092 · CONTRA
Ranked #3 in our Top 10 NES Games of 1988 →
You’re about to come face to face against Red Falcon, the cruelest life-form in the galaxy. If you succeed, well…it doesn’t matter, because I doubt you will.
Contra is the first run-and-gun on the show, and 93 games in it still surprised us. It feels like Commando or Ikari Warriors rebuilt so you are constantly moving and shooting. We called it one of the highlights of the system.
What makes it essential
- It looks like an 80s action movie. The sprites have visible muscles, the jungle feels like a place instead of bricks and clouds, and the energy discs and transparent bubbles look like Super NES work. The gun sounds great, and the manual's Cold War story, a two-man team sent in so nobody starts a war, is the first one we bought.
- Directional shooting from minute one. After wishing Simon could whip diagonally, here you hold up and left and fire, even mid-air. Platforms are crisp enough that you always know what you are standing on, unlike Karnov and Wizards and Warriors.
- Variety. Eight stages: the waterfall climb, the snow level where grenades come from below the horizon, the cramped late stages with flamethrowers, and an alien lair that feels like the inside of something huge.
- The base stages. The pseudo-3D rooms behind an electric fence play like cover shooting, or as we put it, a tennis match where you dodge the volleys. We jumped the rolling mines for ages before realizing you can shoot them.
- Power-ups with personality. Spread is the best by a mile and lets you cheese bosses, and rapid fire stacks on it. The laser seems to cancel your last shot.
- Real co-op. We called out targets like a battlefield, and the tanks fell apart with two players.
Where it gets frustrating
- The jump is all or nothing. You always leap full height, which hurts under low bullets and on platforms that look reachable and are not. Dropping through a ledge means pressing A while crouched, and letting go of crouch stands you straight into fire.
- Memorization. The late turrets that pop up already firing are a lot, and the game rewards memorizing its layout.
- Co-op fights the camera. The screen barely scrolls until you push past a point, so you can trap your partner, and bosses get no extra health. Single player is the more polished way to play.
Beyond the game
The Famicom version has swaying trees, cutscenes, a map and an extra music track. Hold start and select through its credits and it types out that Red Falcon will live forever, a tease for Super C. Contra Force follows in 1992.
The bottom line
Essential. Difficulty lands around Mega Man: tense more than unfair, and the Konami code's 30 lives made it more fun for us, though Joe wanted a failed run to send you back to the stage, not the whole game. Under the new 1988 rule it needed three votes, and all four of us voted it onto the Essential Games List.
Written from our conversation in this episode.
- Back of the Box
- Manual
- Introductions
- Run and gun
- a shoot 'em up in which the protagonist fights on foot, perhaps with the ability to jump. Run and gun games may use side scrolling, vertical scrolling or isometric viewpoints and may feature multidirectional movement.
- Metal Slug, Cuphead
- Objective - Run and use platforming throughout the 7 levels in Contra to shoot down aliens and other enemies.
- First Impressions
- I’m blown away by the fluid animation and diagonal attacks
- Tales from the Manual
- PLOT
- ARCADE PLOT
- In 2633 AD, two armed Elite Marine Commandos "Contra" named Bill and Lance are sent on a mission to neutralize a terrorist organization called Red Falcon that is secretly planning to take over the entire world and it is up to this two man army to put an end to this madness once and for all.
- ACTUAL PLOT
- ARCADE PLOT
- Probotector in Europe
- PLOT
- Gameplay
- Stage 1
- Great start to the action “you do like 5 front flips from nowhere into the jungle”
- Graphics and Design
- Directional shooting and platforming
- The complete jump
- No reason NOT to shoot your bullets at all times
- Shoot the core all over again with the first boss
- Stage 2
- 3d that’s pretty damn intuitive
- Accidentally walk into electricity
- Ducking is always welcome strategy
- Second boss is a bit of a bullet sponge for so early on
- 3d that’s pretty damn intuitive
- Stage 3
- Stage 3 welcomes vertical scrolling
- Cheap spawn of a turret on stage 3.
- At first it’s like what am I dealing with and then Stage 3 the enemy is straight up a giant ALIEN
- Stage 4
- Boss fight is where the fun ends
- Stage 5
- Snow and random bombs
- Stage 6
- Flamethrower
- Aliens Lair
- Psych-Out Alien boss. Iconic gfx there
- Should there have been an inventory or save for later on ammuniton
- Difficulty
- CO-OP
- Konami Code
- Stage 1
- Famicom
- The Famicom version contains cutscenes, an additional music track, and environment effects which were removed for the NES version.
- Hidden Message in End Credits
- Contra Commercial
- Sequels and Spinoffs
- Super C comes to the NES in 1990 so look out for that.
- This time, the alien forces have taken over an allied military base, possessing most of its troops.
- Contra Force comes to the NES in 1992
- The villains in the game are human terrorists instead of an alien menace
- The Contra Game Book is a "choose-your-own-adventure" style gamebook released by Konami to go along with the release of their mascot game Contra.
- Contra Rogue Corps came out on Sep 24th 2019
- The story is set several years after that of Contra III: The Alien Wars
- Super C comes to the NES in 1990 so look out for that.
- EGL
Found automatically from the transcript and checked, but it can miss things or pick the wrong page. Spot a mistake? Tell us.
Games
- Contra mentioned at
The episode's game: a two-player run-and-gun by Konami with jungle side-scrolling and pseudo-3D base stages.
- Commando mentioned at
Earlier run-and-gun style game the hosts compare Contra to, saying it was slower.
- Ikari Warriors mentioned at
Another run-and-gun predecessor that struggled with many on-screen sprites.
- Metal Slug mentioned at
Example of a modern run-and-gun series.
- Cuphead mentioned at
Example of a run-and-gun, mostly on foot with some flying levels.
- Earth Defense Force mentioned at
Series brought up as a possible run-and-gun example.
- Mega Man mentioned at
Covered two episodes earlier; debated as a platformer versus a run-and-gun.
- Castlevania mentioned at
Earlier episode where hosts wished Simon could whip in several directions.
- Super Castlevania IV mentioned at
Super Nintendo sequel where Simon finally whips in multiple directions.
- Karnov mentioned at
Recent NES game with confusing platforms the hosts contrast with Contra's clear ones.
- Wizards & Warriors mentioned at
Another recent game whose platforms and depth were hard to read.
- Karate Champ mentioned at
NES game the hosts recall having a demo mode.
- Donkey Kong 64 mentioned at
Nintendo 64 game cited for demo modes players watched for hints.
- Xenoblade Chronicles X mentioned at
Game with mechs called Skells, joked about when discussing the European box art.
- The Goonies II mentioned at
NES game with an earlier, rougher pseudo-3D perspective.
- 3-D WorldRunner mentioned at
Called 3D Battles of World Runner; compared to Contra's pseudo-3D stages, covered in episode 59.
- Super Mario Bros. mentioned at
Compared with Contra's richer environments.
- Gradius mentioned at
Contra's first boss is compared to Gradius's shoot-the-core bosses.
- Kirby's Adventure mentioned at
Later NES game that also uses a border to save on animation.
- Doom mentioned at
Cited for using a screen border on Super Nintendo to solve a technical problem.
- Sonic the Hedgehog mentioned at
The floating rock platforms are compared to Sonic's levels.
- Ghosts 'n Goblins mentioned at
Example of a truly punishing NES game, used to size up Contra's difficulty.
- Final Fantasy VIII mentioned at
A host replaying it mentioned an option to make characters unable to die.
- Sky Kid mentioned at
Earlier two-player NES game, discussed as an earlier co-op example.
- New Super Mario Bros. Wii mentioned at
Compared for the chaos of mismatched players in co-op.
- Super C mentioned at
The NES sequel from 1990, the next game in the series.
- Contra Force mentioned at
The 1992 NES entry with human terrorists as villains.
- Contra: Rogue Corps mentioned at
The 2019 Switch and PS4 spin-off, called Road Corps in the transcript, poorly reviewed.
- Contra III: The Alien Wars mentioned at
The Super Nintendo sequel that Rogue Corps follows in its story.
- Gun.Smoke mentioned at
Next week's NES game.
Companies
- Konami mentioned at
Contra's developer and publisher, praised for strong NES output.
People
- H. R. Giger mentioned at
Artist who designed the Alien creature, spelled Geiger in the transcript.
- Sylvester Stallone mentioned at
Actor whom one of the manual's heroes is said to resemble.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger mentioned at
Actor whom Bill Rizer is compared to.
- Dolph Lundgren mentioned at
Rocky IV actor whom one hero's manual art resembles.
Film, TV and music
- Aliens mentioned at
1986 action sequel the hosts say influenced Contra's marine feel.
- Alien mentioned at
1979 horror film whose creature design inspired the game's later levels.
- Rambo mentioned at
Action franchise whose muscular 80s heroes the Contra characters resemble.
- The Terminator mentioned at
Film the hosts compare a manual character's robot-like look to.
