Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 248: Contra

Episode Date: September 23, 2019

Jeremy Parish, Bob Mackey, Ray Barnholt, and Shane Bettenhausen use the Konami Code to tackle the challenge of recapping the Contra series, just in time for the latest entry in the franchise.

This week in Retronauts, it's Bill and Lances, excellent adventures. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Retronauts. If I had my calendar in front of me, I could actually tell you what episode of Retronauts this is, which episode number. And that is because this episode is very carefully timed to the launch of a brand new game,

which is tied to an old series. It's Contra Rogue Corps. And that game comes out the week that you're listening to this, unless you're a Patreon supporter, in which case it's coming out the week after you're listening to this. That's how it works around here. But, yes, for the first time in many years, Konami has started making video games again and also regurgitating their old video games and not just on WiiU virtual console after the system's dead.

So part of this revival of Konami remembering, oh, we make video games sometimes, brings us a new Contra game and it's being led by none other than Nobio Nakasato, who worked on Contra 3 and Hardcore and Shattered Soldier and a bunch of other Contra games. I don't know if Roakore is going to be any good, but the fact is it has a legacy, and that is what we're going to talk. about this week. So here Bear Shirted with me in the sweaty jungle of a podcasting studio, we have... Hey, it's Bob Mackie, and I'm still waiting for the playable Alley North D.L.C.

This is Shane Bentonhausen. I try to dress appropriately, because it is a little funky and warm in this little vault. You tape this thing in. Yeah, Shane's the closest one to Bear Shirted. Anyway, I'm Ray Barnholt. Hi. And did I mention that I'm Jeremy Parrish? I don't remember, but I am. And that is the person

who's going to be leading this episode about the Contra games. I made notes, extensive notes about all the Contra games. I bet we're not going to get through all of them. Actually, I want to interject, though, I think a better reason for having this contra, new take on Contra from Retronauts isn't... This Contrasation? This contrasation isn't just the new entry, but also the recent release of the excellent Contra anniversary collection. Without which this podcast could not have been put together so effectively. Right. And, you know, those of us who grew up in these games had played almost all of them, but there are even things on there that you, most of us probably hadn't ever had our hands on. Yeah, I'd never actually

played a Provetector game before. Exactly. And now I have. It's timely. And you can even play ProPetector in 60, 60 kilowatts as opposed to 50. How it's meant to be played. Yeah. Wow, it's really hard. Well, and there's even meant a Contra Love Letter indie game that came out in 2019 called Blazing Chrome.

It's just out of this past week as it's reporting. From Arcade Crew, and it's, you know, probably the best love letter on Contra I've seen, it sends Contra 4. Not just Contra 3, but Contra 3. Specifically. Like, very specifically Contra 3. It's like, what if Contra 3 were a Genesis game? To the point where I was like I had it going on TV and someone literally thought it was Contra 4. No, I've seen it at, you know, shows like packs and so forth, and I've always had to stop and do a double take and say, wait, is that like just a, so it's just someone showing off a Contra game and then I realize, no, they're not. It's a fake contra game, but a very well-faked Contra game. It is a deep fake.

Contra deep fake. Contra is back in many myriad forms. Anyway, so Contra, as you may know, is a series of shooting platform action games, mostly. created by Konami, mostly. And the very first game in the series dates back more than 30 years to 1987 when Contra appeared in arcades. We should talk about the etymology of the name Contra. Bob kind of hit on that a little bit. Yeah, this ruined the word Contra for me because whenever I heard about Iran-Contra scandal or things, words like Contraband, if those come up, I still think of the jungles of Contra because I'm a child. So those of us, Jeremy, we were a little older.

You know, back when Ronald Reagan was running guns to Galuga Island. Right. So my first encounter with Contra was in the arcade, you know, around 87, 88, I guess 88 probably, at the big arcade in my hometown, the Dream Machine, which is very big, like, four times bigger than all the Aladdin's castles. Like, on the upper tier, suddenly was this game, Contra. And I knew that from the word from the news of like the Iron Contra scandal. That's literally the touch point for that game. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. I mean, it's, I haven't been able to find a definitive statement.

statement. But I'm pretty sure that the name Contra came from the fact that this scandal, which involved, you know, banana republics and U.S. selling weapons. Basically all kinds of illegal stuff happening on the side that may or may not have been okayed by the president himself. He was too forgetful at that point to be able to say, yeah. The poor guy. And that was dead. Yep. That's Alzheimer's for you. But the game wasn't actually about that. But no, it wasn't. But it is a, it is a a heady mix of many things that were kind of trickling from American pop media and culture into Japan. So, I mean, the cover, the box art for the NES version of Condra is basically like Stallone and Schwarzenegger. I mean, this is like...

Rambo Commando. This is, yeah, Rambo Commando Predator. Alien. Yeah, Rambo Commando Alien. Oh, yeah. You've got Alien in there also. Yeah. Mixed with Ollie North. Right.

Right. It's a heady mix. And the characters literally look exactly like, I mean, like, even in game, they look a lot like Stallone and Swartonagher. Just like the beefy, beady-eyed, I don't know, beefy 80s bodybuilder superhero, sweaty muscle man with machine guns. That was like, you know, very rah-rah American-Americans America. And also, at this point, my encounter with Contra, I had played Konami's Gradius and Konami's Russian attack in the arcade, which are both vertical tate monitor set up Arcade. Gradius is not. No, Gratius isn't.

But Russia Attack is. Is it? I'm not, I'm sure it is. I've only ever actually played the Indians version. And I remember this, when I first saw this, it reminded me of what if Russian attack met Gradius but was way better? Because I'd also like Castlevania, but fast. So the wild thing about Contra is that by the time you get to the end, you're like, oh, this is Konami making an aliens game. Because this did come out a year after the movie aliens.

But a few years later, they actually got the license to aliens. aliens, and that wasn't nearly as good an aliens game as Contra was. Contra was their best ideas. You get no aliens in the first, like, half of this game. No, no, I mean, everything is an alien in this game. But you don't get the, the Giger-esque, like, weird abominations until the second half. And then, you know, by the end of it, you're inside an alien's body blowing up its heart and the face that's inside of its stomach, because, of course, why not?

And this little, little facehugger alien babies are popping out at you because that's, you know, because it's blatant, basically. Remember, you know, for a side-scrolling run-and-gun, running around action game in the arcade, I was surprised to die in one hit. Because at this point, there were games where you had more than one hit before you died die. There were some, but I mean, it was still pretty common. I mean, this was, what, two years after Ghost and Goblins, Sororriory Brothers, those games are one-hit kills or two-hit kills, depending on kind of the level of power you have.

But this had the feeling of a side-scrolling space shooter in that there are lots of bullets flying at you all the time. There are, yeah. But there's definitely a lot of platforms. in the first game, especially. So you were able to get pretty far in this game in the arcade? No, I didn't really play it that much in the arcade, but I had a friend who had the NES game. Right, and you put in the 3D men code and you changed. Well, we didn't know about it at first, so we just played and we could get up to, like, I don't know, maybe the snowfield, or he could get to the snowfield, and then I would steal his lives and lives, and then he would get hang out.

Here's a question. Have anyone finished the arcade game without using SafeStates or? Does it have continues, or is it just limited? Okay. No, no. In fact, when this game was popularized on the NES, I don't think any of my friends growing up knew this was an arcade game because it just never circulated to us. And I had the internet for a while, but I don't know why. But maybe in the early 2000s, I saw it in an arcade.

I was like, oh, this was an arcade game. Yeah, this did show up at a pizza place that I frequented it, like on Sundays after church, like two years after the NES game came. The arcade and NES game looked rather different also. They do, yeah. Like the colors are very different. The way the characters are drawn is different. That summer salt is awful in the arcade. Oh, yeah. We'll talk about everything, you know, in terms of version different.

But I'll say this was a game at the time that, like, you put some quarters in, and you wouldn't get very far. And most of me and my friends would like it, but we weren't going to waste our money on it because it was so hard. I was playing this morning, the arcade version and actually made it up to the end of the waterfall. I actually made it inside the waterfall to the base before I died. Yeah, I made it into the waterfall my first time, too, but, you know, I play a lot of contra, but it's hard. And later on, the bosses especially are just like quarter, you know, quarter munchers. You get to the top of the waterfall, and there's this, like, this emplacement that's shooting these large ball projectiles at you in a spread beam. And it's almost impossible not to be hit by those things.

The hitboxes are not on your side in this game. It's a tough one. But, you know, that's part of the appeal is that it's very breezy and fast-paced. So even though you die constantly, I mean, there's, you know, like if you, I mentioned ghost and goblins earlier. And you kind of get to the red armor and that and, you know, that probably kills you. do, and then you're just constantly being bombarded by stuff, there's kind of a weight and sluggishness to Ghost and Goblins that I feel kind of makes it a little bit frustrating to constantly have to

repeat. It's funny, whereas this, if you have to repeat in Contra, it's like, yeah, it's like, you know, the level is two minutes long. It's no big deal. Except for Super Mario Brothers, almost every game we've mentioned, whether it was Russian attack or Castlevania or Ghost and Goblins, Contra feels way faster. You run very fast, and your jump is kind of like this crazy spinning, high,

you know, and you can shoot in every direction while. you're jumping. So like there's a, there's a lot of control. And you felt that immediately when you picked up this game. You've got like Mario kind of, or actually more like Metroid-esque physics because you spin when you jump and you've got kind of like there's a floatiness to the jump and also a lot of control. Like it's floating and then it spins and you can come down real fast. But you can also shoot in eight directions when you're jumping, which is awesome. You can duck and fire. It's a very, oh, and this is, I think this might be the game that innovated the idea of like ducking and jumping to fall through a platform. I mean, you could do

that in Kiddakeris, but you didn't want to. You would always die. It forces that early on the first level. Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot that this game does. But most of all, it is two-player fast-paced cooperative action, even on NES. And that is a big part of its appeal. And it's much easier.

It really isn't tuned to be harder for two people. I think it's a much easier game with two people. It is, except you get into fights about who gets the weapons. But there's so many weapons. There's punching. And also on NES, like you can steal the other person's lives, like the bad player siphons the other players' lives. and that creates all kinds of conflict.

The difficulty is not inside the game. The difficulty is the meta experience that you have with the other person. You're talking about most of the levels, the base levels, are running left to right, shooting enemies, and the way power-ups work

is different than Gradius in that, like, you know, they come flying by, and you can only have one. And if you take, you know, if you take one, it, like, replaces whatever else you have. Right.

And it doesn't, like, pop out of you, like, in some of the Castlevania games. No, it's actually more like Ghost and Goblins, because, like, you can really screw yourself over when you kind of have an item pop out in front of you that's like your roadblock. I got the laser and spread of the spread instead of the spread.

They don't disappear. They don't disappear. You want the spread and then you want to get the rapid. The rapid's the only one that stacks. If you get the R, the R-I-Con, that stacks and makes other weapons faster. I consider loving the spread to be basic. Even back in the day, I remember most of my friends, my sister are like most of me.

