Super Contra
Arcade
Nostalgia Factor:
Slowly I make my way through the Contra Anniversary Collection for the PS4. Next up: Super Contra. This game was released for arcades back in 1988. None of the local arcades in my area carried this game and I was never able to play it as a kid. Turns out, this was probably a blessing in disguise because I did not care for this game one tiny bit. It is by far the weakest game on the Anniversary Collection that I have played to date.
Why does Super Contra suck so bad? Let's explore that, shall we?
Story:
More shooting, more blowing stuff up. The aliens that you defeated in the last game are back, and it is time to defeat them again. The action starts in an urban area and moves into the jungle, and eventually into the alien's lair. Kill the big bad alien, win the game. There are a few cutscenes at the beginning of the game, which shows us that Super Contra does indeed have something vaguely resembling a storyline going on, but it is 100% secondary to the game's action. Trust me, NO ONE cares about this game's story.
Gameplay:
While I enjoyed the NES version of Contra more than the arcade version, that doesn't mean that I thought the arcade version of the game was crap. Super Contra, however, is absolute crap when held up against its NES counterpart, Super C.
Everything that previous Contra games did successfully, Super Contra manages to undo. The controls aren't as tight. Your character is bigger, which means it is harder to maneuver around obstacles and to avoid enemy fire. This also makes your field of view much smaller. Your weapon selection sucks. You never know which weapon upgrade you are about to pick up, since they aren't as well-labeled as they are in the other Contra games. I accidentally picked up that shitty ass laser more times than I could count, hoping it was the spread gun. The spread gun isn't even as helpful here, since its range during the overhead stages is so pitiful. It isn't much help during 2D stages either. This game bombards you with so much crap at all times, I could never hang onto any weapon upgrades I happened to pick up because I was constantly getting killed.
Which brings us to the game's difficulty. Most people like to complain that the first Contra game was sooooooo hard. While I can see where those people are coming from, I never particularly had a problem with the game's difficulty level. Things are predictable. There are patterns to recognize. If you play it slow and safe, you should for the most part be okay. Not here. Not with Super Contra. You are under constant enemy fire. Stop to breathe for a second and you are dead. Enemies randomly spawn in front of you, behind you, wherever is the most inconvenient for you. They come from above, they come from below. Sometimes they're even firing at you before they've even come onto the screen. Like I said, the character you control is much bigger and less maneuverable than in other Contra titles. Your field of view is a lot smaller. Dodging attacks is much more difficult in this game. I got absolutely destroyed as I played this game. DESTROYED! It didn't seem to matter how cautious I was, I couldn't make it more than a few seconds before getting killed.
I'm up for a good challenge, as long as it is a fair challenge. I considered both Contra and Super C for the NES to be fair challenges. This game, however, is not fair by any stretch of the imagination. There is simply no avoiding getting killed sometimes, no matter how cautious you are. There is just so much that can kill you, with so little wiggle room to avoid certain death. The first time I played Super Contra, I burned through all my lives and continues on the game's first stage. Seriously, the first stage! And I didn't have much more luck the next time through, or the next. I hate that the Anniversary Collection only lets you continue three times, no matter how many credits you insert. In the arcade, you can just keep feeding the machine coins and keep playing, no matter how bad you are doing. Why would they limit you to three continues for the home version? As if the game wasn't hard enough. Doesn't seem quite fair to me.
I had to resort to using save states and reloading every time I would die. Eventually I made it to the end of the game and beat the final boss. Mission accomplished. Yay? If only that mission had been any fun whatsoever.
Graphics:
The game looks.... okay. I guess. It lacks the charm of the previous Contra titles. It has some nice background design to its stages, but overall it looks very bland and boring to me. While I won't say the game is ugly, there is absolutely nothing to get excited about here.
Sound:
Not to sound too repetitive, but I am going to say the same thing about the game's sound that I said about its graphics: they don't suck, there is just absolutely nothing to get excited about here.
Overall:
Ugh. I really wanted to like this game. I thought I would, too! I turned it on with high expectations. Those expectations were quickly shattered into dust.
There is almost nothing good about this game. I can't praise its visuals, I can't praise its control, I can't praise its sound, I can't praise its difficulty level. I can't even say the game is any fun to play. Seriously, this has to be the most un-fun game I have played in recent memory. It is terrible. I even tried to give it one quick replay before writing this review, to see if my mind would change at all. I couldn't do it. Just making it through the first stage of the game was too much of a chore. When I died and lost all my continues on the second stage, I said screw it. Not worth my time.
I hate to say this, but Super Contra isn't worth yours either. Skip this game. There is nothing to see here, unless you're simply curious to see the Contra series at its all time low. I'd rather play a couple of D- games like Primal Rage or Tom and Jerry: Frantic Antics more than this. That shows you how bad it is. There is only one place you can go that is lower than a D-, and I don't give this grade out very often.
Final Score:
F
Hey! While we're on the subject of crappy video games, here are some reviews for a few other titles that I did not care for:
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