This game's apparent word play on 'hardcore' is a pretty accurate descriptor as far as things go because Contra Hard Corps is a crazy intense experience from start to finish.

The game starts with an armored car barreling through enemies in a desolate city before crashing with your character smashing through the windshield into immediate action. You literally hit the ground running to the crunching electronic soundtrack. The game just never lets up from this manic start with giant robot bosses, bike chases, aliens, dropships, helicopters and other things I don't want to spoil because on each replay I was constantly surprised by the amount of crazy content Konami fit onto this game.

This is the first Contra I have played with a real attempt at story. Set 5 years after Contra III with a terrorist group led by a former soldier stealing an alien cell to experiment on. The great thing about it though is there are cutscenes and story choices that actually direct the flow of the game into a branching path with multiple endings and stages giving it a good amount of re-playability to see all the different variations, additional levels and boss fights.

You can choose between four different characters to play as; Ray, Sheena, Browny and Brad. Two humans, a robot and a ...werewolf? Each character can carry up to 4 weapons collected as you play which they can freely swap between. When you die you only lose the weapon you were carrying which can be used strategically if you're good enough similar to one of my other favorite megadrive games Thunder Force IV. Additionally each characters arsenal is actually different so there is some variation in experimenting between which you like most. No matter who you pick this game just feels good to play. Movements are precise, smooth and fast with the option to lock in place to fire without moving, slide and weapon switch. It just feels comfortable.

Not going to lie, after not really enjoying most of the older Contra's going into this kind of blew me away. The only thing to be really aware of is Contra Hard Corps isn't a walk in the park. I used save states on the anniversary collection to make it through and did find my first play through frustrating. On my 5th run having grown accustomed to the controls and fast paced run and gun gameplay however I was starting to fly through it so depending on your skill level there may be a barrier to get past but I can't recommend this enough. There was no need for Konami to go this hard (corps).

+ Crazy set pieces, enemies and fast paced gameplay.
+ Crunchy pounding music.
+ Gorgeous sprites and visuals.
+ Doesn't let up.

- May be a bit too hard for some people.

To me Contra Hard Corps represents the Sega Genesis perfectly. It's action-packed, full of attitude, and loud noises. This instance here where one guy in a jet pack is defeated with the result being the most massive explosion ever that lasts five seconds is peak Genesis.

Multiple characters with multiple weapons, and multiple paths with multiple endings including a joke ending and one for joining the bad guy is a crapton of replay value. It really makes you wonder why they went out of their way to make it so hard in the western versions. Oh right, it's Konami. They hate westerners, same shit they've been doing since Bayou Billy. Actually, I do feel it's debatable whether traditional one-hit kills or three hits per life is better, but one thing I absolutely detest no matter what is limited continues. To hell with that, either play the JP version or use the HP restoration patch. Crank the lives to ten in that if you must, because this game is fantastic and should be played by everyone regardless of skill level. Potentially a top three Genesis title for me, at the very least right now while I'm on my Hard Corps high. Konami seriously had their shit together on the Genesis.

I also just learned they gave the PAL version one less continue to work with than the NA version. They had life hard enough with the dopey changes you made to the sprites and 50hz displays, you really gotta kick'em while they're down like that?

Put Brad Fang in Smash Bros. Such skill to drive a motorcycle one-handed.

As some reviews have already mentioned, Contra Hard Corps has a lot in common with Gunstar Heroes (another Genesis classic): a relatively brief game with fantastically imaginative set-pieces and boss fights, which somehow manages to convey what you need to be doing despite ten different flavors of chaos happening onscreen at once. But while Gunstar Heroes' vast array of different weapons and forgiving difficulty seem to invite you to experiment and have fun, Contra Hard Corps is brutal and unforgiving, especially in the US version with its one-hit deaths and no continues.

Your moveset (you can switch weapons, shoot, jump, slide, and switch between 'move while firing' and 'stand still while firing' modes) seems bare-bones at first, but turns out to be perfectly suited to the challenges you will face. The controls are tight and responsive and are a big reason why the brutal difficulty still feels fair; being able to switch between movement modes at will ended up being an essential skill, as it gave me a lot of control over my movement and positioning in boss fights. The game throws variety of set-pieces at you - a mini-boss rush while balancing on the wings of a plane, a sequence where you gallop along on a bipedal robot, and even one where the camera's perspective shifts 90 degrees and focuses on you from the front as you dodge attacks from a robot chasing you from behind! It's testament to the amazing game feel that these sequences feel just as tight and easy to control as the side scrolling sections, and never feel gimmicky.