I was like, really, it's not about the spread. Oh, it is. The spread is the metal blade of Contra. It is such a versatile, powerful weapon. It's basically awesome. Like when you have the spread beam in this very difficult game, you're like, I feel good because if I stand close to something and shoot it, it takes five hits at once. Wait, so do you think Ripple is better than laser in Radios?

I love Ripple. Of course you do. So like laser in Contra in Contra as well. Laser is so basic in Gradius. No, it's... No, it's... The Ripple's fun and because it's weird and you have to use a little strategy to get... I think we need some tiebreakers, but where do you guys stand on the weapon?

I give it to Jeremy on that one. I only play Parodias, so it's got to... be like weird. Okay, so what do you prefer, like, the baby penguins or, like, the barf missiles? I like baby penguin options, yeah. All right. But I'm glad that we're all on the same page. This is a hard game.

I know some people out there, they get upset when people say games are difficult. It always confuses me. But it's interesting that the one kind of pop culture artifact of this game that persisted throughout the decades is the one-up code of Contra. That actually started in Gradius. Yes. There's a cheat code for Gradios, but up, up, down, down, left-right, left-right, VA start. Or if you want to play two players, up, up, down, left, right,

be a select start to cause the little icon to pop down to player two. Yeah, that came from Gradius originally, but it's... It's associated with Contra. It's the finest moment here. Well, it's associated with Contra in this country. In Japan, where it was first origin in Gradius, they would associate it more close with that. So, yeah.

Either way, Grades was really big over there. We all call it the Konami Code. Right. So I feel like even, like, video gaming normies can use that reference that people will know what it means, and it makes you matter when they get it wrong. I'm like, no, that's not the code. Yeah, exactly.

You got it almost right. Well, it's understandable if maybe they learned it in Gradius 3 where you hit like the L&R button instead of left right. There's some changes. It's kind of like the Tomb Raider Code, where in the Tomb Raider 2, the Invincibility Code or whatever it was, caused Laura to blow up. Lara.

Sorry, British people. On the playground, this was known, you know, colloquially as the Contra Code. And it was something where, like, everybody used it. Like, nobody pretended like they were good enough not to use the contra code, unless you were a game genie or something. Yep, you used it in, Gradius to give it yourself power-ups. You used it here in Contra to give yourself 30 lives.

And you used it in Life Force to give yourself 30 lives. I knew people so bad they had to use it more than once to get through Contra. That's disappointing. But the, yeah, the game is, as Bob said, you know, like it's defining trait is that it's hard. But this is one of those rare games that I think most people don't mind the fact that it's difficult. Because like I said, it's breezy and it has the co-op element. And you can kind of use the co-op element to sort of like drag your corpse over the finish line a little bit. Because on the NES version, you can siphon lives from the other person.

If you die, ran out of lives, then you can hit start and you'll take one of the surviving players reserve lives. But I think in the arcade, if you just like pump in another quarter, then you basically jump into where the other player is. Also, well, the arcade version, you know, we should probably close it out, but it's shorter. and the levels that aren't the side-square levels, the forward-scrolling bass incursions look better. And, you know, I was playing it again to the day. And, like, at the time, it must have felt kind of like, you know, a first-person shooter-esque thing.

Like, there is some aiming and some dodging and some ducking and some going around corners. And, like, you know, now it feels a little rote and basic and boring. But, like, I think back in the day, it might have seemed a lot cooler. You know, this kind of, well, okay, you said we should move on from the Contra. But I disagree, because this is like the pillar of Contra. But it's so much shorter, too. That's the other thing.

It is, but there's a lot here, I feel, to unpack. And, you know, we mentioned the bases. So basically, Contra is, what, six stages, seven stages? Five or six? Yeah, it's pretty short. And it alternates. first stage is, you know, a side-scrolling stage. The second stage is this 3-D, pseudo-3-D base incursion.

You fight a boss at the top. Yeah. And then there's a waterfall where it's a vertically scrolling stage. Then there's another base, and then you go back to a side-scrolling level that's, you know, kind of these multi-phase thing where you're fighting through a bunch of different scenarios. Yeah, one thing I forgot about is in the pseudo-3 stage is you're given a map. And it's like, it's not that interesting, but it's like, oh, you turn your left instead of right in this corridor. But it does kind of remind you by Goonies 2.

as well, right? Like a little bit? I was going to say this kind of this kind of mermaid 3D action thing was kind of

big at the time I can think of a lot of games you know the Goonies 2 you mentioned except that was an action but Galgo 13

top secret episode had that Dr. Chaos had it people fucking love Wizardry man yep yep I mean I've been I've been watching

Pat Labor and that that series has multiple episodes where they're like oh even one of the movies has references to Wizardry I have all this Blu-Rays

me too I'm going to bust them out and watch them. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a couple of episodes where they actually go into tunnels and their codenames are like Wizard One or Trebor and they have like the alien tracker. It is funny to think that like that American RPG PCRP mania did infect Contra. It kind of did. Kind of, yeah. I mean, well, and everyone wanted to create 3D gaming at the time.

You know, in 1987, the only I think the only one who had the ability to do that was UG. Hora, no, UG Naka, sorry. With Fantasy Star, like the 3D in Fantasy Star on Master System blew away what you get on Contra. But at the same time, you know, it is action in Contra. And it's kind of interesting because you have basically, so in these base incursion stages, as you call them, it's basically like section by section. You come into a scenario. And there's like gun emplacements and a target at the end, like the other end of the hallway. On the wall.

And you're stuck at the front side. So it's almost kind of like devastators or something like that. Like, Konami would explore this. The G.I. Joe game, like, they would explore this a lot more. And enemies either hop out or run out to shoot you and then they throw like mines at you. Yeah, so, okay, yeah. Enemies will run back and forth in the background or they'll jump or whatever. And they shoot at you and the bullets kind of track to where you are at the time they fire.

And then there's these like rolling things that'll come at you. So you can jump, you can duck, you can stand. Like it's the normal platforming positions for, gameplay, but it's kind of into the screen. So there's a combination of projectiles that are coming at you and objects that are coming at you. So you can duck under the

projectiles, but if you do that, then you're vulnerable to grenades that are thrown in an arc, and you're vulnerable to the rolling platforms or longs or whatever to come at you. It forces you to kind of like strategically duck and, you know, but as a kid I hated these. I felt like they could ruin the fast flow of the game. Really?

They're so fast-paced though. They have to, especially in the arcade, because you have a timeline. You have like a minute and 10 seconds. And playing the arcade I actually timed out at one point. And now I like them more. But I think at the time, at the time, I thought the size scrolling graphics were so much better. I just wanted more of that. I don't know. I thought it was really interesting. Like, it's not a convincing 3D space, but it's a change of pace to the game that still feels consistent. And of all the sort of like perspective changes in all the Contra games, I feel like Contra 1 has the best. And I wish they had stuck with the style instead of doing like, hey, it's mode 7. It is spinning and your vomiting. It is better than Contra 3's top. Boy, Lordy. So what were the predecessors to this? Shane mentioned Russian attack. Was like running gun games, where were they before this? Russian attack was barely a running gun game.

Run and knife. Run and stab. But you could get a gun with limited ammo. Yeah. Oh, and there was even like the bazookas that you could use. But like a game where you were running left to right and shooting a gun. In my notes, I actually say this is kind of a cross between Konami's take on something like Rigar or Raston Saga, like barbarian action. but with the military element of Rambo or Predator or whatever.

And then also it has the co-op of Akari Warriors where I guess you also get the military. So it's kind of like taking a bunch of different influences and putting them together. But I feel like, you know, it takes all these different influences and comes up with something different. Because Ikari Warriors, you know, that's a run-and-gun game, but it's top-down, it's very slow-paced.

And you're shooting, you know, you've got eight-direction controls. What here was Rolling Thunder? Rolling Thunder was 86. Okay. That was Influing of Rolling Thunder. But I don't really feel like Rolling Thunder is Shinobi are that much like Contra. They're quite different, but they're much more methodical.

Just to think that how few arcade side-scrolling games between 85 and 88 were you shot a gun. Very few. It wasn't really that common. Well, it's hop down, but not very many. Yeah, I mean, you know, before that you had the original elevator action, but it was pretty unusual to see this style of game. And none of those games were as fast as Contra.

That's the thing about Contra. Fast. It's so fast-paced. And, you know, the enemies are shooting at you really quickly, like their projectiles zip across the screen. pretty quickly. But to me, it never feels overwhelming. Like, I feel like I always have a good sense of where everything is,

what all the hazards are. The game isn't too busy or too convoluted. And I feel like everything, like my characters are really reactive, and they respond the way I want them to. One thing I noticed playing the arcade contra was it used some of the same visual vocabulary as Gradius. So had you played Gradius, like things like the power-ups and where you hit enemies

are actually are kind of like... Glowing right points to how they are presented in Gradius. It's almost like it's in the same universe. Yeah, and I think you really see that with the bosses. Like, the very first boss is basically a wall, and there's a sniper on the top. It feels like a grandiose boss. There's a sniper on the top. Then there's these two cannons, and then there's a defenseless target at the bottom.

And basically, the two cannons are, like, shooting these kind of grenades at you that kind of arc forward and fall. So they're there to prevent you from just standing in front of the target and blasting it. But then the guy, the sniper on the top of the wall, is there to prevent you. you from just like ducking down and taking out the two cannons because he can track you wherever you are. With your beloved spread, it's very easy. It is very easy if you have a spread, which is given to you very shortly before you reach the final encounter.

But only one character is going to have the spread most likely. So unless you manage to carry a spread from like halfway through the level. I'll use my skill to pinpoint the target. But then you get into the later bosses and you have, you have, so in the first base there is like the roaming, eyeball that moves back and forth, but before the eyeball appears, you have to take out there's six panels

and those open up and become temporarily vulnerable. Two of them are just like cores, very similar to the big core ships in Gradius. A lot of core shooting. But then there's also four panels that open up into guns that will shoot spreads at you. So you have to be really careful because, like I said, the hit boxes

are not on your side. So it becomes really tricky to kind of dodge and weave through these. But then what are the other bosses? There's like the big alien head. Was that just on the NES? I can't remember. I think that's only on NES.

Yeah, and the giant jumping robot guy is only on NES. But, yeah, there are a lot of cores and panels and things like that that you have to shoot. Pillboxes even that pop up throughout the levels, like they open up and a gun appears, it all does feel very grottiously. When playing the waterfall level of the arcade version, I was struck by how gorgeous that waterfall animation is and how much slowdown there is in the arcade game. The arcade game has so much slowdown. It's crazy. I'm so used to the NES game that going back to the arcade game, you're like, man, how is the NES game like faster and less sluggish than this?

To kind of get us towards that, like, not only is the NES game really a better game, but there's just so much more to it and how it's presented, especially the Japanese version. It's like it's almost like they made, you know, a B plus game into like an A plus game. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was very unusual to see NES like home conversions of an arcade. game turn out superior to the arcade game without radically changing it. Like Capcom did the thing where they were like, buying a commando, sure, but what if we did a completely different game, basically?

