Wow. Just Awful. What did they do to Contra?

The first 2 Contra games were slick, responsive and so much fun to play. This is the opposite. Constant slow downs, flickering and sluggish gameplay. I thought my device was broken.

I read after playing that this wasn’t meant to be a Contra game to start with. You can tell.

At this point in 1992, the Contra franchise was killing it, not only having two successful titles for both arcades and the NES, as well as one moderately successful one for the Game Boy, but it also had a brand spanking new installment for the SNES that, needless to say, was praised for being the best game in the series up to that point, as well as possibly the best Contra game ever made. Meanwhile, elsewhere, Konami was developing a separate game for the NES in Japan known as Arc Hound. Not much was known about this title, but it was originally supposed to come out sometime before Contra III, and based on screenshots from magazines, you could tell that it was pretty much just another Contra game in all but name. However, somewhere along the way, the game was ultimately canceled in Japan, but would see the light of day exclusively in North America, where it would take on the Contra name, thus resulting in the third and final game in the Contra series for the NES, Contra Force.

Out of all the early Contra games, this is definitely the one that is the least talked about, as most people, even fans of Contra, probably don’t know it exists. I myself didn’t know about it until earlier this year when I saw an incomplete playthrough of it, and judging from what I saw, I was pretty unimpressed. It looked like every other Contra game, except somehow worse, and it definitely made me not wanna touch it any time in the near future. But hey, it has been almost a year since I initially saw that playthrough, so who knows, maybe my past judgment was a little harsh. After all, you don’t know how good a game is until you actually try it for yourself, right? So, I tried it and… yeah, it is very mediocre. It is not necessarily terrible by any means, and it does do some things differently from the other titles, but if you have already played either of the other NES Contra titles, then you have no reason to seek out this one.

The story is to take down an evil terrorist organization threatening the city of… Neocity, so hey, if you didn’t like killing aliens, but you LOVE killing terrorists, then this game is right up your alley, the graphics are pretty good, but then again, they look about as good as any other game on the NES at the time, and when compared to the previous two games for the system, it isn’t much of an upgrade, the music is also pretty good, being on the same level as the previous two games, but it is pretty standard stuff for the series, so no reason to go any further then this, the contra is about the same as every other Contra game on the system, but with some extra features that don’t really change things up too mechanically, so no need to worry, and the gameplay is pretty much what you would expect from Contra at this point, but with a few more bells and whistles added on to it.

The game is a run ‘n gun platformer, where you take control of either Burns, Irons, Smith, and… Beans (well, that’s the worst name for a military soldier I have ever heard), take on a set of five levels, ranging from the regular side-scrolling ones and the top-down ones seen in Super C and Operation C, and they are varied, but blend in enough with each other without much of a difference, take out many different soldiers that will try to take you down along the way, gather plenty of powerups to help you upgrade yourself and get an advantage on the enemies along the way, and take on several bosses that will test your skill in either standing completely still and shooting in one direction, or actually providing a challenge that will keep you on your toes. Yes, it is very standard stuff, especially for a Contra game, but there are some things that make this game stand out from the others, even if these elements aren’t too exciting.

As mentioned before, you do get powerups in this game, which, rather than upgrading you immediately, they instead work in a similar way to Gradius, where it highlights a bar at the bottom left that you can activate any time you want. To be honest, I prefer this style of upgrades much more than the typical style in Contra, as it allows you to choose the powerups you want rather than accidentally grabbing one you didn’t want. Unfortunately, the upgrades themselves are pretty lackluster, such as one that allows more bullets on screen, one that allows you to hold down the button for constant fire (which isn’t available right from the start, WHY), and one where you are invulnerable to damage when jumping. But, there is more firepower to be found with the other characters, who each have their own individual stats, and who you can swap with anytime, and take control of in the stages. Not only that, but you can also temporarily spawn a partner in with you to help you out during fights, which can be pretty handy in dire situations.

Now, all of that is fine and dandy, but is any of that enough to save this game? Honestly… not really. It is more or less just another Contra game, and while it is neat that we have all these neat new bells and whistles added on, it is all clearly just more of the same, and while that is usually not a bad thing, it doesn’t help that this game doesn’t feel that good to play. It feels very sluggish and clunky, almost like you are in complete control, but not really, and what doesn’t help it is the sheer amount of slowdown that is present here. You will rarely see instances where the game will function at a proper speed whenever action is taking place on screen, and you could argue “Oh, it’s an NES game, so slowdown is inevitable”, but this was made after two previous Contra games for the system, both of which had little slowdown compared to this, so there is no excuse for this. Aside from that though, it doesn’t have that many problems, so if you somehow played this as your first Contra, you’d probably love it, but for others, not so much.