Terms and events
- Run and gun mentioned at
The genre of shoot-em-ups where you fight on foot, which the hosts try to define.
- Konami Code mentioned at
The cheat sequence that gives 30 lives in Contra.
Articles, videos and sites
- NEStalgia Essential Games List mentioned at
The show's list of essential NES games; Contra was voted in.
Other
- Xenomorph mentioned at
The Alien creature type the game's later enemies resemble.
- Contra series (Probotector) mentioned at
The Contra franchise, released in Europe for years under the name Probotector with robots instead of humans.
Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.
Pitted against the galaxy's fiercest foe, you either win, or the whole world loses. Contra! NOSTALGIA And welcome to NOSTALGIA, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Joe. I'm Sean. And I'm Sam. Full house today, guys. Huzzah. It's not on TV. Just saying we are a full house. It's probably on TV. It's been a while. No, it hasn't. Special, you were on the special. Yeah. Yeah, so Best of 87. You missed two games, but you were there for the essential games list. Yeah. You missed the birth of my daughter, but... Oh, whatever. You'll have more right here on the podcast. Or not. Yeah. Anyway, we're talking about Contra today.
This is going a weird place. Contra is a run-and-gun game. Which we have not had on Nostalgia before, but it basically feels like a shmup, right? What is your guys' familiarity with run-and-gun? It sort of felt like Commando. Okay. Like Commando was a very bad version of what this would turn into. Or like Ikari Warriors almost, but the other way. Yeah. Ikari Warriors from the side.
Yeah, well, I feel like those two had... I don't know. They felt slower in pace in nature, whereas this feels more like you're constantly shooting, you're constantly moving.
Action packed. There's a lot of things on the screen coming at you. I remember Ikari Warriors couldn't even handle that many things on the screen at once. Yeah. There's something about it being so packed with stuff, and also it being controllable enough that it makes it like a tense run-and-gun experience, where I think the other ones fell short a little bit. Yeah, and Wikipedia describes a run-and-gun as a shoot-em-up in which the protagonists fight on foot, perhaps with the ability to jump. Run-and-gun games may use side-scrolling, vertical-scrolling, or isometric viewpoints, and may feature multidirectional movement. Per chance to be able to jump. Yes. And run-and-gun games that I can think of are things like Metal Slug.
Cuphead is a run-and-gun game. Earth Defense Force? Does that count? I think that counts. A cuphead, you're not on... Oh, you're on foot, yeah, for a lot of levels. You're a human man. I'm just thinking about the flying levels. Sorry if we said this. Did we say Mega Man?
Do you would consider Mega Man a run-and-gun? I think it's a little bit slower. I think it's a platformer. Yeah, it's a platformer, but slower, but also, I mean, you run, you gun. Yeah, I mean, I guess that's tough, because I wouldn't, in my head, I wouldn't think Mega Man platformer at all. Yeah, based on that description, technically... Is Super Mario a brother? I would say... The Fire Flower? The lines between genres are sort of fluid. Yeah, exactly. We need to clearly define it right now, Sean. All right, let's do it. No, it's fine.
Oh. We should talk about Contra, which the objective, basically, of Contra is just to platform your way through seven levels and shoot down aliens and other enemies, I say, because it's unclear if they're just, like, people of Earth or alien henchmen. That have, like, been recruited by the aliens.
Who would take the alien side? Who they are, but you have to pretty much just basically shoot down everything in your way. There's no way really around things. Should there have been a diplomatic option? There is no diplomatic option, but... But are you saying, should there have been? I think there should have been maybe a pacifist option, too. You pretty much have to kill everything. You can't. A stealth option. There's very few things you can just, like, jump over and continue about on your way. True. So let's get into first impressions.
Joe, why don't you take us through your first impression playing Contra? This is one of the rare games that I didn't have a blind spot to. I actually have played this as a kid. Was not very good at it, particularly when I was younger, but I went in knowing a little bit about it, remembering it a little bit. I already had pretty high expectations for it, because I remember liking it, and I know it has a lot of positive reception. It actually, off the bat, exceeded my expectations. It was more fun than I remembered, and, you know,
I just immediately kind of got absorbed in it. All right, cool. Sean? I also knew about Contra, and I had played maybe the 16-bit versions of this game, but right off the bat, what I noticed was this game looks really good, whether it's the background art or the actual sprites for your character. Like, this is the first time that it actually kind of feels like an 80s action movie. So I was also pleasantly surprised with that.
All right, Sam? I had played this game before somehow. I don't remember exactly which version of it it was, you know, just a couple minutes of it. And kind of the same as Joe. I was surprised at how, you know, just how solid it was. Like, the movement was good. But one thing that we haven't mentioned is it sounds cool, too. Like, the one thing I noticed immediately was that the gun sounds really cool to fire. That's true. Yeah.
Yeah, and I think another reason to the benefit of, like, playing games this way, the way we do it on Nostalgia, where we play them chronologically, is that you really see the surprise that a game like this can bring. Whereas if you're just kind of, like, shuffling through the NES as an afterthought, and you play some other games later, this one might not, like, surprise you as much. But this is the first time. I mean, this is 93.
And this is a very impressive game. 93? No, game 93. Oh, game 93. Yeah, like, 93 games in, and I'm still being surprised by, like, ways that the games can play. And to Sean's point, like, I was blown away by the fluidness of the animation and the fact that you were able to do the diagonal attack, something that we talked about in Castlevania, that we wanted Simon to be able to, like, strike the whip in multiple directions, something he wouldn't get until Super Castlevania on the Super Nintendo.
So to have all those things, like, in this game from the very start, it was a flawless presentation at the start of it. And it even starts cool. You, like, you pit start on the game, you get, like, a scorecard or something, it says, like, player one start, and then you do, like, a triple front flip and just land in the jungle. And it's like, wow, what a way to enter the game and know that you're about to kick some butt.
Yeah, and to mention something about how clean it all looks, this is something that I never thought of before, but it's always been, like, subconsciously there, that some games that I don't like that I think feel weird to play are games where the platforms are not super clear where you can land and what's a platform. And this is, like, everything is crisp and clear, and you know what you're standing on, where you can go, where you can jump. Nothing's confusing in this game.
We've had that problem very recently with both Karnov and Wizards and Warriors, where it was kind of like some things, it just doesn't seem like they should be platforms, and you're standing on them, and other things, you want them to be platforms, and they're not. I will say, you know, we're getting a bit into gameplay here, but there are some problems with conscious platforming as well, though, where you have to get, like, right to the edge of the current platform to make a successful jump, and I never like that. I'm not really a fan of that kind of thing.
One other first impression that I have was that I noticed that there's, like, a demo mode if you wait on the home screen for too long. Oh, yeah, and we haven't had that. I don't think we've ever had that. Yeah, I think we have. Yeah, well, I'm trying to think of what it was. I don't remember either. I think it was Karate Champ, not at Karate Champ. Yeah, what's the one we love, the backgrounds? Oh, Karate Champ. I'm pretty sure Karate Champ had a demo play.
Yeah, and I really like that too, Sam. That's a good call. Yeah, that was just something. Because you never, you know, you never get, like, that in the older games, but I remember even in, like, N64 games, which is what I grew up on, sometimes you would watch those just to get ideas of what to do. I remember Donkey Kong 64 had those. Yeah, I never really thought to do that. I always just got annoyed that it started making noise when I was just waiting on, like, the main menu. And it's like, wait, I want to make my selection.
Well, this game does that a lot. You try and put in the little Konami code there, you get, like, a few seconds before that cutscene comes up. Yeah, yeah. Right. All right, so before we go any further in gameplay, let's talk about some Tales from the Manual.
One thing to note is that the Contra was first on the Arcade, and so the plot's a little different on the NES version. For those of you in the know, the Arcade plot is that in 2633 AD, two armed elite Marine commandos, Contra, named Bill and Lance, are sent on a mission to neutralize a terrorist organization called Red Falcon that is secretly planning to take over the entire world, and it is up to this two-man army to put an end to this madness once and for all. You know, the fact that aliens don't come up in this plot description is a little strange,
but it does help understand why there are, like, also, like, human figures that you fight in the game, too, because Red Falcon is, like, the terrorist organization, and then it just happens to be that they're in cahoots with aliens who are helping take over the world. But the plot is a little different in the NES game, and so, Joe, why don't you walk us through what the differences are for the NES version of Contra? Sure. So, like you said, it's a little more alien-based, which was surprising. But in the NES version, going back to 1957,
an extraterrestrial object crash-landed into Earth, and Earth scientists just passed it off as a nothing event, and they forgot about it. Thirty years later, now in 1987, 1988, whenever, there are reports of an evil force appearing in the Amazon, which I think is funny that they consider them inherently evil, the United States government, I guess? Yeah. The Pentagon.