And yeah, that turned out better, but they like reinvented the game. Whereas this is like the NES home version, we should just jump into that, is the arcade game expanded, improved, refined. It's so much better. Like, you know, the five stages become eight stages. And basically what they do is they take the final. alien base and break it out into multiple stages. So you have a snowfield,

you have a factory, and then you have the alien guts instead of having those kind of like two screens of stage theme before you move on to the next. I mentioned this earlier, but I appreciate the artwork on the NES version more, even though it's at a lower fidelity. Like, the animation and sprite work on the arcade game is often pretty, like, awkward and

hilarious. Like, the somersault looks so awkward, and it's the same with the sequel. They never fixed it. But in the NES, it's just a very tight somersault you go into. It's very, it's very nice looking. Yeah, and this has, the, the arcade game has that, or the NES game has that Konami style, where it's, like, kind of lanky bodies, pretty realistic proportions, and then the dude has a small head with no detail on his face.

You saw that in Castlevania, Russian attack. That was just how they did stuff. And it just, it kind of created this house style where you play a game and you were like, oh, yeah, this is Konami. Like, even without the silver trim box, you knew this is Konami. Yeah. And, you know, the music helps too. The music, actually, I almost prefer it. I listened to both of them again last night and, like, some of the same melodies, but, like, you know, they sound really good in the NIA sound chip.

And also, like, the color, the palette, like, it's very bright. It really pops, whereas, again, like, the arcade version is a little dingy, the color choices. Well, I think that's interesting. I think, like, the arcade game was sort of designed to take advantage of, like, the phosphored scan lines of the arcade monitor. And I think that's why it doesn't look as good, you know, without that on an LCD screen or whatever. Because they, you know, they wanted. So, like, if you do use the scan line filter on, like, the collection, for example, it'll look a little bit better and a little bit closer to what I think was really going on there. So, okay.

Yeah, I think this is a game I'd really like to see included on a Mr. Corps. So you could, you know, output it to an actual CRT. play the arcade game at home with a proper CRT model. I will say, though, I do think it would look really great. I do feel like the presentation, the Tate vertical presentation, also makes it less fun. It feels very claustrophobic. I'm, like, I was playing through super, supercontrican. Like, I'm kind of always worried about what's coming.

Well, it makes the waterfall stage a lot easier. It does. The vertical screens are easier. But, like, for the side-scrolling ones, it actually kind of stresses me out. We talked a little bit about the power-ups, and you were complaining that the spread gun is basic, which is incorrect. But there are some other weapons. There's a laser, which apparently.

that's the one you like the most? I love it. So what's so great about the laser? It's very, very powerful. It is powerful, but it's also very, like, you have to, like, hold down the button for it to shoot all the way across the screen. Remember a skilled character?

I guess so. There's also the fire beam, which is kind of neat because it's really wide, but it's so slow. And it kind of gives you that space invaders effect where you can only have, like, two or three projectiles on the screen at once, and they take forever to spin across the screen.

So until those dissipate, you're like, oh, well, I'm just going to stand here and hope I don't die. That was actually my least favorite as a kid. Not a fan. It has its uses in some places, but it's hard to be precise with it, so that kind of sucks. There is a smart bomb, which, you know, that kind of speaks for itself. There's also the machine gun, which is better than the regular gun, but it's not that different from the rapid fire. It's a little more powerful than just getting rapid fire on your regular weapon, but that's about it.

Barely a power up. Yeah, right. So, yeah, basically, like, you're constantly being thrown these power-ups throughout each stage. And so kind of drones fly by. Yeah, and there's also, again, pillboxes that pop out. And instead of being gunned and placements, they're just power-ups that you have to grab. Sometimes the power-ups are designed in a way. They're placed in a way so that they'll fly into a pit if you don't get them very quickly,

which is something you see in some of like the Mario games with mushrooms that slide off into a pit. So it kind of keeps you on your toes. Well, it kind of makes Castlevania, too, like they were, like, diagetic things you had to break in the environment to get the delicious power-ups. Sure, a little bit, yeah. But I think the most important thing about the power-ups is that they create this constant sense of variety where you always, like, you always have the ability to optionally change up your powers and change up your approach.

And, you know, it is kind of the grottiest thing, but so compacted, so, like, fast-paced, you know, do you don't have to cycle through and wait until you collect enough pills, you just power up, you've got a new gun, or you can skip it, or you can let the other player have it. Or, you know, you could basically play however you want. So it's very quick. It's very immediate satisfaction. It's something that I think really helps contrary and makes it fun. One thing to note about the NDS version, didn't it release first in the West? On home console? I don't believe so.

I think it came out in Japan first. Then why is the Japanese version so much better? Because it came out on the Konami VRC 2 chip, which also powered Salamander, which became Life Force here. But Nintendo did not allow third-party publishers to publish games on their own bespoke chips. So it had to be moved over to, I want to say, I think I put it down, it's an UNROM. So it's like the same chip as Ghost and Goblins. Wow.

Yeah. So they were basically. basically like living in the ghetto there and really had to kind of constrain themselves to limitations. Whereas the VRC 2 chip had extra RAM and registers and things like that. So you could have, you know, animated palm trees swaying in the background of the first stage. You could, you had more memory for cutscenes in the opening. Every stage had a map, the Castlevania-esque map. Castlevania or Ghost and Goblins. Yep. Well, this may just be, this may be my patriotism talking, but I think those are just nice to have because I think, you know, the,

The N-A-S version, the U.S.N.S. version, stands fine on its own. Oh, it does. It doesn't need... But the openings, but the animation in level? Come on. That's... Actually, the thing that I like most is the map, because I, you know, I just... I like having a sense of, you know, a video game world that is a cohesive space. But the map should...

Yeah, I like, I like seeing, like, oh, yeah, I'm going in here, and then I'm going through the base, and then I'm climbing up the waterfall. You can see a greater sense of import. Yeah, it shows that they, you know, they thought, like, Like, how do these places fit together? Like, what is the journey here? That said. And I like seeing that.

The cuts they made and still left behind an amazing game. Like, they had to make some cuts. They didn't, they didn't compromise the action. They didn't compromise the two player controls. They didn't change any of the weapons. They didn't change any of the bosses, really, or the enemies. They didn't change the music. It's not like Castlevania 3 where a whole bunch of stuff got down.

And at the time, I had no idea what we were missing, whereas some of the things like Castlevania 3 that did get covered. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, like, I don't. I don't think anyone who played Contra in 1988, 89 in America was like, man, this game would be so much better if the palm trees were swaying in the background of the jungle. No, who cares? Jeremy took it back. He's like, this is ruined.

Yeah, that's right. One less fun factor point on that one. Yep. Yep. It's a kind of excited phase instead of a red head exploding phase. Also, Contra in 1988, it was like a AAA must have, like, you know, amazing title. Like, it really was. I mean, yes, it is, I think there's no.

There was no such thing as a triple-A title in 1980. Shut up, come on. It was the uncharged four of the love of its time. It hung out in the top ten of the player's choice poll in the fucking Nintendo power. That's equivalent to calling it triple A. 300 people voted for it. But yeah, I think there's no doubting that it's pretty much like in the top three NES games, I think, in people's minds. Top three.

Really? Yes. That's the fuck out. Yes. If you, listen, if you just talk to the average show about what their favorite NES games will be, it'll probably be Mario Zelda Contra. And I think that's why it's kind of an extra bummer that it wasn't on the NES classic. Yeah, I would say if you ask someone,

like, what are three NES memories? One of them will be the 30-man code. Yeah. And they'll call it 30-Men. Yeah. We need to rethink that. I think you guys need to think for a minute. Yeah, people really love Contra.

No, I don't doubt that. Top three, though. All I think is really surprising. That wasn't even in the Wizard. Number four, Techmo Bowl. Was it in the Wizard? In like a montage, Contra? Yeah, as in the montage.

Yeah, I thought so. Yeah. Got to do the montage. Okay. So top three. game. What do I know? Ray said it, so it's true. And triple A. But yeah, no, it is, it is a very beloved game. And, you know, I think it's fair because this is a rare example of an ES game that is better than the arcade version that is based on. And yeah, just everything like Konami was really

bringing its A game, or if you're Shane, it's AAA game to the, to the foldier and made a spectacular conversion of a game that is just like better in pretty much every way than the arcade source material and did not bring that to the MSX version. No, tell us about the MSX version. Came out after all those, and it was, yeah, they... MSX can't scroll. It can, but they chose...

Was it an MSX-1 or two? Two. Oh, okay. It was like 2 plus. So this was like, yeah, 88. It could have enabled it, yeah. It absolutely did, but I think they got maybe an amateurish team on it, and so it does not scroll the way you kind of scrolls

like Super Mario Bros. Special does it? Ratchet scrolling. And it doesn't look the same at all. They really kind of... What if the speed of contract that we love? Not really there to put it nicely. Does it at least have, like, the fancy FM synthesis option to the soundtrack, like Gratius did? I don't know.

I can't remember offhand. I don't think... I mean, I'm sure it must have something with the SSC cartridge, the sound cartridge. But, yeah. You called out the NES soundtrack as being remarkable. And I agree. Like, it's a really... Like the NES version is a kind of a defining soundtrack for the platform.

Like everyone, I think, you know, if you play like do-d-d-d-dood-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-ddddddd-dddddd. Everyone would be like, oh, Contra. Yes, in the early 2000s, when everybody had a punk band that played NES covers, this was one of them. Yep. I saw the mid-bosses play it live. Yep, yeah. Yep, the advantage. Yep.

And I, yeah, one of the, I've mentioned this before, but one of the best interviews ever had was with Hedonori Maizawa, who was the composer who did the conversion for the NES version and I talked to him with Sam Kennedy and Sam brought along like a link to like a cover band that had done the like a heavy metal cover of the Contra theme and we played it for Maizawa and he was just like blown away and he just like sat there with this kind of like blissful look on his face and said ah true sound in English like he just he was like super

super into it. It was really cool to see that kind of reinterpreted and brought back to him and I don't know. That was just a great memory. So when I think of Contra soundtrack, I think of just like a happy composer, like discovering how much his music meant to

someone or to his fans. So I think that's kind of like the puts a bow on Conra. Like it is a game that brought happiness to a lot of people and then you know, that channeled back to its creators. I would also say it's probably the second most popular Contra in terms of hardcore fans overall.

Really, second most? What's the most? Contra 3. Okay, sure. That tracks. So we should also probably mention the robotic elephant in the room, which is Probotector. For our European listeners. We're sorry about that, guys.

They blame Germany. A war happened. They can handle a Contra game. Well, because the war happened, they were like, no, maybe not. I said never again. Europe had lots of other things. They had, you know, James Pond. and, you know, other...

We, I mean, we did get Robocot over here. We were at the dawn of Dizzy. We didn't... It was time for Contra. They had speedball. Jet set Willie. Right. No, in Europe, because of Japanese...

