u/Domi8112

Exactly as the title says. Doesn't have to be exclusively red light, but said red light needs to be SUPER bright and long range.

Both of these looked pretty short so I knocked them both out in one go.

I was always kinda hesitant touching Operation C because of it being a GB title, I know my ass of all people shouldn't judge a game by the age of its graphics but I honestly thought that with the new portable hardware there'd be some sacrifices made in the gameplay (upon writing this I just realized that the OG Pokemon games came out on GB iirc. Ofc the GB has good hardware limitations).

I played the first level in B&W, but used SameBoy's GBC simulator to put my ROM into color for the rest. Right off the bat there's criticism on how the GBC handles Operation C and given the overuse of green and blue where there really shouldn't be green and blue and painting everything else red with maaaaybe a little black the criticism is honestly pretty valid. The pastel coloring is a little comforting in a weird way though.

Some of the background art itself is pretty solid given the more pixelated resolution they were working with. As for the game itself despite being short the shooting feels pretty tight and it's one of the first entries in the series to do away with the M powerup so you can hold down the shoot button as you please. The H is also introduced here but I went with the spread gun and just duked it out.

Operation C is not anally difficult by any means but a couple sections in the final stage can be annoying like the elevator leading up to the final boss. I was expecting something bigger for Black Viper's first appearance but holy shit he put up a neat fight. You have to time jumping over his hand blasts just right and position yourself when he fires missiles so you don't get overwhelmed early.

There's a little more platforming here too, but you jump super high so you can knock out most of it pretty quickly. Your horizontal speed in the air is kinda slow though so you have to jump when you're at the edge lest you fall and die.

Short but sweet.

Now we get into ReBirth and HOLY SHIT IN MY ASS it is fuckin ugly. I had a minor critique on Contra 4's art but ReBirth's graphics look like a weird mesh of a failed AI upscale and a crappy flash game. I went with Yagyu at first because I was gonna play him in Neo Contra later, but he kept saying "TOLOUOUOSSS" or something French or whatever when he died (and I accidentally started my first run on hard so I was dying a LOT) and it was getting on my nerves so I started a new game on normal with Bill who screams like a normal human being when shot.

ReBirth for some reason likes putting turrets on the ground so if you try to instinctively pull the "crouch under bullet" maneuver then you're gonna die nonetheless. It's weird. Most of it isn't an issue, it just kinda looks like a discount Contra 4 without a grappling hook. Even the final (well, first phase of the final boss) looks just like C4's. They even have a level that's a knockoff of Contra III's first level, just like what Contra 4 did!

The enemy death sounds are pretty damn goofy too and there are some weird setpieces, mainly the part where you're on a truck driven by one of said goons and you blast robot ostritches to ride them while shooting dudes trying to copycat you by riding missiles. The stage 3 boss has some nutty ass attacks but that's the hardest boss of the game. I like the gravity-shift mechanic on the final boss but again like in Contra 4 you just pick up the spread gun (or homing because ReBirth's homing for whatever reason is super strong) and hold down shoot and that's basically it.

also for some reason they reveal randomly that lance is undercover disguised as a magician bunny woman or something right before the final level so i mean yeah... anyways ReBirth is alr ig

Wow.

I mean, holy shit.

My gripes about the Hit Rate system in SS were more or less alleviated in regards to Neo Contra. There's a lot less to worry about in regards to every enemy trying to run off the screen (and those than can have a more generous time limit).

The gameplay flow felt really aggressive, and the addition of lock-on targets made you feel even more badass as you blew up countless amounts of shit in the background. I ended up getting S ranks on three of the first four stages.

The only part that was really tough was the timed lock-on node sausage party right before fighting the final boss. I had about .25 seconds left when I finished it. And then some guy on youtube does it it just 5 seconds with the unlockable weapons!

I might end up playing NC again just to screw around with the new weapon sets, the replayability is a good feature here.

With that said, I've finished all the big contra games. I think Hard Corps: Uprising might be the last one to hit up if I do get around to it. But it was a great journey, and I'm glad I finished it off with what's probably going to be my favorite game in the series. Really happy I got to experience all these games.

"You know who you are, and how you live your life dictates who you are. You're not a fake if you risk your life fighting for your ideals."

*- "*Mystery G", Neo Contra

So I finally beat it after playing on and off for a couple of weeks.

I have some mixed opinions about SS, but right off the bat, we get the most badass intro to a Contra game I've stumbled upon. Just heavy-ass metal blasting in your ears like a heavy gush of cool air, watching Bill blast the shit out of a bunch of robots in pure, unadulterated early 2000s edge.

Into the mechanics of SS themselves, I kinda miss the spread gun, but the homing missiles by charging the drop mines were good enough when it came to hitting hard spots (and sniffing out weak points). The base machine gun also kicks ass when you get sustained fire in, and can even compete with a few shots of the charged flame whip. The flame whip itself is pretty good when you're in a panic surrounded by enemies.

Now, the Hit Rate system. Hoooh boy. This is both a blessing and a curse.

I guess someone at Konami went to a Contra speedrunning event or something, expected everyone to be playing "properly", taking out each part of the bosses one by one, but then promptly had an aneurysm and shit himself upon seeing that you can speedrun Contra by just aiming at the one weakpoint.

Said disgruntled associate proceeded to return to HQ and went, "QUIT HAVING FUN!" before forcing you to destroy every part of each boss and miniboss for you to get the best ending.

On the other hand, though, it is fun having more to shoot at, and it makes you think a little more when fighting bosses, which is a fresh approach to just holding down and shooting.

And it's a big bar that goes up on the top of your screen. Those are usually always pretty cool.

It gets frustrating having to keep up with shooting everything down (mainly in the second level) when there's a time limit before enemies disappear from the screen, and just barely losing your A rank because you died once and the HR went down by 2%.

The worst boss was probably the super battletank thing in the third level.

I think a majority of the bosses are bad at transposing their attacks, but more often than not you can reload a save/redo the level once you get your reflexes in shape and know what to expect. This fuckass tank, though, will just randomly decide to charge at you, completely unavoidable unless you've managed to shoot down the topmost cannon within a tight time limit. There's absolutely nothing indicating that you should be firing at the topmost cannon (because there's a bottom one you can knock out too), and nothing indicating the tank's gonna pull this bullshit off. So you lose a life guaranteed unless you know what's coming and have prepared for it.

But everything after stage three was doable and honestly really fun. The Galuga level was a nice throwback to the first level of Contra, and I enjoyed the Triumvirate boss rush at the end. And then a bunch of sperm things flying around a cell tried to impregnate me or something? Leave my bussy alone, for chrissake!

I beat the final boss pretty easily, then sat back, watched the ending, then downloaded Neo Contra.

I'm really excited to hop into Neo Contra. I've seen a playthrough of the first stage, and it reminds me a bit of Shock Troopers, one of my favorite arcade games. The destruction you can commit there looks to be a lot more explosive than in SS too, which is great given that I was beginning to miss actual "levels" instead of just bossfight after bossfight.

In about a month and a half, I've beaten almost all the big Contra entries, and after NC I think I'll be an official fan.