The super satisfying gameplay, combined with multiple endings and an excellent soundtrack, make this one of the biggest highlights in the Genesis library. I recommend this to anyone and everyone - if the high difficulty is a turn-off, try the Japanese version (which gives you a life bar and continues)!

Has some weird pacing--Long Hand Guy is a vibe-killer every time--and there are some parts that are way too easy to cheese with homing weapons... but other than that, this is a kick-ass and truly generous video game, with 4 playable characters (each with 4 unique weapons) and branching paths with six different endings. Plus, if you're playing the JP version, you get infinite continues, checkpoints, three hits before a death, and restored health at the end of a level(!!!); which, on top of the nice bevy of extends you get for scoring, makes for a downright pleasant 1CC experience (depending greatly, of course, on the path you choose).

The Mega Drive was just a goddamn embarrassment of riches for run-and-guns, huh? Alien Soldier is my one true king, but I honestly don't know which I'd choose between this and Gunstar Heroes... shocked to even be saying that, but there it is. GG Konami.

Finally: best character-select screen in a video game? Maybe. (Has anyone made a Coolest-Character-Select-Screens list on here? I should do that.)

I love Genesis, but if there's one thing I hate about its library, it's how over-produced and under-designed these can be, and every time I replay Hard Corps I'm convinced it's the epitome of this. Meet an awesome boss, kill it in 15 seconds before it does anything, move to the next one. Rinse and repeat for 6 stages. All these crazy moments and spectacles that obviously took a ton of work to implement, and they play themselves out with barely any input on your behalf. Barely any running or gunning. This is actually also an issue with Contra 3, and it's arguably worse there, but it feels so much louder and overt here because of the difference in scope.

Playing the JP version with health is by F A R the easiest Contra game, not even close. And why health in the game named 'Hard Corps', the cooler, edgier one obviously intended to be a pro-player gauntlet? It's obvious it was a last-moment inclusion when the devteam realized all your deaths were due to memorization-based pitfalls, and they chalked up they'd rather let players see all the cool shit than have them burn 10 hours into the same scripted sections just to see a burping alien foot or the pelican version of Mighty Orbots.

Idk, cool game, rad game, still fun just for merit what's here, I'm gonna come back to it like 6 months from now and notice something new in the backgrounds, but the gameplay is so so so so so not there and I can't help but pine for a version where these bosses kick and scream and go rabid like actual bloated alien menaces should.

Contra Hard Corps is definitely hard, especially with the limited amount of lives you are given (and the limited continues), and how fast this game can get!

But oddly enough, I didn't find it as frustrating as Contra III: The Alien Wars. Maybe it was because of the route, or maybe it's because how I'm more used to the Contra series at this point, but regardless, I found that the game felt much more "no nonsense" than its previous entries.

Coupled that with the fact that you can hold on to 4 different weapons at the same time (and also bombs), and you can play as 4 different characters and the soundtrack kicks ass... yeah, this is a good Contra game.

A very hard one, but a good one, nonetheless.

Simplesmente do caralho. Não tenho o que dizer, esse é o jogo mais épico e virado no CARALHO que essa franquia teve até agora.

E de novo, a versão japa salvou a gente, esse jogo é tão maluco que na versão original além do continue infinito, ele tinha FUCKING BARRA DE VIDA, sim faz sentido toda a maluquice que é Hard Corps.

Dito isso, incrível, fiz o final D (outra coisa foda esse lance de rotas, da um valor replay bonzão) e foi tudo muito irado, bosses mais épicos e fumados da franquia, a ação mais desenfreada que vi em um run and gun na vida, é o suco do IRADO mais IRADO de todos os tempos.