Or, sorry, German laws that basically outlawed the depiction of realistic humans being killed in video games, all the contra characters were changed to robots. and the series was renamed Probotector. It was also called Grisor, for some reason. They were ProBots. They were robots that run on propane.

I'm pro-Robot. I'm pro-Robot. I'm pro-Priam robots. They're great. I was waiting for that. Do we believe that this kept it from being as popular? I think it did. I don't know. I mean, it's still the same game.

But I don't think it was quite as popular. Like, what is materially the difference between Bill and Lance wearing with their pants and no shirts versus robots? This could have more to do with Second Masters to be more popular over there or something. Yeah, it was released late and all that. Yeah, I think the ProBetector license or change whatever, whatever you want to call it, the only game it really has a material impact on

is hardcore because that is a game that is defined by the fact that you have four very different characters. And they all kind of look the same when they turn into robots except Brad Fing who turns into a robot weirwolf, which is actually maybe cooler than just normal Brad Fing. Where is it Grysor?

It's Grysor was the European version of the NES game, I want to say. Okay. They used it a lot on the computer ports, too. Okay. Robots were banned, the realistic humans were banned, but Grysors were okay. No, Grysers were fine, and so were pro-botechers. You could be a pro-bot if you wanted to. Probot or a Grysore.

Prophylactic. I'll extend in all of a branch to our friends across the sea. I like the look at the robots. Yeah, I mean, bad-looking robots. That's what I'm saying. It's like, they basically, they work hard, yeah. They were basically the inspiration for Base Wars 2000 or something. They looked like that, yeah.

I was aware of this. Back then day, I remember thinking it was lame. I was like, oh, that's lame. You were very up on things. I'm very hard game fan taught me that. I was like, oh, I'm sorry. I wonder if the pro-protector changes influence Contra 3, because when I started Contra 3 for the S&ES, I'm like,

oh, is this the European version? Because there are all these robots you fight. I forgot. It's like the enemies are robots for a long time. Yeah. Perhaps. But your guys aren't. No, no.

The guys are fleshy dudes. They're very fleshy. Yeah, that's the American version. They did some of the work up front. Right. We're going to be able to be. Contra was a hit, and therefore that means there were sequels. And the first sequel was not called Contra 2.

It was called Super Condra. Or if you played it on NES, where the PTA was like, hey, this game seems to be referring to the Ronald Reagan Oliver North scandal. That's not cool. You shouldn't celebrate that. It was just called Super C. Slightly confusing.

But we knew what was up. We knew what was up because the sea was the fiery crescent that was the C and the Contra logo. It was wicking at you. We didn't actually talk about what Contra means. Like in Japanese it has like a, what is the, it has like a specific name.

Like that kind of reading. When they choose kanji to represent it? Yeah, it's like, well, the kanji, like it's chosen for the sound. like the phonetics as opposed to what it means. Well, sometimes it does mean things. Sometimes it doesn't. In the case of contra contora, it's like star or is it like north? I can't remember.

Yeah, that's one of them kind of like it. What's it signifying, though, like aliens? I don't know. I actually thought all of you weaves would have my back on this. I was always happy it had Furrigana over it so I could read the Contra. Conjia are hard, dude. Yeah, okay. It uses like some really esoteric kanji.

know that people are like, uh, but, but, yeah, military type kanji. Probably, yeah. So, okay, so it means something and we didn't bother to look it up because, it says, uh, so contra is spelled with kanji characters. Uh, this is a form of a teji, which the characters are used for their pronunciation rather than any inherent meaning. So the meaning does not matter in this case. But what do the, what is the reading of those kanji? Uh, I think the kanji are just signifying the, uh, the sounds you made. No, I get that. But they do that. I get that. I'm saying, but the kanji still. have meaning.

Who's on first? In this case, the meaning is irrelevant. Yes. I'm sorry. I understand that. We don't have radicals here. There are still like inherent meanings to the symbols. I'm curious if that actually means something.

Take the conju and put him in. I will text somebody who speaks Japanese and I will let you know. If you put him in the Google, you might get it. Yeah, you could probably. But at the time, at the time, I remember as a kid being like, oh, that's weird that on NES is just called Super C, they must have got in trouble for calling. I mean, that was, I mean, you know, even with the first game, we were kind of like like, it seemed like they were up to something.

Like it was a little naughty. So when the game came out, the sequel came out of Super Cio, we were all kind of like, well, yeah, all right, they blew in. It's funny, I had never seen Supercontra in arcade literally ever. And like my whole life, never seen it. Never seen it. So when it came out on the anniversary collection, I was super stoked to finally play the arcade version of Supercontra.

Interesting. Man, do they really look like Arnold Schwarzenegger? And Rambo. This was actually the first Contra game that I played in the arcade. Oh, wow. I played Contra later in the arcades. But this one, they had it are put-put. I mean, and like out of the gate, it's more Contra, but with a lot more aliens.

Like, like a double dose of aliens. Yeah, pretty much. They definitely, okay, so the first game is set on Galuga Island. Not Galluga Island. Not Galluga, Galuga. So there's an alien called Red Falcon. Red Falcon. that crashes to Earth and wants to take over and you blow them up.

This isn't the far-flung year of like 23-36 or something. I think it's 23-something. It's pretty far out. But in the American version, they don't, like the NES version, they kind of, you know, they did the whole rewrite thing. Like Ayatollah Kakamami and that Hira-Role of Kaka-Mah. Paula Abgold and Fred Astaire. Yeah, exactly.

So they just kind of brushed over the fact that it was set in the future and actually made it like next week in, you know, in the South Pacific. That is a big change. With Super Contra, there was no denying this was set in the future because you start out in the ruins of a city, like a bombed out city and everything's futuristic. There's like cars and stuff.

It's, you know, like structures and towers and things. I don't know, maybe it's not like super urban. Maybe I'm thinking more of Concord. But it looks post-apocalyptic. But it definitely has like a futuristic city feel to it. So I can tell you what the instruction manual says. So only the strong survive is the heading for the story of Contra. Many paragraphs follow, but the first two are the most important.

In 1957, a large object from outer space crashed into Earth's Amazon basin near the ruins of a lost mine civilization. Scientists worldwide heralded the incident as a trivial cosmic occurrence, and thus the collision was soon forgotten. Now, 30 years later, so this game takes place in 1987, rumors of an evil force have swept into the Pentagon's front office and tales from the frightened villagers of a hideous being with an army of alien henchmen are sending chills down the spines of top military brass, and there's several. words after that, but this game takes place in 1987 in the American localization. I'll say what, no shit. The first half of that sounds exactly like what Atari said, the plot of Zavius was.

Like ancient aliens. And Mayan civilization. Yeah. I mean, at least they had some bases for that. They had the NASCAR lines. Yeah, true. Here, it's just like, whatever. That doesn't even look like the Amazon basin. I know. There are no snowfields in the Amazon basin, God damn it. That's probably

true. Oh, there's nothing more for... Oh, no, I thought you were looking something up. Oh, no, I was like, I was just looking to see if there's anything more that was worth mentioning. Ah, okay. There are just the... It's all fun Konami localization from the 80s, so... Okay.

I do like how they... Somebody sat down and thought of a story for this. Oh, yeah. Like regardless of what anyone in Japan thought of what Contra should be. Yep, yep. That was the Konami localization approach at the time. Hiraola Kakamami. Okay, so Super Contra, or Super C if you prefer,

is basically more of the same, but ostensibly better. In the arcade, you have like a high jump feature. You can actually, like, jump higher. You can control your height. I don't think you can do that quite to the same effect on the NES version or the home versions, but, you know, like, that already had kind of like the element

where you could control the height of your jump by how long you press the... I don't even know. Like, why would they add that? I think you could jump a little higher even with this one. Okay, okay. Well, anyway, it changes up the weapon collection a little bit. There's slightly different weapons.

You can get bombs now, so you can, like, fire these gigantic shells out of your gun. I don't say those bombs make it a little easier because you get, like, two, I think, when you start, and you can pick more up. Right. Well, no, there's also a new weapon that is just like shells, right? Right, yeah.

And also, this arcade game is kind of short, too. I think it's only five levels, maybe, five or six again. It's like, it's... Yeah, it's five levels. It's considerably shorter than the NES game. Right, but it chews through your quarters because it's really hard. Yeah, the bosses. Way harder than the first one.

Oh, the bosses. But it also changes up the 3D stages, the immersive, like, behind the character stages as you're invading the bases to be topped down. And I don't think it works as well. No. And it really, like, this actually does slow down the gameplay. Like, the top-down stages are not fun, in my opinion. I agree.

And they don't get any more fun on the NES version. Well, I think they're, like, less impressive graphically, too, maybe? Like, I don't know. Yeah, for sure. Because there's no real perspective employed. Yeah, there's no trick to it. It's just the top-down. Yeah, the behind-the-character sequences in the first game, like, you still had your basic standard controls.

Like you were still, aside from the fact that you were always shooting into the screen, like you were still jumping, you could still duck, you could still run left and right. And then, you know, you would run forward once you cleared up the threat. If you wanted to play a top-down, you know, shooting game, S&K has many that are good. Yeah, I don't know what they were doing with this one, but it was kind of weird. And otherwise, it's pretty much, it's more the same. Like you start out in a ruined city, but then you fight through a jungle,

and then there's like a technological base, and then, like, a technological base, and then like the inside of the aliens. So it really does feel kind of like a retread. I'll say at the time, I never saw the arcade. And when it made out of NES, I did not purchase it. I rented it. And we liked it. But it wasn't, you know, to me, considering like how good like a Mega Man 2 was, you know, something like that,

it definitely wasn't better than the original. No, I mean, it had much nicer graphics and like it looked more impressive. You don't think so? I mean, I think the graphics were better, but it's had less of an impact overall, less memorable. Well, yeah, I mean, it was less memorable set pieces. You were just kind of doing the same thing. that you had done in the first game, and, you know, you'd already done that the first game.

But still solid, a solid game. Yeah, it was fine. It was just like, just more of the same. I mean, maybe it's fair that they called it Super Contra as opposed to Contra 2 because it really did feel like, yeah, like kind of, you know, a revamped take on the first game. The one interesting thing about the NES version, in my opinion, is the fact that the final boss of the arcade game is actually not the final boss of the NES game. if you sit down and read the lore, you actually fight the final boss of the arcade game

as the, like, sixth level boss out of eight, and then there's actually some other alien who is behind everything. But, like, who cares? I don't know. This game came out around the same time as Ninja Guiden. Right. And I kind of feel like Ninja Guiden

did the whole, like, fight through a demonic innards and destroy the heart of a demon, a lot better than Super C. I don't know. For some reason, they kind of, this game blurs more in my mind with Ninja Guiden than it does with the original Contra.

Like, I have trouble remembering, like, which part was... I definitely preferred Ninja Guiden at the time. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Tecmo kind of ate Konami's lunch in terms of coming up with a cool game. The N.S part of this did get a Nintendo Power cover, and I remember reading the issue a lot. Yeah, what was that cover?

