(This is the 65th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
My first foray into the Contra series was successful. Contra III: The Alien Wars, released on February 28, 1992 for the SNES, is a fantastic run and gun video game, even today. It was developed and published by Konami, who simply knew how to make great games at the time, and the first Contra game they've released primarily with home consoles in mind (2 others released for arcades first, another one for the Game Boy) did a great job of utilizing the strengths of the SNES.
Looking at rankings of the Contra series games, this game ranks first in pretty much all of them, which has me feeling both validated and kind of sad, as I am very much looking forward to playing the future entries in the series. Though that's why I shouldn't look at rankings like that I suppose. Though the fact that this game ranks atop almost all lists is not necessarily an indictment on the rest of the franchise as it rather is high praise for a great game.
Accessibility (+1 bonus point): Before you start a game, you have two options to make the game easier for yourself. It by no means becomes easy, but much easier. First, you can choose to give yourself 3, 5 or 7 lives. This is not a very unusual feature necessarily, but the second definitely is. You can go for Easy, Normal and Hard. Contra III is not the first game to offer multiple difficulty settings, but to have not just two but three difficulty modes and to have all feel very notable different from each other shows that the devs went the extra mile to balance the game for three types of players. On top of that, it's cool to see certain things in Easy mode that don't trigger, while they do trigger on harder difficulty modes, such as the "man-faced mutts" in the first stage. There aren't really any other accessibility settings here apart from these, but the extra effort is something I definitely feel like deserves a bonus point for a video game in 1992. If you go for the Japanese version, you can have unlimited continues, as an fyi.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 1/10
It's February 14, 2636. Valentine's day. Well, there isn't much here that feels romantic, as from the get-go you're greeted by fierce and partly disgusting alien creatures that try to kill you from all sides. Literally, if you decide to go for the hardest difficulty. The intro cutscene doesn't give you much on story though, and the manual itself has a couple pages dedicated to the setting, which doesn't say anything noteworthy. You are Jimbo and Sully (if you play in 2-player mode) and are descendents of commando legends Scorpion and Mad Dog, and you gotta fight 'Red Falcon' as the main boss, who seems to have been present in other games, as the manual says it's back to claim revenge.
GAMEPLAY | 16/20
It's rare that I spend 10+ hours on a game that isn't an RPG, as most games can be beaten before that (especially when you use the luxuries that emulators provide for otherwise unfairly difficult games). Maybe it's the fact that I was abroad for a uni assignment and didn't have anything else to do one evening, but it didn't take long for me to really enjoy myself playing this on my Steam Deck and just sunking hours into it in one go. I'm likely to play this again on commute here and there, but I'm retiring it happily at 13 hours played and beaten once on Easy difficulty.
So this game is a run and gun. From a side and top-down view, mostly side-view though, you fight hordes of enemies that appear from all sorts of angles whilst trying to dodge their projectiles. As is custom, the idea is to improve through trial and error, as you will constantly find enemies appearing and shooting out of nowhere or simply attacking in ways that you weren't expecting and will simply not dodge during your first attempts. So while I was going through all my lifes during Stage 1 on my first attempt, a few hours later I found myself going through that Stage without getting hit once. It helps that the trial and error pretty much involves memorizing where enemies are, their attack patterns and effectively using the few types of weapons you can choose from. Many other games that call it "trial and error" simply put you in extremely hard positions where you fight both memory and controls to try to dodge attacks. You know what's coming, you just can't dodge it. In Contra III, if you know what's coming, you WILL be able to dodge it, which is great. I can't tell you how many times I was going "am I SUPPOSED to lose a life against this enemy?", only to figure it out and have a very rewarding moment. 'Moments' I should say, as the game is full of them.
It's a game that is easy to control but hard to master, even on easy. On normal difficulty, which I played after beating the game on easy, it still felt manageable, but once you go to Hard difficulty, you pretty much enter the same territory as many platformers from this time period. Projectiles coming from everywhere, coming out of the weapons that entered the screen a split-second earlier and more enemies appearing in general (from all angles). I can't imagine ever willingly playing that difficulty again.
If you read more than a couple of my reviews, you might have noticed that I love platformers / run and gun games that offer variety in gameplay to offset the technical limitations and to show that the devs put more work into their games than was expected from them at the time. This game is a great example of what I enjoy on that front. The first level is a side-scrolling stage. The second implements a top-down perspective on the action and has you move side-to-side. Both types of stages come with their own boss fights, which feel unique this way as well. In general, boss fights are pretty good and varied as well.