Oh, the Pentagon. Okay. The Pentagon sends special forces, and congratulations, you're those special forces, is what the manual says in the middle of the story. It suddenly shifts to, congratulations, pal, you're one of the chosen ones. You're sent in to take out the alien invaders. One other thing the manual mentions, that if you succeed, well, it doesn't matter, because I doubt you will. I love that, like, that fight from the manual, you know, like, you won't pull it off, coward.
Yeah, exactly. And those are just, like, the cliff notes of it. It actually is a pretty in-depth story, which I recommend you read, because there's a lot of detail to it. I really like the part where they justify why there's only a two-man team going into the Amazon game force. Yeah, yeah. This is the first time that I've actually sort of, like, bought the manual story. It's not about some bullshit in 32XX with a planet Gore Blacks that's going to eat everybody.
If it's more powerful, the more people attack it or something. This is some, like, Cold War stuff with aliens, and I think it's awesome that they actually explain, like, we just don't want the economies to get all messed up, so it's just going to be you two. Right. We don't want to start a war. But you just know that there's aliens there.
Do you think that there'd be, like, some kind of talks going on with the Russians? Be like, yo. Or the Brazilians. Be like, yo, guys, there's aliens. Like, I get that we don't like each other, but, like, come on. Like, it's skeet it, right? They're trying to kill us all. And we should probably talk now, too, about, like, the influences of, like, movies at that time that would have made Contra popular because this definitely has, like, a Rambo meets Alien kind of, or Aliens kind of feel to it because Alien is, I always think of that as more of, like, a horror film and Aliens is more like a Colonel Marines.
The design, though, is still either or. Okay, yeah. It's super, like, knockoff H.R. Geiger when you get to the more alien levels. Yes. Later in the game. And what is that H.R. Geiger? That is the designer that designed the alien itself. Okay, because that's what I'm always thinking of is, like, do those aliens have names? Yeah, it's a xenomorph. Xenomorph. He also designed all of the weird, like,
sort of, like, temple-looking structures throughout the movies. Got it. Because the xenomorph thing, at first I was like, oh, okay, it's aliens, and I get, like, the illusions that they make and stuff like that. But by the end of it, you're right. I think I saw a xenomorph at this game at one point or another towards the end of it. But you also get the Rambo feel with the heroes who have changed.
They're now codenamed Scorpion and Mad Dog. Mad Dog. Mad Dog Bill. And that gives me more of, like, a Rambo feel with the way they look and they're, you know, they have some big 80s muscles. Especially the Scorpion. Yeah, Scorpion looks a little bit like Al Pacino meets Arnold Schwarzenegger. I think he's got a Sylvester Stallone look to him. Oh, Sylvester Stallone. That's who I meant.
So then I assumed that Bill was supposed to be Arnold Schwarzenegger. Okay. But he doesn't look as much like it as Lance looks like. He looks like a Joe Pesci to me. He looks kind of... No, who's that guy from Rocky IV? Oh, yeah. The Russian guy. Is that him? I think it's Dolph Lundgren. He looks like that. He looks more like that with that. I can see him as a Terminator, you know? Yeah, like in the next Terminator? Yeah, this guy from the manual. It'll be like the drawing of this guy. Imagine him with the hair. He kind of looks like, you know, like the robot version of him. Yeah, no, I can see it. Yeah. And then did you guys know that in Europe, this whole series for a very long time was not called Contra?
Progressborg. Probotector is what it was called. I don't get it. Yeah. Probotector. Yeah. What is that? Like a Robocop? Yeah, that's a... I didn't hear that one. But here's the weirdest thing. If you look at the box that they sold the Probotector ones in, if you look at Contra in the Japan version or the American version, it's pretty much the same box art with Mad Dog and Scorpion on it. If you look at Probotector, it's two guys in mech suits.
Yeah. That's weird. It's like Gundam. It's like you're selling that to the wrong audience, I feel like. But there's also no mechs in the European version. They didn't add that, so it's like weird to just advertise that there's going to be something. Maybe they're just showcasing the one enemy in like level four that like has that turret thing.
And that kind of looks like a mech that doesn't move. No, if you saw these guys on the box art, you would know. I know what I'm saying. You would know that like... Maybe these are the things that they flew to the Amazon in and then said, well, we don't need these to fight. I can just do it with my bare hands. The cover art is actually like the prologue to the game. So it's explaining how they got there. Exactly. Yeah, that's just how they flew in on their skells.
Skells is like a Xenoblade cross thing. Skell? Yeah, that's like the mechs in Xenoblade cross are called skells. Enough with the weebs. Yeah, we're getting so into it that we might as well talk about the gameplay of Contra.
Sean, you mentioned the graphics kind of blew you away in this one. Would you like to talk a little bit more in depth about that? Sure. For the most part, I was pretty impressed with just the sprite work. Like I did mention the backgrounds, but the sprite work in general was what really got me because like you can see the muscles in these guys. And I was just like, hell yeah.
But later in the game, we didn't ever mention that it switches perspective like every once in a while. And you go into the pseudo 3D world. And even then, like that was pretty convincing. The last time I saw that perspective was like, what's the game? Goonies 2? Yeah. And it was much more primordial back then. It wasn't intuitive at all compared to this. And this, you're freely in control of your character.
Except for the electric fences. Yeah. But to stay on track with the graphics there too, I think that the actual like stage designs were amazing too. If you look at, you know, Super Mario Brothers, you're sold on just like the bricks and like the occasional like little hill islands that they have. And the clouds and stuff. The same shading. Yeah, this has like full environments that sell me on the idea of like, I'm in the jungle. Now I'm in like these, I guess like bases during the pseudo 3D levels. The bases are a bit more convincing because the outdoor spaces still have some really weird geography that would only exist in a side-scrolling platformer game.
That's true. There's a few like, not floating platforms, but a few islands of land. But like it's still really good looking. Right. It works. Yeah, I think like there was never a point in the game where a design decision like wasn't correctly made for me. At least aesthetically. Yeah. And I was immersed at all times. There wasn't a point where. Yeah. And to another point, is this the first time that we're seeing this like isometric 3D look?
Or has this happened before? Because when I think of these games, you're looking at it straight on. You don't see any depth, but in Contra, you can actually see like, oh no, this platform extends beyond your body in the Z axis. Did you catch this at all? In the side-scrolling parts. Oh, I thought you meant the... No. Yeah. I think that that is a good example. I'm struggling to recall something, but I feel like, and maybe this is just my familiarity with 2D games, that I feel like we've seen that before. But it's done really convincingly here.
Yeah. And there's, in the Famicom version, there actually is like certain extra details even added to the environments because they got like an extra chip added to theirs, which we didn't get in the NES version. But like the trees even like sway as if there's wind and stuff like that. And the grass like kind of rustles and stuff. So I think like those extra bonuses would have been welcomed, but unsold on the other world. And I think that... Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think going to what you were talking about with the level of detail on the Z axis, I think we've seen that only in games where it was pulled off poorly, the way I was talking about earlier, where... Yeah, there's, I think in...
Was it Wizards and Warriors? Yes. Where some of the platforms, like even though... I think because of it, it made it hard to see where you're supposed to go. But we're trying to do that, and I think this is where they pulled it off. The last little bit about the graphics in this game, there are some projectile effects, specifically in some of the bosses, that are these weird little disks of energy that are probably the most detailed sprites that are just sort of like weird shapes that I've ever seen. It looks like it came out of a Super NES game.
And I don't know if you know exactly what I'm talking about. They've got like a lighting to them. Yeah, it's got a weird... It looks really good. Even the bubbles do it really well. There's those blue transparent bubbles that are just, you know, in my mind, incredible to see this early on the NES. Yeah. Two other graphics thoughts, though.
The way things explode is nice, too. And it's not just kind of like a... Sometimes with these games, you get the cop out of like when you kill the thing, it flashes and then just disappears. I'm glad that we didn't get that. It's a fiery explosion. Right, exactly. They really leaned into it, too. Even some of the walls explode. And as Sam mentioned earlier, too, it sounds good. When you're shooting your gun and when these explosions go off and stuff like that. You feel like you're in the chaos of it all. I was going to say that those two sections that are the, you know, on the other axis... The pseudo 3D that stages two and four. The 3D battles of World Runner sections.
One thing I really liked about those is the... Like when you go to a new area, you go through this dark spot first, you know, and then the lights come on and suddenly there's enemies there. Yeah. You know, it's just a nice little touch. You're walking down that hallway, yeah. Yeah, you walk down a dark hallway, which I think is cool, you know, and there's nothing there and suddenly you're in the thick of it. Yeah. And you don't exactly know what's coming next, but you don't have to worry about that either. The game does give you, at least when you're playing single player for the most part, ample time to respond to things if you choose to lay back.
Yeah. But what I mean is there's like a little bit of pause in the action and you have to just kind of go into this dark space. Oh, that's true too. They could have just loaded it up with the next section, you know, but instead it's like, no, you got to get ready. And it's your choice too to go forward. Yeah, I thought that was cool. One other graphics thing is that the progression from being like the Amazon to the alien lair, I thought was done well.