It was Super C. No, I mean, like, what was the illustration? Like a diorama, maybe? It was, like, two, like, sweaty army guys, like, hiding behind a thing, and then like a giant machine was behind them in the jungle. Okay. Yeah, I remember that now.

It was like May June 90. Blurry jungle scene, yeah. Yeah. So I rode that hype drain, but I didn't actually buy the game. So I have more meaning for the contra title. I texted a friend of the show Nina Matsumoto. Of course, as we said before, the kanji were chosen just for how they sound because you're sounding out a foreign word in Japanese.

But the kanji, if you want to give them meaning, the first one means soul. And the other two are very obscure kanji. one means box and the other means can mean gauze like the material gauze so they're not chosen for any meaning

they're chosen just for their sound so I guess maybe soul spooky the gauzy soul box it's like salt Mahal and drive so that's your meaning right there yeah Konami did that with a few games

at the time salamander which became Lifeforce here was also the same way it has like a very ornate kanji title and then it has the attachi Furagana underneath it Okay well

So we are talking about the NIS NES version now, right? NES and arcade version. When I was playing it, I noticed that, so, like, of course, you get the Konami drums, which are really good, like the sample drums you hear. But also what surprised me in this game I totally forgot about

is, like, they sample like an orchestra hit kind of sound effect. They play at different pitches to build music out of. Yeah, it's like that owner of a lonely heart sting, right? Yeah. But it's like one very low bit rate sample that they are somehow able to play at different pitches. It's very well used, but it does. definitely adds a lot to the music, which I totally forgot about.

Are there differences between the Japanese and American here? No. I don't believe so. I think they were, yeah, nothing worth noting. Like, certainly nothing on the level of the first Contra. But, yeah, that was Super C and Super Contra. And I think at this point, Konami didn't make any more arcade games in the Konami and the Contra series.

They were just like, yeah, let's move it to home consoles. And they knew where their bread was buttered, so they came up with Super Contra. Or, no, sorry, Contra 3, what's up? Yes. I'm just sorry. They were busy with all those beat-em-ups. Ah, yes. Soon to be Street Fighter.

I mean, Contra could have made a pretty cool four-player arcade game, but they didn't do that. So instead, you got Contra 3, the Alien Wars. Aw, darn. For Super NES. Which was... Before the Super Nintendo Super Famcom came out, this was on the radar. It was, like, one of the games that was announced that looked exciting. That was, like, you know, people remembered how good Contra was.

And, you know, I remember looking forward to this game. Yeah, because it was. Four years before. It wasn't like they were digging into the dim and distant past. It was all very kind of like immediate right in there. And in some of the pre-release stuff you saw like, oh, here's like the, you know, Mode 7 plane flying by, bombing. And, you know, this had some hype behind it, for sure. Yeah, I mean, this and Super Castle Vena 4 were definitely like Konami kind of leading with their best foot forward.

Gradius 3, maybe not so much on Superneas. But, you know, once they kind of got past the. the how do we make games actually run at the proper speed, then you got Castlevania 4, had some slowdown, which did a lot better. I'll say, you know, I love me some Super Cascafania 4, but it's not your speediest, most agile Califania. Whereas Contra 3 feels the way it's supposed to feel fast and fun

and good jump, like right at the beginning. It keeps the co-op. Yeah, it keeps the co-op. The crazy weapons. This definitely has, like, some really wild weapon upgrades. Well, say, if you go from Contra to this game from first levels, It is almost like, is this the same universe? Because I'll say, like, it is quite, quite different.

It's like futuristic, you know, cyberpunk, kind of goofier. I don't know about cyberpunk, but definitely like... More colorful, post-apocalyptic. Post-apocalyptic. But there's like a humor to it that wasn't quite there before. Oh, yeah. I mean, this is the game... Okay, for one thing, this is the first game with Nobiyun Nakazato,

who kind of would go on to be the lead designer for a lot of Contra games. and also came up with, like, Rocket Night and that sort of thing. So he was a pretty big figure at Konami. Oh, when you mentioned that, like, I can see that parallel between Rocket Night and his game right there. But this is, this is, it represents a material change in sort of the focus of Contra, whereas the first, the first two games were kind of like side scroll, alternate level, side scroll, alternate level, et cetera. This is much more about like, let's, you know, there were the alternate levels in there,

but not as many. And it was much more about like, here's a situation that leads up to some kind of crazy, unexpected mid-boss. And then there's like a falling action that builds up to the actual boss at the stage. I'll say this also feels kinder to the player,

almost more like an action-adventure game. The first thing you get is a shield. Yeah, but let's not pretend that this is not a difficult game because it's tough. But it's not arcade game anymore. No, but I mean, this is still a hard game. It is. But it's a game.

This is the first one that introduced the idea that if you beat the game on easy, you only get like some of the stages and to get the real ending, I think it's the first contra that you feel like you can actually finish without cheating.

I don't know. I got the furthest in this one when I was playing them all again after a long time, and I feel like, so I don't want to further the Bob Mackey is bad at video games narrative,

which is dubious at best. These are very hard games. Get good, Bob Maggie. I beat all the Dark Souls games come at me, but I will say that I feel like the generation of shooters after this,

I am much better at things like metal slugging on star heroes and stuff. I don't know what's going on with these games where I find them very difficult, much harder to finish, but this is the one I felt like

I could, it didn't seem too unfair to me. Like, I feel like there's more concessions made to the player. I agree. In this game. I would like to posit the idea that this game was heavily influenced by Strider. Because it has, it has that same sort of like crazy, wild

cinematic set piece feel. I mean, this is a game where one stage consists of you grabbing onto missiles and leaping from missile, to missile. There is a battle with a giant Terminator who bursts through the wall

and tries to punch you. I think you're 100% right, and it's funny because I did this rider one and we say how that kind of changed games by having all these ridiculous set pieces in the middle of a level. This is all about that. In fact, in that first level, there's like a fake out, you know, here's the boss from the first level of Contra. Just pop it up in the middle of level. It's like, you know, a tiny mini boss. And then after that,

suddenly the level turns into like an homage to the prominent stages of all of the shoes. Yeah, there's like these fires are exploding everywhere. It's a grandious life for it. Something that's Graduates and Life Force. And this is where the airplane swoops in in mode 7, launches missiles into the screen and then flies past you. So it's really like, you know, the Condor 3 team sat down and said,

we're not working with arcade hardware. So we're a limit more limited in the power we're working with. But there are these unique features to this hardware. And also, you know, the experience of a home game is different than an arcade game. People aren't pumping in quarters. So let's really think about how we can deliver like a memorable, satisfying experience that always surprises the player, always has a twist. So every stage, like, really feels, I feel lovingly crafted.

Like, they really put some thought into each and every stage and how it flows and how you kind of get into a comfortable groove and think, okay, I got a handle on this. And then all of a sudden, whoa, it flips everything upside down and you're stuck inside an elevator trying to avoid, like, crazy robots that are running around the wall. in the ceiling. Like, everything is just constantly changing, and it really does feel like, you know, that kind of strider little standalone set piece linked together into a series of stages. And then there's the top-down stages, which really suck.

But let's not hold that against those games. I mean, they did look good. It's funny because I can remember them. They didn't actually. No, I actually remember the first time I ever saw them, they look cool for, like, a minute or something. They look cool for a minute. But the thing is, like, as soon as you really. look at them, the visual style breaks down because they're supposed to be like barriers and

three-dimensional elements. I hate the strict top-down perspective. I don't hear what game you are, if you're sensible soccer or like, whatever. I hate you. Bill Lambears, combat basketball. All of them. It works in Brandish, but that's it. God, I hate that. I hate it. Brandish is great. Yeah, but the top-down stages are not great. And honestly, if you want to play Contra 3, aside from the collection, I would recommend playing the Alien and Wars Advance, the GBA port of Contra 3, which takes all of Contra 3, and then it strips out the stupid top-down stages, the two stupid, horrible, crappy top-down stages, and replaces them with, like, the train level and something else from hardcore.

Really? I forgot that was a thing. Yes. That's crazy. It is wild, and I love that they did that. I wish I could delete the, yeah, Mo's seven stages from the anniversary collection. Yeah, I mean, if you could replace, like, you know, on the Super NES card and, like, take hardcore stages and stick those in there, that'd be great.

How does this compare it to the Mode 7 stage in Castlevania 4? That's awesome. It's a totally different thing. The Mode 7 stage in Castlevania 4 is just like, hey, here's a fun thing we can do. Well, and that stage is great because it presents Mode 7 in a few different ways. At the time, that was that. But it doesn't get in the way of the gameplay. I'd say the most impact it has.

I mean, obviously there's like the rotating room, but that's very short. But the barrel room, yeah. The gold bat. Well, no, the barrel room is interesting because. Because it is basically like a collapsing bridge stage, but because it has that, like, spinning background, it feels so much more frantic because it's just, like, what is happening. It's also going at five frames a second. Yeah, I have an hunt who has, like, she has issues with her inner ear, so she can't write elevators and stuff because it gets really dizzy. And she saw me playing that when I was a kid, and she almost threw up.

She was like, whoa. It was, like, way intense. But, I mean, like, aside from that, I feel like. like the mode seven stages in Castlevania 4 are really cool, and they're just kind of like a fun little bit of window dressing, whereas mode 7 here is like the basis, like the

underpinning of how these stages played. The problem isn't really that it's mode 7, it's like the inputs and how it's presented. Because like, you know, when mode 7 pops up in these size going levels, it's fine. It's just like the actual interface and structure of these levels is not fun. A whole game like that. Yeah, and you're not like trying

to fight from the beginning to the end. It's more like you have a set of targets and you have to destroy them. And once you destroy all the targets, then you move on to the next stage. Like, I remember at the time just thinking it felt like a different game by a different team with different objectives. I didn't like any of it. This reminds me of Boor Eye Fighter on NES, which was like a side-scrolling shooter

and it was really good and fun. And then there were these like free-roaming top-down stages that you had to destroy a set number of targets and they sucked. And when they ported the game to the Game Boy a few months later, they were like, what if we took out the bad top-down stages? And it's a better game. It's deluxe. It's deluxe because we took out the bad stuff.

At the time, and now in post, Contra 3, Alien Wars, despite having two completely garbage stages, is still a recommendable, beloved 9 out of 10, great classic game. Absolutely. But if you want a Konami platform with good top-down stages, Legend of the Mystical Ninja. Oh, you're right about that. Nice. Oh, yeah. Also at the same era. 1992?

Where's that collection? Yeah. Damn. Yeah, anyway, so any final thoughts on Contra 3 before we move along? Great soundtrack. Do you mention the soundtrack? It's very good. But it was never an arcade game, right?

Right. It was created for Super Nias. It never went anywhere. Besides GBA, never went anywhere else. Game Boy. There was a Game Boy. There was a Game Boy. That's the one I bought.

How bad is that? It's pretty good. It's made by Factor 5. What? It takes out the top-down stages, right? Yeah. I forgot about that because the only Game Boy game in the collection is Operation C, right? I mean, it's because the second Game Boy game is pretty much a port of the Super Neos game, so it's a little redundant.