Yeah, It's fucking awesome. Konami squeezed every little thing out of the mega drive with this one. The music rocks, there's explosions and shit everywhere, four playable characters, you can slide now, there's branching levels, a secret ending where you fight a robot belmont (y'know, the castlevania guys), go back in time and become monkey king or whatever, and it's actually accessible with a heavy asterisk because yet again 90s game localizers and/or publishers were just moronic sometimes and were convinced that everything needed to be made arbitrarily harder to artificially extend playtime. There's no beating around the bush here, play the Japanese version. If limited continues and one hit per death sounds daunting, just know that there's always a version of the game available with unlimited continues and 3 hit points per life. This and Alien soldier cement the mega drive as the platform for run 'n guns of the time. Pure high octane, high adrenaline action.

I tried this game several times in the past and it never clicked. I appreciated how weird and ambitious it is but mostly figured it wasn't for me, especially the US version which removed not only the unlimited continues but also the life bar you have in the original version. However I'm cured. This time I got it. The game kicks all kinds of ass. Much like its cousin, Castlevania Bloodlines, this one is even better than its SNES counterpart in a lot of ways.

Probably the most standout gimmick is that this game has a 'story' and branching paths based on a few choices you make at certain points. It's five years after Contra III and mumbles vaguely so anyway you're a super cop who shoots robots and aliens involved in robot and alien crime. The characters are all very broadly-drawn archetypes, with the emphasis on putting you in all kinds of outrageous scenarios. The comparison to a CYOA book is obvious but apt, here, as a slight variation on the usual film inspirations which Contra has always worn on its sleeve.

So you've also got four whole playable characters in this one: A boring human dude and lady, a robot, and a werewolf with robot arms, which I don't need to tell you is the coolest shit you've ever seen. They each have different weapons and some slight variations in ability, and that all feeds into the non-standard weapon system this one has that makes co-op play more interesting and kind of helps the whole 'oops you died once now rot in hell' factor old Contras had. I like this system enough that it's a shame it was never actually built upon for any other game to my knowledge.

Ultimately, though, it's the levels and bosses that will sink and swim a goofy action game, and Hard Corps delivers on both game and aesthetic design here. Everything is so goofy. One of the first bosses is a gigantic cyclops robot that dances for no reason. At one point a bunch of enemy soldiers make a human pyramid as another miniboss encounter. Beautifully deranged stuff. The patterns are usually pretty simple and you can learn and dodge everything with practice, which is exactly what I want. There's definitely a Gunstar Heroes vibe to it, though I'm not sure how many staff the games had in common. With the game being much easier than Contra III, though, I really didn't mind the fact that they made it so much harder! I'm much more confident trying to beat this than III and its not close.

Hard Corps represents the best parts of the Genesis/Mega Drive, which is being bonkers, having farty synths, and kicking ass. I was an absolute nincompoop for thinking it was bad all these years.

El mejor juego de Contra que se ha sacado, la dificultad es algo increíble en esta entrega, la banda sonora es simplemente de las mejores y fue el primer juego de Contra en tener varios finales alternativo y la posibilidad de escoger entre varios personajes (cada uno con su habilidad y arma únicas), la historia es bastante simular a la de entregas anteriores, pero eso no le quita lo entretenida que es. El juego al igual que sus entregas precedentes cuenta con versiones diferentes dependiendo en la región en la que se jugó, la versión Americana es la más difícil ya que en esta pierdes una vida por un solo golpe, por lo que es más fácil perder la partida (recomendado solo para personas con buenos reflejos o que ya se conozcan bastante bien el juego), la versión Japonesa es un poco mas simple, ya que en esta se requiere mínimo 3 golpes para perder una vida, por lo que es un poco mas fácil llegar al final de nivel, la versión Europea es igual a la versión Americana, solo aplicando censura, convirtiendo a todos en robot (supongo que en aquella época estaba mal visto que humanos fueran a una guerra contra robots, por lo que supongo que remplazaron a los humanos para que fuera una guerra de Robots contra otros Robots).