They could have maybe saved the surprise better in terms of how they lay out the enemies and bosses in the game because that's a little more random. It's like I didn't feel like I should. All of a sudden aliens just show up in stage three and I'm like the alien boss and he's a great boss, but I'm like. You're talking about the UFO? UFO? Not the UFO. I'm talking about the one with the swinging arms. Yeah. And that's like a fantastic sprite work on that guy. Yes. That's one of the bosses that I meant with the energy sprite thing. Yes. But also it just felt weird that, you know, they took such a careful design in how the stages would progress from like normal Amazon to alien.
But when the like actual enemy placement and stuff like that, it's just like, I think now is a good time to introduce aliens into the world. Like you're just climbing a hill. Yeah. Well, because otherwise, if you hadn't read the manual and you get to those aliens at the end, other than those bosses, you'd be like, what the heck? I thought I was fighting people all this time. But do you think you expect that? Like, I mean, in 1980s. I guess because of what video games were. Yeah, exactly. In 1980s, we were all stupid.
It was probably just like, oh, yeah, of course there's aliens in this game. Like, I'm shocked if there's not. Yeah, right. And now let's talk about the platforming for the game. You know, and this can include jumping and controls in general. But, you know, the game, while we described it as a run and gun because you're mostly dealing with firepower and taking down enemies, there is a fair bit of platforming. And later on, certain stages have puzzles. So how did we feel about movement in the game in general?
I thought that it was movement was pretty tight. The only thing I didn't like was that in order to go down from the top of a platform, you have to press A, like an anti-jump kind of. And that would mess me up sometimes when I had to do, like, quick movements, like quick jump down, dodge something, and shoot. I'm funny. I think that's funny that you say that. It's a problem because I thought that felt fairly intuitive to me. Yeah. I guess the only other thing you could have done, for those of you that don't know, you have to actually, like, lay down when you hold the down on the D-pad, your player character. You go prime. Like, yeah, they go military on the floor.
I go military on the floor. Military pose, you know. Army crawl. Yeah. Army crawl. They just call it crawl, though. Yeah. They don't crawl, right? You can't move them. If you're holding the D-pad down, you can't. Like, they'll go back to walking if you move, right? That's a weird thing. But anyway, once they're down on the ground like that, if you hit your jump button, they'll be able to go to the ledge below them. I guess the only other thing you could have done is maybe, like, double tap down on the D-pad to go down. But I could see that actually leading to, like, more awkward unintentional jumping.
Especially because you can shoot down by holding down. So I think that would give you the problem where you'd be trying to shoot down and you'd accidentally go through. And moving through ledges like that, like, when you want to go down to a ledge. It doesn't happen that often. So I kind of like that it wasn't, like, a button that you would be doing often.
Yeah. I actually, to be honest, didn't know about – I didn't know there was a way to do that from platform to platform until, like, much later in the game when I think you needed to do it. In the energy zone, I think, even, which is, like, what, level 5? Huh. But then you needed to do it. And I was like, wow, this would have been really helpful earlier. But I also – that's just from me not having read the manual first. You know, I would have thought you would have done it on the very first boss.
Well, maybe if I had known. Yeah. I would have done it, yeah. Like, the very first boss kind of sets it up as, like, a – you want to take advantage of being able to quickly access the floors below you. But I never thought of – I never thought of how to do that.
I just assumed you couldn't do it because I was trying to press down. Well, you've got to read the manual sometimes. Exactly. And then, I don't know about you guys, but for me, the jump is great for its range, but I hated that it was a complete jump every time. Yeah. That was a problem because sometimes the level is arranged in such a way that there is an enemy just shooting bullets over your head and you would never get hit by it unless you have to jump. And you have to jump. And you just jump right into the bullet.
And while it has, like, you're always at max range, that max range is always just a little too short to get to certain platforms. And these certain platforms look like you should be able to reach them. So, the jump, while it – at least you have some control while you're in midair, it's a little – it has enough flaws that I can get annoyed by it. Right. It's great that you can completely move left to right as needed because sometimes that's the whole reason you're jumping to dodge bullets in the first place. Mm-hmm. But I hate that you couldn't, like, tap A to get a slightly less higher – Right. Even if it was just, like, maybe two to three stages.
It didn't have to be, like, as in-depth as Mario's. Yeah. But I just – I think that, you know, there's so many points that you run into in this game, especially with the bosses, where a complete jump actually hangs you up for a while. Yeah. And then you have to kind of now think about, like, okay, I'm in the air for this long. Like, where do I land? Yeah, right. That's safe, you know? Yeah. It is nice, though, that you can – because I know some games don't allow this – that you can still fire while you're in the air because that sometimes is, like, a huge detriment when you jump and you're just stuck doing nothing. Yeah, and it's very important. You have to do that at certain points.
And directional shooting is new to us, especially in this way where you can hold up and left to shoot, you know, in that direction. And so I wonder, having this be the first time, did you guys feel like they pulled it off right away? Yeah, they definitely pulled it off. I do have one minor gripe about it, although I can't think of a good solution to it. But there are a lot of times I'm trying to shoot diagonally up but not run forward because there's nothing you can really do about it. I understand that. I think that's just a part of the flow of the game that you have to get used to.
Right, yeah. But thinking of, like, the way you can stop just below something and shoot straight up and you can shoot straight down. And I know that the limitations of having a tiny controller – You do have to jump to shake. But I wish there was a shake. It would straight down, though. Yeah. Like, if you were – Yeah, that's true.
I don't even know how you do it. Like, if you hold A or something after a jump – It would have to be this mess of button combinations to do that. I agree it would probably make it worse with the NES controller. I just – that was one thing that, you know, I got hung up on a few times. One spot where that really got me was when that one – the armored truck comes at you. Yeah. In, like, the third level or something.
And, like, the best way to do it is to, like, go all the way to the left side of the screen and crouch down or, you know, crawl and then shoot diagonally up or shoot – Right. No, you can actually – You can shoot – It's misleading, but you can actually shoot straight on even though there's, like, a giant shield there. Yeah. Hitting any part of that tank is damage. Oh, okay. Yeah, and they give you the confirmation sound for that. So it's not like you just, like, find that out on accident.
Yeah. But that's an interesting strategy on your part, too, is to come up with that. But, like, turning around also at that point when you have to go to the edge of the screen and then turn around really quickly but you don't want to move that far. I don't know. But, I mean, again, what can you do? I think I actually mentioned that. I was playing Chris, our audio producer, was in the room.
And there were a few times where I was like I needed to be on this pixel but then I needed to turn around. And to turn in that direction, you would move a step in that direction no matter what. Right. And I found that when you shoot down diagonally, it's a lot harder to be precise whereas when I was shooting, you know, in the upper diagonals, you know, walking wasn't like – I felt like that was the natural way to move things. So it was, like, fine. But when I wanted to shoot down below, a lot of times I would wind up crouching instead.
And I wasn't – sometimes that's not great. Yeah, the controls aren't perfect. And one thing that – I don't know if it's just because of my exposure to later games but I feel like the crouch slash prone button is a little too touchy because I would – and maybe this is my own fault. And just I haven't – I'm not holding the button down correctly but I felt like when I was crouching to avoid projectiles, if I let off that button for, like, just one little, like, sliver of a pound, I would just stand right up into fire. And I don't know if it's because, like, later games have a bit of an animation of you standing up and it's not immediate so that you have that little cushion.
But I found myself making that mistake over and over even after yelling at myself to stop. And I don't know if we had anything similar. I only had that, but, like, repeatedly in the forward-facing levels and the pseudo-3D levels. Yeah. But, yeah, I definitely had the same thing. Just because we're about to get into the pseudo-3D thing, I did want to just mention real fast because this is kind of funny to me that the first boss of the game before you get to the pseudo-3D stage is this, like, wall that has, like, a guy on the top shooting down at you. There's these two turrets.
And then there's just, like, this icon that you have to shoot that's, like, the keyhole, I guess, or whatever. Yeah. But what I like about it is it's, like, kind of an ode to Gradius of, like, the shoot-the-core thing. Yeah. And it's, like, even in a non-traditional shmup like Contra where you're actually running gun, you still have to shoot the core on a lot of these things to get through to the next level.
Yeah. I didn't actually see that as a—I mean, this is just however you perceive a boss as—but I didn't actually see that as a boss, thought more as, like, just a set piece. Interesting. I guess I just always see in these games the end of a stage is just, like, always has a boss for me. Like, that's who the boss is. But you're probably more right. It is more like a—and this is why the next part of the level is, like, 3D because you went into the base.
Which is fine. So let's talk about the base because I think that's something really cool that they did pretty well by my book. Yeah. They made the screen, if you guys can tell, they put, like, a border around it so they actually didn't have to animate as many pixels. Mm-hmm. They put, like, a cave border around it. And that's something that you'll see later NES games like Kirby's Adventure do really well is that the whole game actually just has a border around it. So they can put more pixels and animation into the actual screen design.