Whereas Operation C is kind of like a best of... It's not Game Boy color. It's Game Boy. It's like 1993 or so. Super Game Boy palette? Yes. Oh, so it's a little later? Like 94?

Oh, yeah. Does it a frame of Super Game Boy? Yes, I believe so. Time to bust out the Super Game Lord. So that's time to attract aggressively. That's my familiarity with Conchre 3. Okay. Oh, interesting.

Where he's like, that's the best version. This is pure original. Well, my heart says so, but my brain knows better. So on to the next Conjur game, which is also a console exclusive. Yeah, that's everyone's favorite Contra Force. Oh, God. Because this was not in the compilation, I forgot about it. It's also not really a Contra game.

That's an easy idea. Yeah, I've only played it once ever. Never wanted to own it. I owned it used, so, but, yeah, this is the battlefield hardline of Contra. Or is it the Snake's Revenge of Contra? Yeah, I would make that comparison, for sure. It only came out in America. Who made it?

It was Konami. It was a game, it was going to be called Arkhound. And it's really kind of, you know, like an attempt to take sort of Contra-ish mechanics and combine it with the structure of TMNT4 or, you know, Yeah, that kind of like you have multiple characters and you can swap between them. Well, Turtles games were so huge with Konami. We heard a recent thing from the Castlevania. Somebody who worked on Castlevania was tweeting about how, like, there was so much internal pressure, like make games like turtles.

The turtles people are getting the most money internally. So this could be a result of that. Yeah, I think this was an attempt to like do the turtle thing with Contra. But they didn't take the part of turtles that people liked, which was the turtles. Yeah. And they were like, hmm, the Indian. game, the first NES game, everyone bought that. Did it have Lance

and Bill and regular contracts? No, it has a guy named Beans. Beans? Beans. Bean Burns and Smith? Bean Burns. Yeah. Is that right? No, whatever. Something like that. I didn't put the character names down. Yeah. But the interesting thing about this is

that you can set a, you have like the four character system where you can choose which character you're playing as, but you can set one character as a CPU controlled ally to fight with you. Wait, so you always have a co-op AI character I think you

it's been a while since I've played but I think you optionally can have it is it more of a brawler no no it's a running gun

game yeah but it has kind of like I would say exploratory like it's a little bit along the lines of the Rambo game

for NES almost maybe I would just say it is a running gun game like Contra it has more platformy bits so I would say things that you know

with moving platforms and you kind of do you pick up power ups yes yes you do however unlike the first two Contra games, it has immense slowdown at like every step of the way.

It also, it has like a Gratius-style power-up system too. It's a strange game, and it's, it didn't, I don't think it did that well, and people were like, oh, Contra, oh. Well, it was kind of late, right? Yeah, it was, it was 92, 93. Yeah, right before or right after three. Yeah.

Like, Super Nintendo is that, hello. Yeah. But, like, overshadowed by Contra 3 for sure. I thought this very expensive. I thought this, this was like the first country game I owned, really. I mean, I played Contra before. friends and family, but this was the first one I got when, like, grocery stores started offloading

NES games for like $999, and then I got and took it home. And then later, some other time, I was a friend, and he was just spending the night. So we also went to the same grocery store and saw another copy of Contra Force. And I told him, oh, you should get that. That'd be good. And I think I was sarcastic. Contra Force Pusher. I might have been sarcastic, but either way, he got it and opened up the box and it was Contra one. And I was like, fuck. That's the actual good game I wouldn't want it. So, you're finished Contrforce? No.

Because it was just, it was a... Now it's rare. If I wanted to buy it, it's like $100. I did not... It was always kind of rare. I ended up selling it, you know, some years later. Did it come out as a pro-protector in Europe? No.

No, it only came out in the U.S. It was going to be released in Japan as Arkhound, but much like Strider, it never made it way. I'll say, now I'm intrigued to revisit it. Okay, well... If you can handle a slowdown, go ahead. Yeah. That's what...

An acquired taste. That's why God gave us NES mini-hacking. Yeah, true. That's morally shady. You're violating the warranty. Yeah, right. All right. So that was not a worthwhile game, but the next one, jumping ahead to 1994, and switching

to the first time to a Genesis or a Sega platform is Contra the hardcore for Sega Genesis. So good. Which is very much in the vein of Konami's very limited Genesis initiative, where they took familiar franchises and we're like, hey, here's a kind of weird take on this genre or this series. Castlevania Bloodlines. It's a fruit or genesis. This came out, I think, around the same time and was marketed similarly. And in many ways, some could say this could be the secret best contract. So I would be inclined to agree if not for a few issues. One of which is that go on. No, you. I mean, you hate her. You seem to have some concern. No, I was just commenting on the fact that

Shane said Secret Best, and then you're like, well, actually. Okay. Well, actually. It's because you don't like the Sega Genesis sound chip. No. I think this is a really cool game that they turned basically unplayable in America by making it so difficult. I agree. You must play the Japanese version of this.

They make it faster when I was playing this in the collection. I'm like, this game is so fast. No, it's a single option to make it faster. In Japan, you can have a life bar for your character. You get five continues in American, the American version. Real life bar in Japan. But in Japan, you have a life bar that can take like three or four hits. So it becomes way less punitive and much more playable.

And this is a fast-paced game. And the thing that really bugs me is it does something that you see a lot in modern games where it has so much like so many effects, so many like special effects flashing on the screen, flying around, that it becomes really difficult to keep track of the actual dangers. Like everything you destroy bursts in. into like these swirls of flames, which is really cool and wow, really impressive. They like, the flames burst out in a, like, a spiral

and then they circle back into the point of explosion. It's really cool. But the thing is, this is happening to everything you destroy. It's a little busy. And at the same time, they're like these tiny little bullets being shot at you by the enemies. And it's really hard to keep track of who is shooting at you because this is a fast game full of all these special effects.

so you just keep like getting shot and dying without realizing it because it's one hit kills in America. That's, hey man, that's the 68,000 heart on fire. I guess. But, okay, at the time when they announced these games, there's a big deal because, like, you know, as a Sega Genesis fan, they'd always kind of been in the shadow of Nintendo

in terms of their support from the big Japanese third parties like Capcom and Konami and Square. And so when Konami finally announced Walking Night Adventures, you know, Castlevania and Contra, and then they were very different than the offerings that were being done for Super Nintendo. And in a way, they were kind of throwbacks in many ways to the arcade and NES versions, but with this new, weird, quirky, edgy point of view that I loved.

And, like, when these came out, they were doing things with the hardware that, you know, no one else was doing. Yeah, in this game, they got rid of Bill and Lance. They got rid of Scorpion and Mad Dog. And they gave you a guy named Ray. Yeah. And a lady named Shina. and a tiny robot named Brownie and a weird wolf with sunglasses

named Bradford. Obviously, everyone chose the werewolf, come on. I mean, I like playing Ashina best because she's small and fast and that is something that I prefer in my playable characters. But this game gave you like material differences between all four of the characters.

It still had the co-op, right? Yep. I've only played it myself. But yeah, it's two-player co-ops. So you have two players playing from or picking from the four different playable characters. So you've got kind of like some choice over that. It kind of feels like almost like a prelude to Gunstar Heroes,

which I don't know that actually any staff was in common between those two games. There's a similarity. It feels treasurery. Yeah, it's so treasury and the tech and just how much is happening and the speed and kind of the technical element of it. But also because your characters each have different weapon loadouts. As you collect power-ups, you can carry multiple weapons and you can toggle between them with buttons. There's also a button that is just dedicated to altering your fire stance.

You can either run and gun or you can stop and stand and aim in all directions, like free aim, which is extremely gunstar heroes. But you also realize if you were red or blue, you could do one or the other. But the contra has always kind of needed that, actually, because it lets you have a little more control over your fire. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like the first game... Three had it. Yeah. Yeah, you could lock on. Yeah, but it's definitely, it's interesting that it kind of does all these things that would be done a year later by Gunstar Heroes.

I don't know, it's a really interesting game. It's really hard, and it's like to the point of being frustrating, the first time I played it or went back to replay it today when I was prepping for this episode, I actually died in less time than it took for me to get into the first stage. I was like, really? What just happened? Am I the worst video game player ever? What is going on? Well, back in the day, I had to use a game gene. You need to get anywhere on the Sega Genesis.

And I was one of the Mega Drive version, but it was super expensive in Japan. So I was super happy that this collection now allows you to play the Japanese version of this with trophies for finishing it with each of the different characters, too. So there's like four reasons to play it. Yeah. And even though it's crazy hard, if you manage to play it and actually survive long enough, there are branching paths to the story. You get different outcomes and different scenarios.

So they did a lot with this. This was another Nakasato game. And I feel like this is really kind of like when I think of the personality that he brings to the series, like I look at this and I look at Shattered, or not Neocontra. And I look at what seems to be the case with Rogue Corps with like you have a controllable panda. And then there's like basically a girl who is crang. She has like an alien symbiote in her stomach. Like it's just like all over the place.

He has a very weird kind of sensibility. that I really appreciate. And this is the first game that I think really brings that out. There was definitely some over-the-top, like, hilarity in Contra 3, but it seemed still fairly straight-laced,

fairly like, everything is badass. Whereas in this, it's just like, everything's weird. And the game opens up with, you know, you don't start by playing. You see, like, enemies marching through the futuristic ruins of the city, and then your character comes crashing in

in a car, smashes through a bunch of enemies, and then you hop out and you start blowing stuff up. So it's just meant to be over the top and ridiculous, and it succeeds in that front. And I'm upset that the Japanese version of this is not on the Contra collection. Or if it is, I wasn't able to.

It is. How do you access it? It was a patch. Oh, I need to patch. About a week and a half later. So, yeah, it's like, I guess I'm playing the unpatched version for some reason. It should be like at the bottom of the menu is like, oh, more Japanese versions. And it's like a whole other page of things could boot.

Also, I feel like this is a, So, you know, this game is its own kind of branch. And we'll get to like the pseudo-squel to this. But it does kind of feel like an offshoot of sorts from Contra. For sure. Yeah. I mean, I think that's what Konami's M.O. was with these Genesis games, so it makes sense. God, could we get another bloodlines?

Holy shit. Yeah. That'd be great. I kind of wish they'd made a Gradius, but then we have enough gradius spin on a second. All right, so we are kind of running low on time, so we need to just kind of do an overview. Well, there's a few games in the 32-bit era that don't require more than a few monies. Right, yeah, starting with 1996's Contra Legacy of War.

Oh, God. Nobody liked these games. Which, according to Jeremy Parrish and Sam Kennedy, in their contra retrospective for OneUp.com, wrote, the gameplay was clunky, and the graphics were drab compared to the crisp visuals of the 16-bit games. What anniversary would that have been? Okay, I worked at Reto when this came out.

It came with the red-blue 3-D glasses. It's by Appalusa. I like Echo the Dolphin, but in this case, it's Crappolusa. Didn't Appalusa also do Colibri? They did. He's a great little butterfly. What was he? You know, God, it's a hundred bird.