Like with Castlevania, the Contra franchise, at this point in time, was on a seemingly perfect streak, releasing some of, if not THE best run ‘n gun games of the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, giving the player plenty of fast-paced, action packed gameplay with some fantastic visuals that only a few others were able to replicate. They were all some of the best third-party games that you could get from a Nintendo console, right alongside other heavy hitters on those systems, but in terms of any games from this series from Sega’s systems, they were left high and dry of any of that sweet Contra goodness. It didn’t really matter too much, cause they had Gunstar Heroes, which was already just as great as Contra, but thankfully, like with Castlevania: Bloodlines, Konami would give the Sega Genesis a taste of what Contra could really do, and they would release Contra: Hard Corps.

Honestly, I didn’t expect too much when it came to this particular entry in the series. I thought it was gonna be great, of course, but I didn’t think it was really gonna do anything that ground-breaking for the series, and would just serve as another entry, not being able to top The Alien Wars in terms of sheer quality. However, after playing it, I realize now that I was wrong. Dead wrong. Even after one playthrough of the game, I knew that this game was absolutely fantastic, but after seeing all that this game has to offer, I can say with confidence that it is PHENOMENAL, and without a doubt the best entry in the series so far. Sure, I guess I could find some nitpicks in it if I looked hard enough, but even then, none of that would stand in the way from the gargantuan amount of fun that I was having with it, and I am so glad I finally checked it out after so long.

The story is mostly what you expect from a Contra game, where in the year 2641, crime has run rampant as a result of the events of The Alien Wars, which results in the formation of the Contra Hard Corps to fight back against it, and one day, when a mysterious hacker reprograms a bunch of robots to cause even more destruction around the world, it is up to the Hard Corps to destroy them all and find out what is going on, which is as simplistic as one of these game’s plots can get, but at the same time, I am having too much fun to care. The graphics are fantastic, being one of the best looking games I have seen on the system, while delivering plenty of great effects, wonderful designs of characters and bosses, and environments for you to blast your way through, the music is, of course, incredible, since it is a Konami game from the 90’s, although a lot of the tracks do sound very similar to each other, but I didn’t mind that all too much, the control is just as tight and responsive as ever, although it did take a bit to get used to the new mechanics the game offered, but it wasn’t a deal breaker at all, and the gameplay was mostly the same run ‘n gun action we know and love, but expanded on even further to make it near perfect in my eyes.

The game is a run ‘n gun game, where you take control of one of the Contra Hard Corps, including Ray Poward, Sheena Etranzi, Brad Fang, and Browny (ok, not gonna lie, those names are pretty bad, even for a 90’s game), go through many different stages through plenty of different environments, even if they aren’t too creative or different from other titles in the series, run, jump, and shoot through many different foes as you do your best to survive the onslaught that is laid out before you, gather plenty of different weapons and bombs along the way to give yourself a fighting edge over your foes, and take on some truly unforgettable bosses, which will test your skill and reflexes in the best ways possible. Those who are well versed with Contra games will be able to jump right in and have a great time, which definitely was the case for me, while also being able to enjoy the new elements implemented to make the game much more enjoyable.

The game plays pretty similarly to any other Contra game, where you run through linear stages, shoot every single thing that moves, and gather plenty of badass weapons to use to help you out throughout your journey, but there are new features here that make the game much more fun to play, even when it was already great to begin with. First of all, in terms of controls, you now have a brand new sliding maneuver that you can use, which becomes very helpful in certain scenarios, and there is also an option now to choose what type of shooting style you want to work with throughout the game… and by that, I mean it makes it so that you either stay still while shooting or move around. This change may not sound like a big deal to most, but for me, it is what I have been waiting for ever since I first played the original game. While it was never that big of an issue, one of my biggest pet peeves with this game, or any other run ‘n gun game, was how whenever you would be aiming diagonally towards an enemy, most of the time, you would run in the direction you are holding, and thus, make shooting in said direction more stressful than it needed to be. Now, you can switch between moving and not moving at any time, which cements this as being perfection in video game form, and you cannot tell me otherwise.

Not only that, but there are also the ACTUAL new features that the game has, such as the case with the weapons. In every previous game in this series, whenever you got a new weapon from a capsule, it would automatically replace the weapon you currently had, which can be useful most of the time, but it can also be a detriment when you have a really good weapon that you don’t want to lose. Here, however, you can carry multiple weapons all at once, being able to switch between them at any time, and whenever you die, you lose the weapon you are currently holding rather than all of them. Again, that kind of shit may not matter so much to some, but this is EVERYTHING to me, as it allows the player to have a fighting chance in many cases, even after death, and makes the game that much more fun and exciting.