Doom wound up doing that even on the Super Nintendo. That was a—that was a—to solve a problem. Right, right. But I think, like, you know, same—you could say the same thing here. It's solving a problem because who's to say that if you don't have that cave border that it's going to—
Work all that well. Work as well as it did or flow as nice because there's a lot of bullets on the screen. Yeah, these are very busy stages where it's sort of like a—it's sort of like a tennis match but only— I don't know why I say that. You know what? It's funny because I don't know why you say that either but it makes sense. It does make sense. I get it. A tennis match if the idea is that you should be dodging the balls that your opponent shoots. I feel like there's a tennis game that's in this perspective or something. I mean, there's a tennis game that we play. There's, like, the net of the electricity.
In tennis, they call it, like, a volley, which is also, like, I think— You can refer to that. Like, weapons. Weapons is, like, firing volleys. Yeah. It's basically just tennis. This is my favorite sports game so far on the NES. Yeah. Conjure's a sports game. Who knew? I like it.
And there's, like, a lot of targets in this stage that you have to shoot and take down. And to be clear, too—I don't know if we've actually said this yet, but this is a—from the perspective behind your character, behind whatever his name is, the Scorpion or whatever his name is. Behind Scorpion. And he just moves side to side and shoots forward. So it's like—it feels 3D.
I don't know if we were clear on it yet. I guess it could have had some more clarification. Yeah, and it plays more like a 3D world runner from that kind of— I don't like that. I think that is a discredit to Contra. Absolutely. There's no goofy, like, fake type R—type 7? What was the name of the thing? Yeah, mode 7. Mode 7. There's no, like, fake 3D movement going on in terms of the actual stage.
It's just—if you're on the left side of the screen, you're going to be firing at the left side of the far wall. And vice versa. And there's also—like, crouching works the same, except it's going to shoot the bottom of the far wall. It's pretty intuitive once you get used to it. So I guess that isn't intuitive.
It's fine. I think that what I meant by that is just from, like, how it looks perspective-wise of how you control the player. But on top of that, this mode made me feel a lot more defensive, whereas I was saying that the other one, you constantly want to be shooting and everything like that. In this one, I was ducking for a majority of the level and then waiting for my opportunity to attack. Well, because you don't have any motivation or even the ability to move forward until you've cleared this one room. Right, there's that electric fence in the way.
Whereas in every other—like, the side-scrolling parts of this game, you have to constantly be moving. You'll be fighting the same guys over and over. It does feel a little bit like a cover-based shooting game at this point.
You crouch behind the electric fence and it protects you, and you've got to jump up to—or pop up to shoot things that are either at your eye level or sometimes you have to jump to shoot things that are higher. But then, like, constantly watching where the bullets are and ducking when they come near you. It's a pretty, like, different way of playing than the first level. It's interesting. And then they have those rolling—whatever they are, the things that roll on the floor at you? Are they— Yeah. Explosive— It might be like TNT, right? Yeah. Something. But they come at you in different patterns, which I think is cool. So you can—because for me, if it was just coming straight at me, it was kind of hard at the time to jump.
And I found myself landing on it a lot. Yeah. The— Yeah, the depth perception in this game isn't perfect. I stopped jumping over those at all. Yeah. I just started shooting them. Yeah. I didn't realize that you could shoot them. Exactly. Then I started shooting them, and I was like, oh! Oh, yeah, of course. It didn't occur to me until I played with you in co-op, and when I saw you shoot at them, I was like, why didn't I ever think that I could shoot these things? Yeah. There's something psychological about them that makes them look indestructible. Yeah. Because I think the patterns make it look like you're supposed to be jumping over those.
Right. But also, jumping to the—if they're in, like, a V pattern, and one of them is coming at you, like, the first one's coming at you, or the—I don't know, you can kind of jump over them sideways, too. Yeah. That makes it a little bit easier. That's the only other thing you could do, right? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It's like a weird little mix-up.
Yeah. It's cool. Well, there's also a weird—if you are doing the jumping strategy, there is a weird perspective to it where I felt like a lot of times when I was trying to do the jump, I was jumping way too early, and it would still be on the screen and get me at the end of it. That's why this isn't perfect. Right. And you kind of have to, like, assess, like, you know, this is a different kind of 3D, so I've got to wait until these things are really close to me before I jump because they're going to stay on the screen for a while.
Mm-hmm. Like, the vertical scrolling game example of choice? See, I thought this was more of, like, a flat-wave scrolling. Flat-wave scrolling. Great. Either way, all you need to know is that instead of moving left to right, in this one you're, like, kind of climbing up a hill via platforms that include such things as floating, like, rock things that, like, no one questions, right? It's like, at this point— Just getting out of the side. That's how I see it. Right. I mean, it looks like the kind of stuff that Sonic the Hedgehog has to deal with. Not necessarily the scorpion in Mad Dog. It's just scorpion. Oh, it's not the scorpion?
Oh, it's the amazing Spider-Man villain? Yeah. There's also these—because you're climbing up a waterfall, and there are these, like, people with, like, scuba gear in the waterfall. They're, like, a snorkel. They pop out of the waterfall. They shoot just little pools, like, along the waterfall. I never thought those were— No, it's the waterfall. I never thought those were people, though, because you can't shoot at them. You can't. Yeah, they're underwater. You can't shoot at somebody underwater. Is this a power-up? Is this a—what is this? Right.
I agree. I did try to pick that up every time. They flop up and shoot at you, though. They do. Yes. Yeah. Once you go in front of them. Yeah. I thought it was only over them. Yeah, yeah. That's what I mean. It's, like, when you—if you're behind them, you just don't know what—you know, that's how you see them first. Because you're scrolling up the stage, when you first see them, you're not sure what that is. You shoot at it. It doesn't do anything. You jump at it. It doesn't do anything. So, finally, once you pass it, then it's, like, I'm going to kill you.
Well, they are phenomenal swimmers. I'll just say that. I'm looking at a video right now, and it looks like after you're on top of them, you can fire down on them and shoot them. No way. Okay. Yeah. That makes sense, though, because they're out of the water. Yeah. They shoot at you. Do we know what mechanism is happening on the bridge with the fire that goes back and forth? Oh, yeah. Like, is that just, like— It's a fire bridge. Just a fire bridge. Yeah. And what makes that different from the fire that happened on the other two bridges in stage one that completely collapsed those bridges?
No, that's just the dynamite blowing them up. That's detonation, yeah. There was dynamite? Well, I mean, like, it's tiny dynamite. They had it rigged to blow in case you guys came. You guys are so immersed in this game, you're seeing things that aren't even in it. No, but I didn't—all right, I wouldn't say specifically dynamite, but I definitely thought that was, like, a detonated explosion. Okay, fine. It was C4. Okay. And is it possible, or is this, like, just, like, you know, recessed rumors?
Is it possible to, like, not fall into the water on that stage one? Yeah, you have to jump. You jump and hop it. Yeah, you have to just time the jump to hit the one that you know is going to. I always fell in the water. Yeah, me too. You have to jump to the second, like, or the third. There's no penalty for falling in the water. In fact, it's probably more interesting. Yeah, I actually, after I, like, learned you can jump over it, like, next time I played it, I just was like, I'm just going to go in the water.
I kind of want to talk about that for a second, actually, because that made me realize that one of my very first impressions of this game when I was playing it— Callback. Yeah, was that once the bridge exploded and I missed it, I expected to die. I expected, like, that I would either respawn or get, like, a, you know, back to the high score screen and then start the level over.
I was shocked that I, like, landed in the water and could now swim, and I was like, oh, it's going to be a good game. It's kind of like a learning section. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, hey, by the way, you can be in the water. It does burn itself in the butt, though, when there is a level later in the game where you can fall in water and then you die. Yeah, that's true. It's teaching you the wrong thing sometimes.
I know Sean's been dying to talk about the power-ups in the game, and I like them, too, because this, again, kind of enforces the idea of, like, a light shmup that we have on our hands here. So, Sean, you want to take us through, like, a little bit of a power-up walkthrough? I'd love to. I don't know where you got the idea that I really wanted to talk about them, but I will.
There are several upgrades. There's the machine gun, which now, instead of, like, this single semi-automatic burst shot that you got, you can just hold it down, and you can go about your business. Then there's laser, which I find to be terrible, because when you fire it twice in succession, I think it deletes the first shot. Which doesn't make any sense. I don't understand it. Cancel out your original laser. I don't know if that's just because, like, you can't have so many sprites on the same scan. I don't know.
Then you got the fire, I guess? Yeah, fireball. Fireball, and that just does the loop-de-loop thing that we've been seeing in a few games lately. Yeah. I like it. I don't like it as much as spread. Spread's the best. Yeah. You can totally cheese bosses with spread. It's not going to, like, make this an auto-win, but this is the best power-up.