In terms of weapons, you have 6 weapons and one special attack available. The special attack is a "helio bomb", which you can collect and use whenever. The weapons are your basic rifle, a laser gun, a spread gun, a fire gun, a crush gun and a homing gun, which follows enemies. Apart from the laser gun (which feels like the worse version of the crush gun with no additional benefit), all others felt unique and had their advantages and disadvantages. The homing gun hits enemies without the need to aim at them but it does very little damage and is useless for most boss fights. The crush gun fires in short distances and only allows a few projectiles to be fired at the same time, but does immense damage and is the weapon I found most useful. The spread gun covers a larger area and the fire gun can be fired non-stop. There are two weapon slots in this game, which is unusual, and whenever you are hit, the equipped weapon is lost. But you can still switch over to the other weapon, which adds an additional strategic element, as you can switch to the weapon you're more OK with losing when you know a tough part is coming up. Different weapons are more effective against different enemies as well, so choosing which weapon to keep is another strategic consideration you will make from time to time.
Overall, this was just a blast. Rarely did I feel frustrated about the GAME OVER screen. Almost always, I only had myself to blame and was looking forward to do better on my next run. I'm not surprised that I heard of this series every once in a while over the years.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 8/10
No voice acting. The sound design is very good. Weapons all sound unique, the sound of impact gives satisfying feedback, the sound of the bombs is kind-of haunting and overall, I enjoyed listening to the sounds for sure. One little thing I want to note is the sound that plays when you press START. It reminded me of the sound I first heard when you would start Resident Evil 4 (or prior Resi games I believe). Just a sick sound effect that gets you pumped to play. The soundtrack here is really good as well. It's capturing the style and theme of this game really well. There wasn't one track that stood out in a way that makes me want to listen to it outside of the game itself, but there are memorable ones in here nonetheless.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
The game has good graphics and makes use of the SNES' Mode 7 feature on multiple occasions. There are the top down stages which utilize it and a short moment where a chopper flies into the camera and shoots missiles. Looked pretty nice. There is some good environmental detail in most stages, like the smoke coming out of those factories. There is also a stage where you need to climb up a building with some sort of robot alien holding you hostage in between its arms/legs, where you have the background moving along, which gave the actual perception of height. Definitely a few things here that weren't common quite yet at the time, though this also is not the most detailed and colorful game the SNES had to offer. Presentation and setpieces here are very good.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 8/10
Some games have this look of randomly assembled levels to them. You're left thinking "this area seems totally impractically designed by the evil mastermind running it". Contra III gives the opposite direction. By its nature, it can't be very immersive, as the focus is mainly put into its gameplay. But the impression it gives of these aliens throwing everything they got at Jimbo and Sully, all the way until the final stage, where they enter the Red Falcon's lair, is pretty well done. All these setpieces you are thrown into that pretty much all have a unique feel to them also add to this feeling of being in a badass fight for your life.
CONTENT | 8/10
Some might find 6 stages to be too short, but personally I think it's a good amount for a game that is this difficult. It took me over 10 hours to beat it on easy and after you beat it on easy, you still can play the game on Medium and Hard difficulty, which add dangers to each stage that weren't present at all on easy mode.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 9/10
Definitely the highlight of this game. Each of the six stages is also offering something new, and I don't just mean different enemies, so there is plenty of variety on offer here that games with twice the amount of stages can not replicate. There is the use of different perspectives, the interplay between normal enemies and mid-stage mini-boss fights, the top-down stages where have entirely different challenges and even symbols that make you turn in circles, and an entire level where you ride a bike or have to do a balancing act on missiles shot from a support helicopter. All levels feel distinct and they're not just simply different, but all very enjoyable to go through.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 7/10
Run and guns aren't a new concept at this point, and the only innovation this game really offers is its use of some of the capabilities of the SNES. Whatever it does utilize makes for excellent results.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
You can of course keep playing after beating this to improve on your high score. What you can also do is choose Normal and Hard difficulty settings, which mix things up pretty notably.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Works well at all times. The emulator had some issues with slowdown here and there, but from what I can tell, that's not been an issue non-emulated.
OVERALL | 74/100
A great run and gun video game and a great game in general that understands what fun gameplay and a fun challenge looks like. Never did I find the game unfair. All it is is a game where you need to memorize a lot of things and partake in a dance with the enemies, as you let your weapons take them out slowly but surely. A lot of fun, definitely recommended.
