DS Review: Contra 4

Look, all you need to know is that the aliens are back, and they’re badass. Any self-respecting gamer is always waiting, controller within grasp, ready to defend Earth once again from the extraterrestrial menace. Those people have already bought, played, and beaten Contra Four, so this review is directed at the rest of you sissies. There may be a number of things preventing you from playing this game. Perhaps you have been too busy improving your skills in Cake Mania, perhaps action games just aren’t your thing, perhaps the other children made fun of you in kindergarten. Whatever the reason, you need to stiffen that upper lip and march down to the game store this instant, recruit. We won’t soften the blow for you; Contra 4 is hard — unforgivingly so — and has a singular focus which places it firmly in the category of games both admiringly and derisively known as retro. But in a field crowded with effeminate cooking simulators, pocket monster collect-a-thons and games about having your very own pony, Contra 4 represents a much-needed reality check.

Contra’s retro roots are apparent in almost every aspect of the game’s design. There is only one “mode” available at the starting screen and that is, of course, Arcade mode. This consists of a straight-forward battle through 9 stages in such varied conditions as “jungle” and “factory”. You also are given the option of playing co-op with a friend over wifi, which is a nice touch, but it requires that both players own their own copy of the game, and that they decide beforehand who has dibs on the spreadshot power-up. The original Contra was punishingly hard, and the SNES follow-up even more so. This game actually ratchets back the difficulty a smidge, by providing an “easy” setting. Real gamers will want to try on “normal” difficulty, with masochists drawn to the ridiculous “hard” version.

Now, let’s talk weapons. These are obviously central to the premise of Contra, and fans of the series will be happy to know that the basic favorites have survived intact. That means that the flame shot still sucks, spread shot still works to clear screens, and homing missiles are practically broken in their ability to save your butt while you concentrate on dodging projectiles. Holding onto a weapon long enough to unleash it with laserlike precision against a boss’ weak point is still central to the strategy of Contra, and players can store an extra weapon in reserve by tapping the R button. Keep those lasers safely stored, and even if you lose a life you can still serve up a boss BBQ by unleashing it at the opportune moment.

New for this installment are vehicles, which will show up contextually within various stages and are more or less inoffensive to the gameplay. Also new is the fact that developers had to contend with TWO screens instead of one. Konami wisely decided to completely ignore the touch-functionality of the bottom screen, but they made pretty good use of the verticality of the system. Your new grappling hook allows you to zip effortlessly between the two levels while moving, and many bosses take advantage of the extra screen real-estate to really intimidate you. Occasionally, the number of bullets coming from both the top and bottom screens can cause even the most hardened gamer to bug out and assume the fetal position, but we are unsure whether this counts as a design flaw or a feature.

The presentation is, predictably, old-school. If the game (and this blog) existed in 1995, we would have talked up the heavy use of parallax scrolling, enormous sprites, and rocking digitized soundtrack. In 2008, these are somewhat less impressive, although Konami clearly used a masterful touch with their source material. Contra joins the Metal Slug series as one that works best in two artfully-rendered dimensions. The style is faithful to the original classics, not a pixel is out of place, and the whole affair feels decidedly Contra. The game exists within an alternate universe where the 3D games like Shattered Soldier never existed, and this is a good thing. In one way, this is clearly the best route the designers could have taken, particularly on a handheld platform which doesn’t demand the latest graphical effects. On the other hand, the game plays it so close to the original in terms of style and gameplay, that once the nostalgia factor wears off, some gamers will be left wondering, “what’s next?”

Things we liked: