader, Iron, the heavy weapons guy, Smith, the sharpshooter and Beans, the demolition man. So because I don’t always act immature, I’m going to call them Mr. Burns, Iron Man, Will Smith and Mr. Bean.
There are five stages, three are normal platforming stages and two are overhead stages like Super Contra, but each of them having a boss at the end. To get weapons…well, it doesn’t work normally like other Contra games. You collect these boxes and the bar below will activate the new weapon, or you can wait to collect another one and get something else. So the game works like Gradius…also made by Konami. I’m sure it worked in that game but it really doesn’t in this game, since in the original Contra games, you got a new weapon and stuff could get done and it felt rewarding. This doesn’t work and you’re left with a measly weapon depending on what character you chose.
I guess it would be fine but NO! This game is horrible; we have chugging framerates up the wazoo; sprites flickering so badly, the controls are incredibly sluggish and only feels like Contra if it was the alpha beta version, it’s only 40% Contra and the rest an unfinished game technical-wise, an utter smell of desperation on Konami’s side.
The graphics are OK for the NES but this was 1992, they could do better than this. The level design is just decent at best, even when taking Contra away from it, it looks ho-hum. The music is forgettable and not really interesting; nothing has beaten Super Contra at the moment.
Overall, Contra Force is the 8-bit definition of pointless. It’s not fun, not fast-paced, a sluggish experience to the end, it’s not Contra. I’ve had enough of this crap; I need a recovery pill in the form of a legitimate Contra game.
And it’s on Sega! Contra: Hard Corps, known in Japan as Contra: The Hard Corps (魂斗羅 ザ・ハードコア Kontora Za Hādo Koa) and in Europe as simply Probotector, it was released in 1994 worldwide.
Its 2641, five years after the events of Contra III: The Alien Wars, a terrorist group led by General Bahamut…WHAT? TERRORISTS AGAIN? Oh, they stole an alien cell and are using it for world domination…OK, this is Contra. A new task force known as Hard Corps (Because it has to) are sent to defeat the evil forces. New to a game like this is that it’s more story-driven as it has branching paths you can pick which leads to multiple endings. There’s even one that involves monkeys…I’m not joking.
Instead of Bill and Lance, we get four new characters, two humans, a wolfman and a robot (I don’t know), Ray Poward, a male soldier, Sheena Etranzi, a female soldier, Brad Fang, a wolfman and Browny, a robot.
The game is Contra…THIS IS CONTRA YOU…CONTRA FAKER…FORCE…anyway, you run and gun…this is why I hate marathon reviews like this. The game is quite similar to Contra 3, though the overhead stages are gone and it’s full blown side-scrolling platforming all the way, and I have no problem with that. In terms of weapons, they’ve been changed I guess and whilst the Spread Gun is gone, we still have effective weapons; even your default semi-automatic gun can be upgraded. But you can collect weapons and store them in a bar and you can select which weapon to currently use in the game.
Oh, the game is hard as always and the western versions do not have the Konami code or some alternative, but the Japanese version does. So how many lives do we get this time? 70? COOL! Actually the Japanese version is much easier as it has a health bar, you can take three hits before you die as well as unlimited continues. The gameplay is absolutely incredible, which is where we go to the graphics.
Whilst the Mode 7 was cool for the SNES at the time, what Konami did with this game is amazing, think of Gunstar Heroes’ graphical trickery and you got some awesome moments that make the SNES feel embarrassed. The music has brought back the bombastic action packed beats that have been sorely missing since Super Contra and I love it.
Overall, Contra: Hard Corps is utterly fantastic gameplay-wise and graphic-wise for the Sega Mega Drive. Whilst the graphics in Contra III are really good, I’m more impressed by what this game does and the gameplay is great to boot. So out of Contra III and Contra: Hard Corps, which one is my favourite? That…really is a hard question since they both have their great moments, but how about the one that feels like Contra the most and III has that edge, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter since I had my fun and frustrations with the games and the rest of the series so far.
You can get Contra Force on the NES and Contra: Hard Corps on the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis.
And that's it for the classic Contra series, but the next two games are all about trying to survive the next generation of gaming...needless to say...it was scraping the barrel.