When this was new, I thought it was awesome! I'm not sure how much the novelty of having a brand new, robust-looking installment to Contra on a handheld system added to that general enjoyment when I was in my late teens as an avid Contra fan. And, to rattle off the things I like, it controls totally fine! It plays as it's supposed to (however the fact that it dropped the strafing mechanic from SS/Neo is annoying) and the bonus content was plentiful. They gave you a lot for this quarter-sized DS cartridge!

The overall design, however, is terrible. It has such an awful pace that makes the stages feel even more of a drag than they already are (each of them are too long by at least a solid 30 seconds of tight gameplay). The fact that they utilize both screens for pure gameplay was a poor decision. The grappling hook mechanic is worthless, feels like they came up with the idea but had a hard time implementing it to anything remotely engaging. And where the likes of Contra Shattered Soldier had its fair share of retreating old grounds, at least those returning enemy designs looked fantastic being rendered in 3D and usually offered new methods of attack, mixing up the overall experience. Here, anything returning looks like shit, and just about everything new is lame and forgettable.

I'd like to properly analyze why I severely fell out of love with this game. All I know right now is every single revisit makes this game look worse in my eyes.