And then there's, like, an invincibility one. I think it's a B, I think. It has the B. In the manual, it refers to it as force field. Yeah. But that one was very rare. B is from beast mode. It was rare for that to show up for me. I don't know about you guys. I got it maybe twice. I think that one at least shows up in predetermined points. But that's just my assumption. Okay. That would make sense, because I could see that being kind of like op if it shows up right before a boss or something like that.
And then there's an R, but I don't know what R does. R is the rapid-fire one, which just shoots it. It's different than the machine gun in the sense that I believe, and don't quote me on this because it might have just been me feeling it, like a pseudo thing. If you have the spread gun and then get the R... Oh, no, it's a rapid spread. It will shoot the spread gun faster. I did not know that it was, like, an attachment. I didn't realize that either. It felt like to me it stacked because when you get the rapid-fire Falcon, it doesn't change to a different thing. If you had the spread gun and you pick up the R, you don't lose the spread gun. So I assumed it was just making the spread gun shoot more frequently.
Yeah. And these things are just sort of either hidden around the level... Not hidden, but stored around the level in these opening and closing door things. Called pillbox pensors. No, I think those are the floating things, right? No, that's the flying capsules. Oh, gotcha, gotcha. And sometimes they will come across the screen just to give you a quick boost. A welcome sight, but kind of confused with an enemy. Yeah, I thought it was an enemy for a while. I shot it down a lot, and even though I saw the power come out of it... I still thought it was an enemy. This game is very reactionary.
What you see on the screen... It's all lizard brain. Yeah, you want to kill it. No matter what it is on the screen, you want to take it down. So pretty much if I saw something... I'm confident I shot it trees a lot.
You know, there's that part in stage four, the snow level, where the bombs are being... The trees start throwing grenades at you. Yeah, well, Sean thinks that the trees are throwing the grenades. I think that there's people behind the trees that we can't... All right, Mike, you're talking about... Okay, so you're so immersed in this game that you think that things exist when you don't even see them. I thought that they were below our horizon line.
Yeah, okay. Because sometimes there's no trees, but there's still... There's a little cliff or a little hill there. That's true. And they're below there throwing them at you. We can't look down there, though. And, you know, that's frustrating because you want to kill whatever's throwing those things, and now you've been introduced to non-killable enemies. It's insane. Something that's just going to try and ruin your life. Forever. Yeah.
But one thing we did talk about that was exclusive to the NES version is the Mass Destruction Falcon, which is a very rare power that shows up that destroys everything on screen.
I actually might have gotten that once. It just happens right away, right? Yeah. As soon as you pick it up, it just happens. I think I got it once at a very, like, inopportune moment. There were, like, two things on screen. I remember just seeing them disappear. Well, it's not in the arcade version, so I do wonder if you're going to include it in the NES version, why not, like, why not make it show up more? Like, why make it such a rare thing that you won't even notice it?
I don't know. I think if it was more common, then it would just be a, it would be unbalanced. I'm talking more common than, like, twice in the whole game because here's the thing. Like Joe said, it happens as, you can't store it, so it happens as soon as you pick it up. So a lot of times that's just, like, maybe, like, two henchmen get destroyed. Yeah, whoever happens to be on the screen. Yeah, and they might run right back into screen.
Yeah. There are enough enemies that I feel like this happening a few times more wouldn't be like, oh, wow, this game's so easy now. It would just be, yeah. I think that there really isn't a perfect solution, so I think they should have just gotten rid of it. Okay. Yeah, I think that's fair. It wasn't in the arcade one. It's kind of unnecessary here. Yeah. Were there any power-ups that we would have liked to see?
I wanted to see that Mega Man electric burst. Okay. But that's just because I thought it would look cool. Gotcha. I was thinking also, you know how, like, in Gradius you have your option, which is, like, a ball that kind of, like, protects you before you die? I would have liked something like that that was different than Force Field because Force Field's more like the star in Super Mario Bros.
where you're just invincible for a little bit. But an option to have almost, like, a shield, you know, where, like, oh, you can take one hit and you won't die. Yeah. And then you'll, you know, like, that would have been nice. That would have been nice. The Force Field 2 would have been a little bit better if there was any indication of when it was going to end.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. There's no music change, right? There's no music change. You're not going to hear the da-da-da-da. Yeah. It's just you're playing Contra, but you're flashing. Right. And that's not entirely helpful. No. No, is it? No.
And then one thing I wanted to mention about the power-ups, and this is me just asking for way too much. I'm not saying it's a flaw in the game, but I was kind of expecting, because of how good the graphics are, that when you pick up different weapons that your gun would change a little. Yeah. You know, like, if you have the machine gun, you would at least, like, look like you're holding some kind of machine gun or, like, Gatling gun. Like, that would be cool. You know, but, like, that's just wishful thinking on my part. It's not an actual. I'm not detracting any points from Contra. Right. Not having that would have just been a nice touch. Yeah. We'll see you next time.
We haven't really talked about difficulty in the game. We've kind of said like, oh, you know, that boss might have been a little cheap or like, you know, certain enemies spawn in weird places. But how do we feel overall about the difficulty of Contra? This is something I was surprised about, too, because I always this is like almost has this legendary status of being the Nintendo hard game, at least in my head. That's how that's what I thought the trope was. Maybe that's why I didn't think it was quite as bad. But it's a very learnable, playable game. I mean, it's challenging. Trust me. Like, it's definitely it's definitely tough, but it's not.
It's not impossible. We are men of the Ghost and Goblins generation. We played that game. We've seen what what really hard games are like. I don't think this is on that scale of it. And I also think that we've played a lot of bad games that are only hard because of how bad they are in terms of like how you control your character. I think Contra meets it right in the middle, but it's still a very difficult game. Yeah, it is a difficult game. Yeah, don't misunderstand me.
It's definitely hard, but it's hard in the way that I feel attention while I'm playing. That's tension, not attention. I feel tension while I'm playing because I know I can do it, because I know I can dodge all these little things, rather than just frustration. I think that there is. However, I do think that there are a lot of points in this game that the hardness is just frustration. Like, I don't know what level it is, but before the show, we were we were playing through it.
And Mike and I were going through a sequence where there were these guys with like the the turrets and they would just pop up right in front of you with a gun with a bullet already shooting. And you had to just have a split that literal split second to get down. And while I think, yeah, this is going to test your reflexes, I think that that's just a little much.
Yeah, it's the energy zone in the hangar zone. And to be fair, they're late stages, but there's a lot of things being introduced there that are a little crazy. That's also the same stages that we get the flamethrower. Yeah. And the flamethrower, it does have a puzzle element to it, but only in the sections where it's by itself. When you have to deal with the flamethrower and the normal minions and the guys with the machine guns, that's a lot to take care of on any particular stage. And I think that that's where, you know, pure gamers, close your ears.
I think that's where this game really finds its strength in having more than three lives. Okay. Yeah. Three lives is, you know, and I know people can do it. Don't get me wrong. If you've played this game since it came out, you're probably pretty good at it. But for the most of us who have grown up with easier games, when we finally played this game with the Konami code and had the 30 lives, I actually felt like I was getting more out of the game with 30 lives.
And yes, the respawn on the same place where you died is a little cheap. I don't know if I, you know, you could have pushed us back a little, but I don't know how they would program that. But that's a little cheap, but I think overall having even, I want to say, unlimited lives, like, makes the game more fun because it's still fun to play this game despite how difficult it is. I'm not saying that every game would be better if you had 99 lives, but this game would have benefited from something like that because I just really wanted to keep playing through it.
I kind of hated when you ran out of all your lives and had to restart. Yeah, I agree, and it's interesting to me that I agree so much because I'm usually pretty, like, when you want the full experience of a game, I don't like that, even if it means I'm not going to beat the game. But in this case, I think that it works better only because this has a flaw, what I consider a flaw, that it's just a personal preference.
I just don't like when games give you three lives, you continue, three lives, you continue, three lives, and then you have to start the whole game over again. Right, you only have to recontill it. And then I understand, like, I'm all for, like, a level of, like, punishment when you lose to make it more worth it. Go back to the beginning of the level, whatever you want it to be. But having to start the whole game over again, I think for just what we're used to is what makes, for me, it just worth it to put in the Konami code and play with those 30 lives, which might be a little much. But I think that this game needs to have some limit to the amount of lives that you have because otherwise the game is just an exercise in attrition.
And it's just you, how many times do you die until you reach the end, not can you reach the end? Because if it's just 99 lives or 100 or infinite lives until the end of the game, it's just like, well, I'm going to finish this game within the hour. It's just, I'm just probably going to die a bunch of times. I agree. I think there could have been a happy medium. If the Konami code made it so you have unlimited continues but still three lives, I think that would have been better. Where after your three lives, you go back to the beginning of the stage, not the beginning of the entire game.
Well, I mean, when it comes to cheats, I think anything goes with that. But I'm just saying for making it a better experience, if we're not considering it of a cheat, if it's just like, this is just another way to play the game. I think what Joe's saying is game design-wise, if after your third continue, if you still just got to go back to the beginning of the current level instead of starting all the way back at level one, that would have been a better design. Well, then just get rid of continues and just have it be like you go back to the beginning of the stage. Why not even die? Yeah, every time you die, you go back to the beginning of the stage. I think that's the best way to do it.