My first foray into the Contra series was successful. Contra III: The Alien Wars, released on February 28, 1992 for the SNES, is a fantastic run and gun video game, even today. It was developed and published by Konami, who simply knew how to make great games at the time, and the first Contra game they've released primarily with home consoles in mind (2 others released for arcades first, another one for the Game Boy) did a great job of utilizing the strengths of the SNES.
Looking at rankings of the Contra series games, this game ranks first in pretty much all of them, which has me feeling both validated and kind of sad, as I am very much looking forward to playing the future entries in the series. Though that's why I shouldn't look at rankings like that I suppose. Though the fact that this game ranks atop almost all lists is not necessarily an indictment on the rest of the franchise as it rather is high praise for a great game.
Accessibility (+1 bonus point): Before you start a game, you have two options to make the game easier for yourself. It by no means becomes easy, but much easier. First, you can choose to give yourself 3, 5 or 7 lives. This is not a very unusual feature necessarily, but the second definitely is. You can go for Easy, Normal and Hard. Contra III is not the first game to offer multiple difficulty settings, but to have not just two but three difficulty modes and to have all feel very notable different from each other shows that the devs went the extra mile to balance the game for three types of players. On top of that, it's cool to see certain things in Easy mode that don't trigger, while they do trigger on harder difficulty modes, such as the "man-faced mutts" in the first stage. There aren't really any other accessibility settings here apart from these, but the extra effort is something I definitely feel like deserves a bonus point for a video game in 1992. If you go for the Japanese version, you can have unlimited continues, as an fyi.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 1/10
It's February 14, 2636. Valentine's day. Well, there isn't much here that feels romantic, as from the get-go you're greeted by fierce and partly disgusting alien creatures that try to kill you from all sides. Literally, if you decide to go for the hardest difficulty. The intro cutscene doesn't give you much on story though, and the manual itself has a couple pages dedicated to the setting, which doesn't say anything noteworthy. You are Jimbo and Sully (if you play in 2-player mode) and are descendents of commando legends Scorpion and Mad Dog, and you gotta fight 'Red Falcon' as the main boss, who seems to have been present in other games, as the manual says it's back to claim revenge.
GAMEPLAY | 16/20
It's rare that I spend 10+ hours on a game that isn't an RPG, as most games can be beaten before that (especially when you use the luxuries that emulators provide for otherwise unfairly difficult games). Maybe it's the fact that I was abroad for a uni assignment and didn't have anything else to do one evening, but it didn't take long for me to really enjoy myself playing this on my Steam Deck and just sunking hours into it in one go. I'm likely to play this again on commute here and there, but I'm retiring it happily at 13 hours played and beaten once on Easy difficulty.
So this game is a run and gun. From a side and top-down view, mostly side-view though, you fight hordes of enemies that appear from all sorts of angles whilst trying to dodge their projectiles. As is custom, the idea is to improve through trial and error, as you will constantly find enemies appearing and shooting out of nowhere or simply attacking in ways that you weren't expecting and will simply not dodge during your first attempts. So while I was going through all my lifes during Stage 1 on my first attempt, a few hours later I found myself going through that Stage without getting hit once. It helps that the trial and error pretty much involves memorizing where enemies are, their attack patterns and effectively using the few types of weapons you can choose from. Many other games that call it "trial and error" simply put you in extremely hard positions where you fight both memory and controls to try to dodge attacks. You know what's coming, you just can't dodge it. In Contra III, if you know what's coming, you WILL be able to dodge it, which is great. I can't tell you how many times I was going "am I SUPPOSED to lose a life against this enemy?", only to figure it out and have a very rewarding moment. 'Moments' I should say, as the game is full of them.
It's a game that is easy to control but hard to master, even on easy. On normal difficulty, which I played after beating the game on easy, it still felt manageable, but once you go to Hard difficulty, you pretty much enter the same territory as many platformers from this time period. Projectiles coming from everywhere, coming out of the weapons that entered the screen a split-second earlier and more enemies appearing in general (from all angles). I can't imagine ever willingly playing that difficulty again.
If you read more than a couple of my reviews, you might have noticed that I love platformers / run and gun games that offer variety in gameplay to offset the technical limitations and to show that the devs put more work into their games than was expected from them at the time. This game is a great example of what I enjoy on that front. The first level is a side-scrolling stage. The second implements a top-down perspective on the action and has you move side-to-side. Both types of stages come with their own boss fights, which feel unique this way as well. In general, boss fights are pretty good and varied as well.
