Who remembers Contra? Back in the days of the NES, this game was fun for its extreme difficulty, yet accomplishable levels. Not to mention the music was pretty kick ass. Even going back today, one can pick and play Contra and enjoy it despite its brutal difficulty. Now we have Contra 4, which may have it’s number count wrong, considering there was Contra: Shattered Soldier, Super Contra, and so on and so forth, but I’ve seen worse mess ups in terms of chronology. Does this DS title fit the bill?
Story: The official story is that reoccurring alien villain, -, has returned once again to conquer Earth, but the beefy, shirtless badasses that stopped him before (along with some new color swaps of the same sprite) aren’t going to take that without a fight. So they suit up, gun up, and do what badasses do best, charge blindly into the enemy, blasting your guns, kicking ass and taking names.
The story is practically non-existent other than tidbit. You have no cutscenes, save the opening for the game, and frankly, who needs a story when you’re a shirtless Rambo-type, gunning aliens down? Not Contra, that’s who.
Gameplay: Gameplay in Contra hasn’t changed much and that’s fine, because the original Contra formula: Running through the stage, gunning down a endless assault of enemies, picking up gun-powerups which vary from a machine gun to a spread shot, and then taking down a huge boss at the end of the stage is plenty satisfying.
If this is your first Contra game, then know that you have one shot and you’re dead, making the game incredibly difficult, yet the controls and gun power-ups keep it from being entirely frustrating. For those familiar with Contra, there are a few changes besides the new level designs, and that is the weapon swap ability and weapon drop feature. With weapon swapping, you can carrying two special weapons at once, so when you die, you can at least have a back up special gun to help fight that boss. The weapon drop feature is helpful mostly in multiplayer when you want to give your gun to your buddy. Both are easy with a tap of a button. Otherwise, if you’ve played Contra before, some of the stuff won’t be terribly new, but damn is it satisfying to blow everything up.
If there is a major addition to the game, it’s the Challenge Mode, unlocked after completing the game once. In this mode, there will be five missions with particular objectives ranging from “Kill all the baddies” to “Complete the level with a accuracy of 90%” to “Don’t kill the hostages!” All of these challenges must be completed with one life, making them almost more difficult than the main game itself, but with persistence, you can unlock a plethora of bonus material, from the original Contra game to new characters and so forth. It certainly adds a lot of playability to the game after it’s been completed, which is good cause the main game is relatively short, complete-able in a couple of hours, but the real replayability of the main game is that it’s so hard yet so fun to try and beat it.
Graphics: The game uses both the high pixels count and the dual-screen feature of the DS to its advantage and the game looks nice and runs nicely, only with bits of lag in multiplayer when both players are shooting too many bullets on screen. Otherwise, the game looks very crisp and clean for a platforming shooter, and while the faces look blurry, there is alot of action on the screen, from explosions, to tiny bullets (that I repeat will kill you in one hit) that you perform such epic leaps of gun blazing awesomeness that the only way the presentation be any better is if the two dudes you’re playing high five each other after you beat a boss with a explosion in the background! Fund it, Konami!
Sound: Music is retro is performance and is pretty kick ass, as they should be since you’ll more than likely hear the same tunes over and over again from dying so much. The game also includes something of voiceacting if only for when your character dies and respawns into battle and they all work fine, though the original four characters are practically carbon copies of each other.
Overall: In the end, Contra 4 is a nice throw back to the old NES classic, being both difficult as hell, but invoking hot-blooded feelings as you practice and become better at it. Despite its ridiculous difficulty and short main game, it has enough replayability to warrant a purchase. 8/10
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