Yeah, I should. Honestly, where's Yoshi with wings in Contra? Don't get me started. I'm replaying Final Fantasy VIII. They've got that option. You just can't die. And I hate that it's there. I absolutely hate it. I know. Even though I can just not touch it. And I don't. But I hate that it's there. What's crazy about the continues thing, I just want to bring this up because I read this right before we went on the podcast.
If you're playing the arcade version, you can't even pay your way through that three continues and you're out thing. Wow. Even on the third continue, it will take you back to the very first stage if you choose to give it more money. Yeah, if you ask the machine, like, you please let me do this for $5. Right. You know, they usually give you, like, a timer. Like, you have 30 seconds to put in 25 more sets to play Contra. It's like, even on your third set of continues in the arcade version, they were like, you're starting back at the beginning. I don't care if you give me 50 cents.
So I thought that was funny and just really shows, like, how hard this game can be for certain people. And I'm not, you know, I'm not going to say that I didn't beat the, you know, I beat the game with cheats. Like, I didn't beat the, I beat the game with the Konami code. I did too, yeah. But this isn't a game that rewards, like, other kinds of skills. Like, Sean and I were talking about rewinding. This game doesn't really reward people who, like, use an emulator and rewind.
Yeah, I'm not learning any strategy by doing that. Yeah. I imagine it would also make it harder because sometimes it's, sometimes, well, sometimes it's actually, like, easier sometimes to just die and keep going. Like, it just, all right, well, now I know exactly where I die. I can just shoot that guy right away because you respawn pretty quickly right away. The unfortunate thing about this game that I know it is some people's fancy, but I don't really get the same thing. I don't get the same amount of pleasure out of a game that it's really just rewarding memorization. Because I think that you can get really good at this game if you just memorize the levels.
And I get it. Like, you should probably know when, like, some set piece is coming up. Or when certain situations may happen. But I prefer to play games that are more just systems mastery than just memorization of a level. Yeah. The whole point is to feel like you're reacting to things. Yeah. And not just putting in and planning out what inputs you're going to put in beforehand. I still enjoyed playing this game. But, like, the concept kind of bothered me. I enjoyed playing this game because I didn't memorize it yet. So I still felt like it was reactionary. I think it does take a special kind of dedication to get to the point where you've got enough of it memorized.
But people do that. Yeah. If we're talking about, like, hard but realistic games on the NES that we've played so far, I would put this, actually, maybe right with Mega Man. Yeah. Maybe it's slightly harder than Mega Man, actually. But I think, like, it's right about there. Which is a totally fair game in the NES days, in my opinion. I don't think this game is being cheap or unfair in any way. I did make a note of the only cheap spawn in the game, which happens in the vertical stage in Stage 3, where you won't know it unless you land on a specific platform. But all of a sudden, a turret will just spawn as soon as you stand on there. And it's, like, it's kind of funny. So I dismissed it.
But I was like, you know, I was like, oh, did they really? Because, you know, they're placing the enemies. We always talk about enemy placement. They're placing the enemies where they want them. And they've somehow solved the Mega Man issue that we had where it was like,
oh, but if you go backwards a little bit, it'll unspawn and respawn the enemy and you'll have to redo all the damage you did to it. In this one, they don't let you, like, go backwards at all. Or even, like, have the chance to re-encounter enemies. There are the, like, one-hit-kill henchmen guys that, like, constantly will run into the screen. Yeah, they come out of a spawn box or something. But I kind of feel like that's, you know, a necessary evil, too, because otherwise you might be inclined to just sit still.
Yeah, for a game this fast-paced, it's got to keep you occupied in some way. Right. Yeah. And we did notice that in our co-op playthroughs and, I think, in our single playthroughs of if you're standing on, like, the left side of the screen for a while, there will just be a henchman just kind of running. Yeah, let's keep going. Right, yeah. Running and kind of provoke you a little bit to move. Or if you're really hugging that side of the screen, you'll just instantly die and be not sure why.
Okay. What else did I say? What did we think of multiplayer? Oh, yeah, let's talk about co-op. First off, this is the first, like, in my opinion, true co-op game. Yeah, absolutely. I think it was sold at the time with that in mind, that co-op would be the focus. They put the two main players on the front cover for a reason. They want you to have it. Well, we're forgetting the flying game where you fly to the left. Oh, Sky Kid? Yeah, that's got, like, two characters for it. It does. The birds. Yeah, the bird planes. That you wouldn't know. You would just think you're controlling air propeller planes, but whatever.
Yeah, no, I guess I mean true co-op in the sense of, like... Fun games. Yeah, and you're experiencing... But you're experiencing it together, and you're going through an actual journey. Sky Kid is more like you're just kind of, like, shooting through waves of enemies and it's like, on to the next stage. This is a game where you can say, like, get that guy. I got that guy over here. You can plan things and you can, like, communicate like you're actually on a battlefield together. I don't know. I've never been on one, but... So truly. Like, that is the experience. We got a patriot over here.
And then also, Joe, I'm glad you made that analogy, though, too, because this is... There are only a few games so far that we've played together that, like, have caused that kind of, like, talk. But you're right. To Sean's point, the game is fast-paced. And to your point, that brings about conversations where you're talking really fast. I think it's just a really exciting experience when you add in a second person.
It is exciting, but we can see in the way that this game was... That the multiplayer was actually implemented that it's not perfect yet. It feels like the multiplayer... It's weird to say that the game was sold on a co-op basis because the way that it's designed in co-op, it definitely feels like an afterthought of, like, well, you know, there is a second controller on this system and we could emulate a second player.
Because the weird thing about co-op in this one is that I'm used to a game where whoever's, like, moving forward controls the screen and pushes it along. And the other person who's, like, lagging behind just gets, like, the scroll just kind of, like, continues to drag them along. Well, that's like a Sonic and Tails sort of thing where Tails was just, like, at the whim of Sonic. Right. I mean, I think that most games with this sort of multiplayer aspect will wait for you, but will wait for both players to sort of, like, go ahead. Um, but I think that the constraints that the screen has on you in this game specifically are a lot more fickle.
Um, you have to, like, go past a certain point on the screen to get it to budge just a little bit and that can affect your ability to finish jumps. Yeah, it feels like you can maybe trap yourself a little bit, which I think was a problem.
The only reason it didn't, other than the trapping yourself, it didn't bother me quite as much is after playing it single player and then playing it with you guys, there were a few things that were tough for me single player that were, like, kind of really easy for us with two players. Like, those tanks.
Yeah. We took those out, no problem. Some of the bosses. They didn't double up the health, which I think is an inappropriate move. Right, but I did think it was, it added another level of challenge, even if it wasn't intended and it might be a little funky, it was kind of interesting a few times where, like, one of us would be, would have died and the other one has to wait for them to come back to, like, all right, get over this jump. Like, I'm covering, or someone's covering the other person while I try and make the jump so you can both move forward rather than just moving forward and dragging.
There's a coordination element to the co-op where you both have to be on the same page of when you're even going to progress because, like we said, the camera, kind of locks in, in like this middle portion of the stage. So if you're both not, like, ready to move on, the camera doesn't, like, allow the player who's in the lead to keep pushing the other player along.
Yeah. On the topic of coordination, though, and where I think that you guys are giving a little too much credit to the multiplayer, is that I am all for using coordination for a two-player game. Uh, that's how these things should be played. But I think that coordinating to defeat an enemy, uh, with strategy is different than coordinating to, like, fight against the game itself from, like, keeping you in these weird,
like, awkward positions. I think that's very different. Like, you're trying to fight the game, not the enemies in the game. Oh, absolutely. And I would even say that, uh, it goes against the, the game's feel because it's slowing down the game considerably when all of a sudden you have to, like, help player two, like, get across the screen. Like, come on, we gotta keep moving. And then the enemies spawn, like, the first pixel that's possible for them. Yeah. And then you have to, like, be prepared to, like, duck because you're not sure if they're gonna shoot or not right away.
Right. Yeah. I definitely, you know, will say that the, that positive aspect I was talking about is definitely me seeing a positive in what's clearly, like, a, like a flaw in the design. Yeah. True. And it's just, it's, you know, definitely wasn't intended that way. I just thought that on the, on the, in the cases that it wasn't, like, broken, it was kind of, it was kind of fun to, like, to have to try and help your teammate get to the other side so you can progress.
I'd argue that the co-op is neat enough that it's in there and I'm glad that it's included, but that the single player actually feels like a better experience. Yes. I, I, cause I think objectively I agree with that, but, like, personally, I just always like a co-op game, especially an NES game. It's just, it's just so interesting to me to be able to, like, work with someone else on that. You know, not. But yeah, objectively I think it's a better, a more polished game single player. Sure. It kind of reminds me almost of, like, new Super Mario Brothers Wii when that came out. It's like chaos.