In terms of weapons, you have 6 weapons and one special attack available. The special attack is a "helio bomb", which you can collect and use whenever. The weapons are your basic rifle, a laser gun, a spread gun, a fire gun, a crush gun and a homing gun, which follows enemies. Apart from the laser gun (which feels like the worse version of the crush gun with no additional benefit), all others felt unique and had their advantages and disadvantages. The homing gun hits enemies without the need to aim at them but it does very little damage and is useless for most boss fights. The crush gun fires in short distances and only allows a few projectiles to be fired at the same time, but does immense damage and is the weapon I found most useful. The spread gun covers a larger area and the fire gun can be fired non-stop. There are two weapon slots in this game, which is unusual, and whenever you are hit, the equipped weapon is lost. But you can still switch over to the other weapon, which adds an additional strategic element, as you can switch to the weapon you're more OK with losing when you know a tough part is coming up. Different weapons are more effective against different enemies as well, so choosing which weapon to keep is another strategic consideration you will make from time to time.
Overall, this was just a blast. Rarely did I feel frustrated about the GAME OVER screen. Almost always, I only had myself to blame and was looking forward to do better on my next run. I'm not surprised that I heard of this series every once in a while over the years.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 8/10
No voice acting. The sound design is very good. Weapons all sound unique, the sound of impact gives satisfying feedback, the sound of the bombs is kind-of haunting and overall, I enjoyed listening to the sounds for sure. One little thing I want to note is the sound that plays when you press START. It reminded me of the sound I first heard when you would start Resident Evil 4 (or prior Resi games I believe). Just a sick sound effect that gets you pumped to play. The soundtrack here is really good as well. It's capturing the style and theme of this game really well. There wasn't one track that stood out in a way that makes me want to listen to it outside of the game itself, but there are memorable ones in here nonetheless.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
The game has good graphics and makes use of the SNES' Mode 7 feature on multiple occasions. There are the top down stages which utilize it and a short moment where a chopper flies into the camera and shoots missiles. Looked pretty nice. There is some good environmental detail in most stages, like the smoke coming out of those factories. There is also a stage where you need to climb up a building with some sort of robot alien holding you hostage in between its arms/legs, where you have the background moving along, which gave the actual perception of height. Definitely a few things here that weren't common quite yet at the time, though this also is not the most detailed and colorful game the SNES had to offer. Presentation and setpieces here are very good.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 8/10
Some games have this look of randomly assembled levels to them. You're left thinking "this area seems totally impractically designed by the evil mastermind running it". Contra III gives the opposite direction. By its nature, it can't be very immersive, as the focus is mainly put into its gameplay. But the impression it gives of these aliens throwing everything they got at Jimbo and Sully, all the way until the final stage, where they enter the Red Falcon's lair, is pretty well done. All these setpieces you are thrown into that pretty much all have a unique feel to them also add to this feeling of being in a badass fight for your life.
CONTENT | 8/10
Some might find 6 stages to be too short, but personally I think it's a good amount for a game that is this difficult. It took me over 10 hours to beat it on easy and after you beat it on easy, you still can play the game on Medium and Hard difficulty, which add dangers to each stage that weren't present at all on easy mode.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 9/10
Definitely the highlight of this game. Each of the six stages is also offering something new, and I don't just mean different enemies, so there is plenty of variety on offer here that games with twice the amount of stages can not replicate. There is the use of different perspectives, the interplay between normal enemies and mid-stage mini-boss fights, the top-down stages where have entirely different challenges and even symbols that make you turn in circles, and an entire level where you ride a bike or have to do a balancing act on missiles shot from a support helicopter. All levels feel distinct and they're not just simply different, but all very enjoyable to go through.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 7/10
Run and guns aren't a new concept at this point, and the only innovation this game really offers is its use of some of the capabilities of the SNES. Whatever it does utilize makes for excellent results.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
You can of course keep playing after beating this to improve on your high score. What you can also do is choose Normal and Hard difficulty settings, which mix things up pretty notably.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Works well at all times. The emulator had some issues with slowdown here and there, but from what I can tell, that's not been an issue non-emulated.
OVERALL | 74/100
A great run and gun video game and a great game in general that understands what fun gameplay and a fun challenge looks like. Never did I find the game unfair. All it is is a game where you need to memorize a lot of things and partake in a dance with the enemies, as you let your weapons take them out slowly but surely. A lot of fun, definitely recommended.