And finally, for the last, and definitely the best change that the game makes to the series, is the branching paths. At certain points throughout the game, you will be given the choice to go to one of two different routes, which not only determines what happens in the story, but it also determines what stage you will go to next. There aren’t that many of these choices throughout the game, but there are many different combinations you can make with choosing specific options. For example, in one part, you can choose to chase after this guy named Deadeye Joe, and later down the road, you can choose to fight to the end when faced against a seemingly unwinnable situation. That all leads down one path already, full of plenty of stages that you can have fun with, but then, in another playthrough, you can choose to still chase after Deadeye Joe, but you can also choose to surrender to said unwinnable situation, which leads to an entirely new path full of unique stages, bosses, and story elements. All of this leads to the possibility of getting six different endings, from the best ending to the worst ending, which creates plenty of replay value for those that loved the game already, while also providing a lot of content to experience.

I genuinely can’t think of any actual issues that I have with this game, I had that much of a great time with it. If I had to say anything, I could say that, like with most other Contra games, this game is (no pun intended) pretty goddamn hard, I’d argue even more so than the other games in the series, since there is no option to change the difficulty around, and there isn’t any Konami code to save you this time (unless you are playing the Japanese version). But thankfully, from what I experienced, not much of that difficulty is really all that bad, and there is also the possibility that you could… you know… get good. That’s what I had to do, and it was all the more satisfying because of it.

Overall, despite how the difficulty of the game will still make sure to give you a good ol’ kick in the teeth, this is, in my opinion, the best Contra game so far, and one of the best run ‘n gun games I have ever played, being a non-stop wave of energy, action, and entertainment from start to finish, while offering plenty of desired changes and content to where I didn’t want to stop playing even when it was all said and done. I would absolutely recommend it for those who are big fans of the Contra series, as well as those who love run ‘n gun games in general, because, in my opinion, this game gives you practically everything you could ever want from one of these games, especially from this era. Although, now that all of that is said and done, I can’t help but feel a little upset, because since this game is pretty much perfect, none of the other Contra games after this will be able to reach the same quality as this. But hey, I am willing to see how they will try… and fail horribly.

Game #514

Finally, I get to talk about a good video game.

Contra: Hard Corps lives up to its name. It's tough as hell and leans heavily into a 90's "hardcore" attitude that drives the pace and action of the entire game. Some of the most insane, colorful, and explosive set pieces on the Genesis are all crammed into this one little cart. You start the game plowing through enemies in an armored vehicle, which you then fly out the front window of with barely a second of respite before you need to mow down swarms of attacking bad guys, only to wrap up the game climbing to the top of an out-of-control rocket containing a grotesque alien who is actively breaking through the hull to attack you. That's assuming you stick to the main story path and get the true ending. There's an impressive amount of alternate exits and routes you can take, with a number of different endings to earn along the way. In a way, it's like a prototypical Shadow the Hedgehog, although that game doesn't let you travel back in time and marry a monkey. A rare knock against Shadow the Hedgehog, but if any game were to one-up it, it's Contra: Hard Corps.

As is the case with most Contra games, Hard Corps is best enjoyed with a friend, and each character provides enough of a difference in terms of their movement and weapon options that everyone will find one that suits them best. Personally, I really like Brownie. He's a tiny robot, which means he has the smallest hitbox, and I'm 5'6" so it's good to have representation in video games. That said, Hard Corps is good enough that if you want to play it solo, you'll still have a great time. Either way, just be prepared to die a lot. Hard Corps is absolutely brutal, but learning the game and overcoming it feels satisfying in a way that's unparalleled on the Genesis. It also throws you back in the action so fast that a game over only feels like a mere hiccup, and if you find yourself becoming frustrated with one particular route it's not asking too much to simply switch onto another.

The soundtrack is also completely off the wall. Every track is about as frenetic as it can possibly be. Hiroshi Kobayashi and his team knew their way around the YM2612, playing to its strengths, particularly in its ability to produce an incredibly grungy sound. Needless to say, it's well-suited to the action and aesthetic style of Hard Corps.

Everything about Hard Corps adds up into the best possible experience you could have with a Contra game, and it might just be one of the best run-and-guns on the Genesis to boot.

Did the two routes I skipped over on my first playthrough this time. I don't think I'm as partial to these two (Ultimate Being and Alien Heart) as the others, but it's not really important. What is important is just how much content and replayability there is here. More surprising is the amount of grotesque detail in all the final bosses, the unique movement and code for every individual boss, all that kind of stuff. I would say I don't know how this was pulled off in 1994, but if you look around a bit there is an absurd amount of cracked games from that year, and really the 93-95 period as a whole.

Gunstar Heroes is still my preferred of the two, but a big thing I like more here is the convenience of switching between free and fixed shots on a dime, whereas in Gunstar Heroes you have to choose between them at the start and stick with that. The soundtracks are about on par with each other, and Gunstar wins in most other aspects for me. Both 10s for sure though, and I'm not sure how I didn't realize it for my first playthrough of either of them.

I talked about it the first time, but this is actually another victim of difficulty being ramped up in the US version. I'm not actually sure if there's translated versions of the JP rom, but there are patches to add its health bar and unlimited continues into the US version. I would definitely recommend that first.

Fuck, man. I love run n' guns. I oughta try Metal Slug soon, everybody seems to love that one.

The other day I was playing The Adventures of Bayou Billy, a beat-em-up for the NES developed by Konami. It was incredibly ambitious for its time, packing brawling, lightgun shooting, and 3D driving all on one cartridge, but what stood out to me wasn’t the technical mastery, but the fact that it was hard as balls. Even as someone with Castlevania, Ninja Gaiden, and Gradius under my belt, this game was absolutely ridiculous. I looked up some info to see if I was doing something wrong, but as it turns out, when localizing the game for the west, Konami more than quadrupled the difficulty. You deal half the damage and last half as long in the brawler sections, and when driving you don’t get a health bar at all, instantly dying from any mistake. After my desperate struggle to finish the game, I booted up the Japanese version and beat it in one shot without dying. So, not only was I upset at Konami for putting westerners through that, I was also annoyed that there isn’t a, for lack of a better term, correct version of the game. One is way too hard, but the other is so easy that you can just stand in one place mashing the punch button and get through just fine.

The reason I bring this up is because Contra: Hard Corps was also tweaked for the West, but that might not be obvious when you first boot it up. It plays just like any other Contra game; you jump around trying to upgrade your gun as fast as you can so you can fill the screen with bullets before enemies kill you in one shot. So, what did they change? As it turns out, in the Japanese version you have a life bar, which seems like an alien concept to the Contra series. Dying in one hit is one of the little things that gives the series its identity, so this time when I tried the Japanese version after the American one, I had a much more puzzled reaction. The game was still hard, and I enjoyed how the repetition was much lower, but there was a feeling that it wasn’t quite right. Before jumping into Hard Corps, I had beaten Contra, Super C, 3, and 4 back-to-back, so the aforementioned departure in gameplay, combined with its shift in aesthetic, made it feel more like an imitator than a true member of the series. It didn’t make the different characters and weapons any less cool, and the set-pieces were still the best in the franchise, but it didn’t quite feel like Contra.

So, the question now is how much that feeling is truly worth. If analyzed by retro-gaming fans, I’m sure they would say the western version is definitive, while reviews done in a contextual vacuum would likely prefer the smoother Japanese version. What makes this extra complicated is how it’s influenced by a factor outside the game’s control, and even outside the control of the games it’s compared with. Contra used to be a huge name in gaming, but now it’s been more than ten years since any well-received titles have come out, and the cultural knowledge of what Contra means is fading from memory. So, what’s considered the better version of Contra: Hard Corps may slowly change over time, purely through a slow evaporation of the cultural context which set it apart from its contemporaries. Even that might be optimistic thinking though, considering how this game has never seen a rerelease, and is likely to disappear as soon as the brand consciousness which anchors it to gaming history starts fading away. That would be a shame since I really love this game, BOTH versions of it, so to help keep Contra alive, play this one. Remember what Contra was all about.

played as:
sheena (missile ending)
ray (big magnum ending)

Probably the apex of the Contra series. Sweeps the floor with the (already good) previous installments, and a part of me doubts they topped this one since. There's four different characters to play as, all with different weapons, and there are multiple paths with different bosses and endings to come across, allowing for a lot of replay value. I did the two routes that interested me the most first, and will be coming back for the others some day as well.