I hate Echo the Dolphins, so you get what you expect from Contra. Oh, God, this game is a weird three-quarter view. Yeah, it's ugly, it's bad. And somehow, see the Contra adventure in 1998 was even worse. Yes. Like, it feels like they were kind of going back to more of what people expected from Contra, getting rid of the three-quarters perspective and doing more of the Sideview thing. But it's so terrible.

What's even worse is at the same time between those two disastrous Western developed Contra games, is like, Symphony of the Night occurs, right? So clearly, Konami. And Gradius Guide In. Right. So KCET, Konami Tokyo, was doing amazing things. So it's like, why are you letting Contra be defiled? So publicly and openly.

Luckily, there is hope on the horizon for PS2 era. Go ahead and talk about that. Shattered Soldier. Yep. The return of Nobiyan Nakazato. With a very new art style, very new musical style, kind of like more like heavy metal, hard rock. I would say this is actually the hardest game in the Contra series.

God, it's fucking hard. Way, even more so than hardcore, which destroys me in like 10 seconds. This game is just like, it is, it takes the, the sort of set piece concept of Contra 3 and amps it up to a ridiculous point and introduces this element of like a combo counter where basically you want to just constantly keep destroying stuff in order to keep your score high, which determines basically how you get through the game and which ending you get. So not only do you have to survive to the end of the game, which in itself is incredibly hard. I remember I bought this game and I remember playing it. I was out of work at the time

looking for a job and life was kind of dark and I remember playing this and being like I hate everything this makes me so sad like this game takes away my joy it's a very drive looking game yeah it's very dark yeah it has like the cover by Ashley Woods right and the soundtrack is a Kiryamaoka yeah it's like the best of Konami's people at this time the silent hill version but yeah that's extremely with a little bit of Dove May Cry because it's like you're supposed to play stylishly basically yeah but it's just like from the very beginning, just the outset, it's like auto-scrolling stages

and just over-the-top bosses. It revisits, you know, like the turtle robot boss from the beginning of Contra 3, but way harder. It's just like everything is just constantly trying to destroy you even more so than in the other games. I mean, it's kind of, I would analogous to like Gradius 5 a bit in that it's like

the thing you want, just super hardcore and like beautiful and like, you know, very intense. Yeah. I actually feel like this game feels more like a treasure game than any other Contra because it's extremely technical and you really have to know like what each situation you're getting into is like how to get through it. You have just a set number of weapons.

It doesn't have the power up drops like in the other Contra games. You switch between them? You have, yeah, you have permanent weapons and you toggle between them. There's three. It's like, I wrote it down. It's like a machine gun and a grenade launcher and a flamethrower. And these all have different powers and capabilities. They have infinite weapon or infinite ammo.

and you need to know, like, in this situation, I need to toggle over to the flamethrower to take out, like, the tiny little guys who are coming. Or, hey, here's a giant boss, and I need to switch to the grenade launcher so that I can, you know, hit its vulnerable point for standing here and launching a grenade that'll land

in exactly its vulnerable spot and destroy it. It's a memorization fest. I never finished it, but just talking about it, it makes me want to dig it out. Do we have any other thoughts on Shattered Soldier? Is it available anywhere? like outside of buying a disc it was not available on like

you know PS2 classics on PS3 yeah I was wondering it's ever been reissued I doubt it's rare though no I just saw it on eBay for like 15 bucks yeah I don't think it's expensive I don't think it's sold all that well no even though it reviewed well

I remember people thinking it was super hard and that was an era with like you know much more ambitious games like a post metal gear solid hello like so just like a simple size scrolling shooting action game yeah it was it came out the wrong time like I think if this game came out 10 years later people would have been like

oh wow it's a really cool throwback. Although then again, you know, people didn't really go in for hardcore uprising, which was a really cool throwback. Both Shattered Soldier and Neocontra are ripe for reappraisal. And, you know, like, because I think they, they weren't played by very many people even in the day. I love Neocondra because it's so, so the opposite of Shattered soldier. In every way. It is, it's not, it's not dark and gloomy. It's, like, colorful and it's weird, and it has this just, like, ridiculous sense of self. I also think it has really, interesting aesthetic, really good-looking graphics for a PS2 game.

I mean, like the key art was by Jim Lee. So automatically, that's way different than Ashley Wood. Like, instead of being it's kind of gloomy and painterly, it's, you know, 90s comic book. Does this game kind of feel like would have Contra met like Icaruga or something? Like a little bit, yeah. But then it's also like, it takes all the set pieces from Contra 3 and hardcore and just takes them to the next level. Like the part I always remember when I think of this game is a samurai. running along the blades of a helicopter

to, like, he's using the helicopter blades as a platform to run on. Yeah. It's so stupid. Isn't there a boss that's kind of, like, Tetsuo at the end of Akira, too? Yes. Yes. Ray, you were going to say... No, no. I'm just saying... I think the closest analog, closest contemporary it had,

was Cannon Spike. Oh, yeah. Which is... Cammy in Canon Spike. And Mega Man. Yeah. But, yeah, kind of a weird three-force view polygonal action game with like a lot of like parrying and

stuff right like yeah I think that's if you were playing as Yagyu that's who I played as Samurai but you know you also could play as Bill Riser or like his clone or something and there's a whole weird story to this but he played very differently than Yagyu but this game was a super sleeper like no

it was oh yeah I forgot it existed completely until these notes came in oh yeah well there was a Neo Contra I thought Shattered Soldier was the one PS2 by the way in Japan Shatter Sultra is called Shin Contra, is that right? Yeah. It's like, same thing.

Both new and Neocondra. Yeah, the main reason that Neocondra sticks with me is because I demoed it at one of the very first media events that I went to in the press. Konami used to occasionally have like this thing they did at the Presidio. I was at that event. That was the one where I had to sing karaoke revolution. I remember, yeah. I had to sing under pressure, which I didn't know.

And there was some guy who was like a karaoke champion who was. my competitor, even if you know it. Yeah, like, I could do it now because I know it, but at the time I was like, I vaguely knew it. And then there was this other were you doing both Bowie and Freddie Mercury? I think I had the Freddie Mercury part, which is the hard. That's some high notes for you two for us.

Just do the vanilla ice section. I used to have more vocal range than I do now. Now it's just like a gravely old man. Association you have with Neo Contra. Yeah, I think of like losing a karaoke contest and also being like, what the hell is this Contra game? So it's a very vivid memory.

The other guy won an iPod, which I would not have been able to have kept anyway because I was in the press and couldn't take gifts like that. I feel like if Kadami were to bring both these back for, you know, for current-gen consoles, people would be stoked, actually. I think Neo-Conch is a good redemption for the Contra three top-down stages. You're right. I agree. And also for the legacy of war kind of three-quarter perspective stages, it has some of that, too. I feel like, yeah, it is a game that, like Shane said, is ripe for reevaluation. It's better than I think people gave it credit for.

I definitely remember being like, this is so weird, but I liked it for that reason. It was just like it did not take itself seriously. And yeah, I think we reviewed it pretty well at one-up. I think you got eights in his gym, yeah. Yeah, I think I reviewed it.

I think Dave Smith reviewed it for one-up and was just like, this is balls out crazy, and I love it. So you have to respect that. Anyway, so that was kind of like the sort of the ultimate expression of like Contra's weird side. And then Konami decided to do the Neo Retro thing in 2007, which is actually kind of ahead of the curve.

Like Mega Man 9 was a few years later. And they did it well. They hired Way Forward Technology and friend of the podcast, Tom Hewlett, worked on this. It was Contra4 for DS. Did we both review it for EGM? I didn't review it, actually.

I did. I think I gave it an 8 or something. But again, this was early for like a very calculated nostalgia play. Yeah, I think it actually maybe arrived a year or two a little too early. Yeah.

Because, you know, Mega Man 9 was huge. Bina Commando happened around the same. Like, Bina Commander Rearm. New Super Mario Brothers are the same era. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like, 2007 was also Mega Man Maverick Hunter X

and Mega Man powered up, I think. But, you know, I think after being damaged by the PS1-era Appaloosa games, everyone was wary about giving a Western team contra again, but way forward to proving themselves with Chanty, like, and they, you know, if you talk to those guys,

they understand what's good about a good old game. And obviously, their work on Bloodstained shows that they still got it. Yeah, I mean, they can do some really good work with extremely limited budgets and questionable licenses, like Sabrina or something. That was a good Sabrina game. They can turn out some really good games that really should not be good. And they have a mummy game that's good?

Yeah. It started out a little rough, but it got better, yeah. Yeah. So Contra 4 is a case where I feel like they actually got to do what they wanted to do with a license as opposed to being like, well, here's a license game that's going to pay the bills so that we can work on our passion projects. This was actually a passion project for them. And they really tried to put the two DSs, or the DSS's two screens to use. They tried to take advantage of the nature of the system. So it's a throwback to the original. Contra Super C with bitmap graphics, but it spans two screens, and there's some fun and clever ideas that take advantage of multiple screens. Like, you know, one of the early stages, you have just like the series of conduits and pipes where aliens are kind of crisscrossing. It's like an almost like an Amatakouji puzzle or something where they're coming down pipes

and you have to figure out where they're coming from. It's funny now in 2019 that gameplay across two screens seems interesting and novel and weird again, that you would mention, oh, this game actually has gameplay across two. two screens. Because I've kind of forgotten that. I mean, you're right. There weren't a lot of games that did that, you know. There was freaking Yoshi's Island

DS, which, let's not talking about that. But, yeah, this is one of the few games that actually did it use it for gameplay. And also, visually, this game is such a throwback to NES, Contra, and Super C, in a way that nothing had been. Yeah. Yeah. And at the same time, you know, it gives you four characters to choose from.

And I appreciate the fact that it has all kinds of throwbacks because you can play as Bill and Lance or you can play as Mad Dog and Scorpion, and those were actually the same characters, but it was just like Konami America localized Bill and Lance to Mad Dog and Scorpion in some of the games for no good reason whatsoever. But this kind of repatriates that, basically. And it throws in some other references to things that were just in like the English localization.

So that was kind of fun. It was like definitely you could tell the team who worked on this way forward really had a lot of fun memories of Contra and really got what made it work. work. And one thing that I thought was a really nice touch was the addition of a zip line, which is not quite a grappling hook, but it's basically a way to traverse between the two screens really quickly because it's kind of hard to ascend vertically. So you have like a grappling hook that you can latch on to certain surfaces and it'll just pull you immediately up to the top screen. So it makes use of both screens really effectively because there's not a lot

of, you know, time wasted on traversal up and down. It's like if you want to be up there, you go up there. It's a really nice feature, and shows a lot of thought was put into this game. I don't know how well it did. I feel like I don't ever really hear people talk about it. I think it did pretty well. I mean, at EGM, we gave it good marks, and you know... Yeah, but Marks, you know,

critical success is not the same as sales success. And there weren't any other, you know, Contra games on DS after this. I don't think it did as well as like, you know, Castlevania. Yeah, and there was a lot of enthusiast type, but I don't know how about that translated into sales. You can also plays the probos, even though this did not come out in here.