Overall, despite a lot of neat little gameplay changes, as well as having the spirit and energy of Contra, this game really pales in comparison to the previous two NES titles, and simply just stands as being “ok” and nothing more. I would recommend it if you are a die-hard Contra fan, but for those who have already played plenty of Contra beforehand, or are unfamiliar with the series, then you’d best stick to the other games. We can leave all of those soldiers out to die in their battle, especially Beans. You know what you did, you son of a bitch.

Game #358

"We have Contra at home."

The Contra at home:




Contra Force is the one Contra sequel you likely forgot exists, mostly because it's so bland and forgettable that there's no reason to commit it to memory a second longer than it takes to say "Huh. Contra Force." Every review on this site for it is, at best, a sentence long. Nobody is willing to give this game a deep dive, really tear it apart and get into the guts of the thing, talk about its mechanical strengths and shortcomings. Or, rather, they can't because there just ain't much to talk about. Have you ever played a NES run-and-gun with really bad slowdown? Congrats, you've played Contra Force.

I have the most words logged on this site for Contra Force and it was just to tell you why nobody ever talks about it. I think this qualifies me enough to log this game as having been mastered, even though I absolutely did not do that.

Before last year when I played through Konami's Contra collection release I had barely played the series. For the most part they aren't games I'd play again (except for the amazing Contra: Hard Corps.) but they are fun well made titles that do hold up well. Having gone through the collection however I found out that for some reason it was missing the third NES game in the series Contra Force. Having now played it I understand why though, I suspect Konami themselves hope people forget it.

It was originally developed as a totally different game called Arc Hound with no ties to Contra but was cancelled in Japan and never released. I was going to say that I don't know the reason for the cancellation but based on how bad the game is I imagine it's self evident but considering what existing content of the game was rebranded as a Contra title and released in the US anyway? who knows the truth of the matter behind it. By the time it actually came out was after Contra III on the SNES which only really helps to emphasize the low quality here as everything about this is worse than the original Contra released 4 years prior.

Firstly the games performance is awful. The game has constant slowdown even when there isn't much going on. I have played more intensive NES games so know the hardware is more capable than this but even without the slow down the actual game just feels slow and cumbersome moving and firing around, it's like playing in slow motion through treacle. The technical limitations don't stop there though with constant sprite flickering and even the auto scrolling at times just doesn't work leaving your playable character stuck on the very front of the screen. This is just an ugly title to play and feels unfinished which considering the information on it's development history I have managed to find? That may well have been the case.

The issues don't stop there though with Arc Hound's original set up meaning this isn't actually a contra so the enemies and especially the bosses you fight are just so...bland. The first boss for example is just a slightly larger commando that jumps and fires a couple of bullets. There are no aliens, large machinery or anything interesting at any point to engage with. The closest thing is a jet plane but even that somehow when you fight it is somehow kind of boring with no interesting bullet patterns or abilities.

You can choose between four characters to play as with slightly different load outs because the only, and I mean only, interesting thing this game does is to implement another Konami property's weapon upgrade system from Gradius. Instead of new weapons dropped from enemies or locations there are generic suitcases that act as power ups. Each one you collect pushes along a bar of choices that you can then manually select. The issue is most of the weapons are crap, slow demolition, grenades with no range, guns that feel the same and missing classic contra weapons to boot. You can change characters by pressing the start button to go to the menu. From the menu you can even select another character to do an AI attack for you on screen which was kind of neat though I initially thought it would be a permanent companion as going into the laggy menu is also a chore to no ones surprise. Speaking of which to continue feeling like this is an incomplete prototype when going into the menu from a jump and coming back out your character jumps again in mid air meaning in some levels you can by pass huge sections by jumping almost infinitely. It's just broken.

And there you have it, Contra Force. Worth playing for an hour or so only if you are interested in it's historical placement as the odd game in the series Konami doesn't want to acknowledge by repurposing an (I assume) incomplete cancelled project with the Contra branding. It runs terribly, has pretty mediocre bosses and gameplay over it's 5 stage run time and generally isn't a fun title. The Contra Collection I played was missing a lot of titles on it but honestly? this one I understand why at least.

Pints for being possibly the worst game I've played but with the coolest cover art though.

+ Gradius Power up system is an interesting implementation....

- .....though I don't think it really fits the game.
- Technical issues everywhere, slowdown, sprite flickers and broken auto scrolling.
- Levels, bosses and weapons are just unfun.
- It's bad.