Difficulty wise, it's the hardest in the series up to this point. You know how hard the final boss in Contra III is? Imagine that for like, a decent half of the game. I plow my way through these older games with savestates, so it didn't hinder me too much of course, but it's very noticeable and I'd imagine doing it normally would be a hell of a task, albeit not as bad as some other nonsense I've played thus far. Luckily there's the Japanese version, which both adds continues and a life bar (new to the series!).

I see this compared to Gunstar Heroes a lot in here, and for good reason. They're very similar AND very close in quality. It could absolutley be coincidental, but keeping in mind Treasure was founded by former Konami employees who broke off after the latter rejected Gunstar Heroes, my guess is this game must have been an attempt to counter that one when it turned out successful. Who knows, though? They both kick ass and you should give them both a go. If I had to choose, however, Gunstar Heroes wins me over just a little due to easier difficulty and aesthetics.

Run ‘n Gun-a-thon — Part 3

Hard Corps is a tribrid of classic run ‘n gun action, Castlevania III branching paths and unique characters, and the boss rush focus of Cuphead. It’s easily the most distinct and replayable Contra. I would call it the best entry…if there was more platforming to vary up the level design like the first game. Each successive entry emphasized platforming less and less, and it’s practically nonexistent here. I suppose not every run ‘n gun needs platforming, but if you’re going to streamline the action into a boss rush, why still have sections where the player can mindlessly hold fire while moving right to reach the next single-screen arena? The levels are very dull outside of the bosses, which, to be fair, it excels at. Neat attack patterns and pitch-perfect pacing outside of a drawn-out autoscroller fight in level 4 and a slight overreliance on the “projectiles raining down from the sky” attack.

I’m glad I checked out the classic Contra games. They could be better, but none of them were bad. This marathon isn’t over yet though. I have two more beloved run ‘n guns on my list, both of them from the same developer and console generation. Stay tuned for my reviews of those!

(endings finished so far: all of them including the secret one)

yyyeah this goes really fucking hard lol. i kinda prefer the simplicity of the nes ones but i also absolutely adore the direction they went with, the whole multiple endings shtick is awesome and everything is just loads of fun to play through.
i do recommend getting a patched american version that brings back the 10 lives and 3 hitpoints from the japanese version if ur gonna play this tho. might make it almost too easy at points but also this IS a game where you die a lot. i would say its harder than the two nes ones but definitely easier than contra 3 if played the way i did at least

Hard Corps idea of an introduction is having you plow through some unsuspecting goons with your truck tank and it doesn't stop escalating for the remainder of its terse runtime. A single one of Hard Corps vividly imagined and gorgeously animated encounters would probably drain a considerable portion of a modern triple a production's budget but here the mega cyclops tearing up half the city in the first stage gets checks notes 30 seconds. That there are multiple characters, paths and endings slathered on to this action behemoth is the cherry on top for me. What a wonderful introduction to the world of run and guns.

A brilliant run-n-gun game that's marred by the Genesis' controller. Contra Hard Corps is designed and presented as an incredible step-up from Contra 3, as everything is refined so amazingly, and aspects of the formula have been expanded, such as the branching paths that lead to completely unique scenarios and each character having their own unique set of weapons.

The only thing, in my opinion, that stops it from being the best game in the series, is its controls. It manages to utilize everything you can do in the previous SNES game, but that game's controller had 6 buttons, which the game used nearly all of them. Now that they only have 3 buttons to work with, their means to make these functions available is creative, albeit bothersome when you're in the thick of shooting up your foes. It's hard getting used to these kinds of controls, especially considering they're unique to the rest of the franchise before and after.

Regardless, it's worth getting a hang of them and seeing the incredible scenarios this game puts you through, blazing with amazing graphics and explosive gameplay! A must-play for any fan of the run-n-gun franchise!