Well, here's the question. it rare and collectible or is it dime a dozen? I don't think so. I think it's probably like a, you know, moderately priced. I bet a complete version of this is going to cost $80. You think so? That's my theory. I would bet a bottle of sake on the next retramounts.

Okay, well, bring it anyway. Yeah, I bet that's... You get more for Contra Force. Shane, you're actually really bad at wagering. I don't think you should do that. I think I might owe you a bottle of sake. I think so. Yeah, Bob can check eBay.

I'm sure that's what he's doing right now. Be sure to look at sold items. I'm seeing like $1799 for it in the case. You fools. Okay, all you kids out that go buy some Contra 4s and some neocontras. Invest now. But thank you for the bottle of sake. What is Contra dual spirits?

That's the Japanese version. Oh, whatever that is, it's $300. Oh, wow. That's the one I was talking about. Contra DS dual spirits. There you go. That's how they do it. It was not Contra 4 over there.

It just wasn't worthy, I guess, according to them. Anyway, to kind of wrap this up, let's go through some of the more recent games. These are actually barely retro. Oh, Contra rebirth is wrapped. They really need to do a rebirth collection. It's funny. I was going to say, if you haven't played the rebirth games, you should run out and buy them. Oh, no, wait.

You cannot. They shut the store. I have those in my Wii U now. You can run out and do the opposite of buying them, but that... Don't encourage. No, I would really like them to put together a collection. For those who forgot, these were the original Wiiware titles? Yeah.

There were three Wiiware titles called Rebirth, Castlevania. Gradius, the Castlevania Adventure Rebirth, or Castlevania the Adventure Rebirth, Gradius Rebirth, and Contra Rebirth. You never forget out for the adventure goes. They're all so hard. No, it says it's a copyrighted indicia. so hard. But so good.

Yep, it was M2. I didn't really play much of that one. Oh, I beat it. Like, a friend of the show, John Ricardi of 84 Play, when I was crashing with him a few years ago, we played through all three of these games in a week, and like it almost killed us. We drank a lot, and they're amazing.

They're all really short, but really hard, and they kind of like, you know, it's funny. I don't specifically remember all of Contra because it's all kind of a drunken blur, but I remember they just all zero in on, like, the pure gameplay that you loved about the original games. presented in a new way with you know, like remixed levels

and, you know, it's new, but it's not completely new. Yeah, it's pretty spiritually close to Contra 3 in my view. I think, in the same way Contra 4 was kind of like, Contra 1 and Super C, this is more like 3. So, yeah.

Might as well be Contra 5. Yeah. So that was a very solid entry. Not necessarily all that original, but very much in the like, hey, let's recapture that lost 16-bit spirit, which is nice. There needs to be more of those. Absolutely.

And then finally, the last game worth mentioning is Hardcore Uprising, which is not actually called Contra, but apparently Konami kind of classifies it as a Contra game. What were they doing? I still don't understand this. Well, it was developed by Arc System Works, and evidently they wanted to launch hardcore as its own series, like spinoff of Contra. So instead of calling it Contra a hardcore uprising, they just called it Hardcore Uprising with the intention of turning that into its own thing.

But I think that really blew it for them Because I don't think people necessarily knew Like, oh, this is a Contra game This is the most slept-on Contra game I would say among my friends, 90% of them who love Contra Have no idea this game even exists It was a weird, weird branding choice

It's Xbox 1 and PS3 And it's beautiful It is a gorgeously animated game It's bright and colorful anime style I mean it's arc system works So what do you expect But it's also like very difficult and, you know, very fast-paced action.

I honestly haven't really played it, so I can't really speak to the quality of it. Yeah, I didn't expect to get this far into this podcast. I started it, and I always intended, but it was very late on PS3. It was like two years after or something. It was very late. And, like, I was kind of made to go back and never did. And perhaps I shall. Yeah, I'm kind of the same boat.

But I also, I'm not as amicable about the arc system works visual style on it. Because, like, I played a lot of the weird guilty year game. before that, you know, Guilty Gear Iska and the beat-em-ups and stuff, and so it just feels like that to me, and I just don't love it that much. Yeah, I don't know that the art style is necessarily right for Contra, but I love that they tried it. It was worth an experiment, and clearly it didn't work out,

so, hey, we have it. It makes sense. I mean, it's sort of a wishful fulfillment way. It's like, oh, yeah, the Arch System where he's made a Contra game, that mark. Yeah, so, and that basically brings us to now. It was, that was eight years ago, and it's taken that long for Konami to say,

maybe we should do another contra, Although, you know, for like five of those years, they were basically like video games. Oh, I don't know about that. And they finally seem to be okay with the idea of video games again, at least to a certain point. You can't live on just health clubs alone. So I feel like ever since Bomberman R, Super Bomber Man R, they've been like, you know. They're game curious. We have all these people who are like, you know, doing janitor duty and, you know, mopping up in their health clubs.

And they made some pretty cool video games in the past. Maybe there's some money to be made there, too. Because I don't want to you to come back and, you know, you can, instead of managing our Kobe City health club outlet, why don't you make a video game for us? There are reasons to dislike Konami, but I think they are pretty good stewards and caretakers of their past work. They're not afraid to sell you things. Yeah, they're not the worst. Yeah, definitely. They could be better.

They are making a turbographic 16 minis. Yeah, that's awesome. I made fun of it earlier, but they were releasing a ton of turbographics games on a view of virtual console. Even, like, after, there was no point whatsoever to it. Like, no one was buying. Like, did anyone buy that stupid RPG that was released in America without localization from Japanese? No. But God bless him for doing that.

What a weird, dumb idea. Well, the rebirth games, too, were also an interesting, crazy thing that happened. So, yeah, although I will say, you know, we're celebrating the launch of this new Contra game. I'll say reading the previews, the fact that you can't just keep shooting that your gun overheats. That gives me pause, but maybe they'll find some way to make that cool. I will just say I'm not so sure it was great to do

that sort of three quarter slash or overhead kind of game it makes sense with Neo Contra because like okay you already made a good

side scrolling contrary before that good for you you didn't you earned this one now so many years later I'm not so sure if we

people are gonna be onto that really yeah I think Roke Core is like multiple perspectives isn't it I thought it was kind of three-fours

I think it's it has a lot of that but I think it also has some other like locked perspectives you know I'll say it's a little surprising

that we never got a first-person shooter contra? Like, you'd think of all, like, in the last 20 years, right? I bet there was one in development at some third-party studio in, like, yeah, like Barcelona or something. You know what would have been good? A light gun game. Kind of. Like, I don't know.

Time prices. I mean, Contra the shooting. Contra the shooting. I mean, Galaxian got one. Yeah, I mean, I think Contra is still ripe for exploitation, and even if Rogue Corps doesn't turn out to be any good. I like that they're, you know, experimenting with Contra. and I would like for the new game to be good

and I would like for it to succeed if it is good so that they will say, hey, let's keep making more Contra games. But it doesn't have to be an end all. They've shown them before that they can take Contra in different directions or bring it back. And so, yeah, I'm right for future re-innovations.

Yeah. I would like for them to step back and look and say, like, what did people really love about Contra? And I don't know how you can actually necessarily isolate that. Battle Royale. Yes, that's it. That's exactly what people want.

They want a Contra MMO. No. Mobile game. Actually, there have been mobile games. Yeah, it's hot in China. Yeah, we didn't touch on the kind of terrible mobile spinoffs, but let's not do that. Let's keep it positive and happy. Contra dating game.

Yeah. Tokomeki Condra Morial or something. I don't know. Anyway, I think that's about it. But, yeah, like, I think we all have pretty good memories of various contra games. And I think it's awesome. that there is a very good collection out on all the current platforms

developed by M2 so there's a lot of options for, you know, in-games, saves and I give Konami visuals and they even updated it to have the flip-grip support for Switch. They took fan feedback on both of this, all three of the collections they put out

and made the changes that fans asked for. So I give Konami a lot of credit for that. Yeah, they're very good collections. They are very enjoyable. and I recommend everyone buy them. They're each 20 bucks. I bought it just for this episode. Oh, wow.

By the way, this may be a bad time to ask. Can I expense them? That's fine. Yeah, but I mean, they're only 20 bucks. So, you know, 60 bucks for something like 20 great classic games is not bad. And, you know, again, M2 developed these collections, so there's a lot of love put into them. And they're about as good as it gets. So relive those classics.

And let's all cross our fingers. for Rogue Corps. Anyway, I think we're done. So thanks everyone for listening and thanks this room crew for coming in. Thank you, Shane, for the sake. It was almost flavorless, but not necessarily in a bad way. It tasted exactly like manga. It did, and the effect functioned and helped me remember how good content is. Yeah. I would rather have something that tastes like manga than tastes like, you know, Red Falcon or whatever. It did not taste like Grisor. That's the important thing. Anyway, so let's wrap up here. I am Jeremy Parrish. You can find me on Twitter as GameSpite. And this podcast, Retronauts, you can find at Retronauts.com and on the

internet for various pod catchers and platforms. Like, iTunes isn't a thing anymore, is it? It still is for right now. Okay. You might also call it Apple Podcasts. Sure. Okay. So if there is a place, if there is a place, If there is a place where you like to get podcasts, you can probably find us there. We'll try to be on Spotify. Still use Apple for podcasts. On iPad, you kind of have to use Apple Podcasts. Yeah.

They don't do like third-party apps? They do, but it's kind of locked. I use Downcast. I listen to Retronauts on my iPad while I'm like, you know, making cookies. All right, well, there you go. Anyway, so you can also support Retronauts, even though you can listen to it for free, if you want to help support its creation and allow us to, you know, buy Ray Contra collections and things like that, go to patreon.com

slash retronauts, and you can listen to every episode a week in advance, that's six episodes, seven episodes a month. It'll be higher bitrate quality, so it'll sound nicer, and all the musical interludes will just sparkle and scintillate. It's a 4K retronauts. And there's also no ads in those podcast episodes on Patreon.

So three bucks a month, it's a pretty good deal. Anyway, guys, tell us about yourselves and where we can find you. All right, you looked at me first. I'm Ray, I'm on Twitter. I'm gestured. Yes, thank you. I'm RDB, AAA on Twitter.

Cardi B? No, no, RDB. Those are my initials. Sounds a lot like Cardi B, but yeah. Let's see. I made a shoot-em-up on your smartphone called BlastRush. You can find that where you find. You're probably the podcast in a similar sort of section.

That's from my company, Bipel Dog. Same name on Twitter as well. My name is Shane. You can find me on the Twitter at Shane Watch. all one word. Hey, it's Bob Mackey. I'm on Twitter. It's Bob Servo. I have other podcasts where I talk about old cartoons. Those are Talking Simpsons and What a Cartoon. You can find those where you find podcasts. But if you want to support those podcasts and get a ton of extra dozens of dozens of bonus podcasts, go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons and check it out. Thank you.

And that's it for Retronauts. So we'll be back in a week with another episode. And until then, let's attack aggressively. I don't know.