Yeah, cause they finally allowed, like, four players. One person would be Mario, one Luigi, two Toads, and it was, like, player one who's, like, probably the, you know, the gamer of the family. The gamer. Yeah, you know, as good as, as good as he wants, but no, no, now he's, like, you know, his three, like, his mom might be playing with him. This is, like, Christmas Day, they just got the game, you know. It's like, give us the back story to this.
Is his name Mike? Babe. You've got three, you've got three other people who might not be as good as the first player, and you don't get rewarded for being the good player. Everybody else just kind of has to, like, get with the program and keep moving, you know? And it's like, that's what it reminds me of. And it wasn't good there in New Super Mario Brothers Wii, and it's not good here for those same reasons. But I get what you're saying.
That almost, like, that added chaos on a, on a social level is kind of fun. Like, like, the way that you talk to each other because of those things. You were even being funny, Sean, with the co-op. You were like... Even you. Yeah. Even Sean was funny. I'm never funny. No, but even just, like, watching. Like, when we were, when me and Joe were playing, your commentary is almost playing.
It's like, you know, it makes a, what should just be a straight single player game into a more, like... No talking. Bring the friends over. Right, exactly. Bring the friends over. Everybody takes a turn. Everybody gets in on it. And everybody can talk about what's happening. Yeah, multiplayer is always fun for the most part. Right. But we haven't seen many, like, awesome multiplayer games on the NES yet, I feel. That's true. Yeah. You guys all missed us when we were playing baseball together.
Should there have been an inventory in Contra? No. Good. Joe? I mean, I guess I don't think it was necessarily a negative thing, but I think it was fine without. I don't think it needed... I think it would make it a totally different game.
So, like, I'm open to hear an argument to it, but... More like, think of it as you can store a second power-up as, like, a... I'm going to switch between my spread and my machine gun, so I can hit select. Maybe if you're storing one other power-up and you still lose them both if you die, then I think it keeps the experience attack. But if you have, like, an inventory of power-ups, then I think it's... You get them all too soon, and it would make it a different, like, type of game. I don't know. Yeah, I think that this is...
That it would be a detriment for this to have an inventory system. And even the stock one thing, I think that this is a game that you're just supposed to get into flow. You're not supposed to be thinking about where you may have a, like, oh, I can switch to this now. Like, no, you just have what you have and go through it. Yeah, I completely agree. I bring it up because there is a ROM hack available on ROMhacking.net where you can... They actually, like, put a box around it and everything. You can select... You can hit the select button to change between the two ammunitions.
I feel like... Are there potions? There's no potions or anything like that. There's no inventory... Sorry, no inventory screen like that. It's just, like, you can switch between whichever your most recent and your second most recent. Spread and fireball. Yeah, exactly. You can switch between those. Whenever you acquire a new power-up, the one that was second in place is now gone. Yeah. And you pick up this new one. I just... I agree with you. I think, like, the power-ups don't change the game on a fundamental level that you would need to, like, be like, I need to hold on to this specific one or I can't... You know, it's like... I agree that this is more like a... If you don't want that power-up, you just don't pick it up.
Exactly. We talked about the Famicom version having, like, the additional forestry where the trees would actually sway and, like, the grass would move. But there's more to the Famicom version than that. The Famicom version actually contains cutscenes. See, I think it could have helped. It could have had cutscenes. I think the cutscenes would have been awesome. And if you check them out, I'll put it in the show notes, a link to the long play of the Famicom version. The cutscenes are awesome. But there's also, like, a map, which is kind of cool, of, like, that overworld, like, you're in Section A right now. A Castlevania map. Yeah, a Castlevania-style map.
There's also... What else? There's an additional music track. Music in this game was fire. We didn't really talk about that. I thought the music was great. It was great, yeah. Konami, man, they're killing it on the NES for us. It makes me so sad. I know, right? What they are today. Mm-hmm. So all that stuff was added because the Famicom version, at that point, they were able to, like, add additional chips and stuff like that. They weren't going to do that for the NES version, so we get the lackluster version. But I guess, like, you know, growing up, no one knew. Yeah. And I didn't... I played only the NES version. I didn't play through, like, a translated Famicom cart.
So I thought, like, this was fine. It's definitely, like, the Famicom version, from what I've seen of it, is the superior game, but that doesn't diminish how good the NES game is. And there's also a hidden message in the Famicom Contra version, which is really cool. To do it, you have to beat the game, hold down start and select, and then from the moment you beat the game. And then after the credits completely roll through, I'm talking, like, every single name, the Konami logo flashes on the screen. All of a sudden, there's a seizure-inducing, like, blue and red series of flashes. And then it types... Kill your parents. Okay, whoa.
One letter at a time. Yeah, remarkably slowly. Yeah, it's like... Yeah. As I was saying, it's almost like the alien is, like, doesn't know how to type on a keyboard. It's, like, using one finger, like, when you first learn how to, like, use a keyboard. Use the keyboard. We didn't really see aliens have fingers, right? That's true, yeah. Like, we didn't... Any of the aliens in the game... I mean, I think the... If we're going to go back to the enemies real quick, there was a facehugger alien. Yeah. Then there was the little xenomorph alien that sort of spun around in the air. Yeah, they float. Yeah. And then there was the giant xenomorph that you had to shoot. Yeah, I think it's the giant xenomorph.
Yeah, he's the one. Like, his neck and his head, the type that's messed up. And then there was the heart. All right. Yes. Well, the heart is because you're inside the alien. It's true. I'm going to keep everybody on suspense for what the hidden message contains for a minute, because we should talk about that.
Yeah. Like, the xenomorph head is, like... I feel like that's almost, like, iconic imagery in the NES, you know, to see something... Like, that's beautiful sprite work. Yeah, yeah. And to see that... And to have that not be the final boss, like, it was like a psych-out, right? Yeah. I was thinking when I was playing, I was like, why is this final boss, like, easier than all the other bosses? Turns out that's not the final boss. But even the final boss, when you see it, first off, it reminded me very much of Mother Brain. Yeah.
Because it's... I said that, actually. Because I was like, wait, is this Mother Brain? I forgot which one was Mother Brain. It wasn't, but I said that when I was playing it, but... Yeah, it's just like the, I guess, like the main organ of whatever the alien layer is made out of. And then it... The actual, like, difficulty of the boss fight comes from this creature, this enemy that you've just been introduced to. Yeah. It's not alluded to anywhere else in the game. Basically the facehugger thing.
Yeah. They move very slowly, and you take care of them, and then if you don't take care of them, they spawn into those... Oh, you see what you're talking about. Yeah. At first, they're like these white puff balls. Yeah. That's a different enemy than what I was referring to. Oh, okay. What I was referring to were the enemies that would spawn from the floor or the ceiling surrounding the heart that would ever crawl. Oh, the tentacle creatures. Yes. So that's what I likened to the facehugger from Alien. Got it. Whereas, yeah, those enemies I hate and I never want to see again in any game because they were just like, they would just home in on you. And it was very hard. I don't like it. I'd say overall, like, the bosses of the game were tough.
Some were even tougher than others. I felt like the stage four boss with the heads and the brains that shoot the bubbles and target the homing bubbles. Yeah. I thought that was a very challenging boss that kind of, like, all of a sudden told me, like, this game isn't fun anymore right now. You know? Like, you have to figure out what to do.
You know, there's moments like that. But I think all of the bosses definitely deserve points from us for how creative and different they are from each other. Really the whole game, to be honest. Even each level feels like its own. There's a great sense of variety. And I think I said early on in this episode, I said seven. There's eight stages total.
And I think each of the eight stages is just long enough that it doesn't overstay its welcome at any particular point. I think it's really well polished in that regard. And not to derail us, but we didn't really mention how, like, each stage has its own, like, thing you're doing. Like, you know, the first stage is just you're getting ready, you're getting warmed up. Each side-scrolling stage. The first stage, you're getting warmed up, you know how to play the game. Second stage, you're jumping and going up the waterfall.
Third stage is the snow stage, correct? Yeah. And that's when there's the bombs coming from the environment that you can attack. And probably also for the other stages. Those are the three that I remember. No, yeah. Later stages also just feel unique in the way they're designed. They have new hazards. Exactly, yeah. Like the carts and the walls of spikes and the fire. And they're also, you know, from a motif standpoint, too, they're...
Everything is more caved in, you know? It's claustrophobic. You don't have the freedom to just kind of jump around wherever you want. And then the alien lair is just awesome. Yeah, it is cool. It feels like you're inside of a giant alien. Yeah. So I really like all that. And then when you... If you do beat the game, the Amazon just blows up. Yeah. The island of the Amazon. Right. It just sounds terrible. It's like, okay. It's like a tiny little island. I think Brazil is doing that anyway right now. So it's like, whatever. They're not taking donations.
They're going to fix it. So the hidden message, because everybody's dying to know what it is, it's good that we brought this back full circle, because if you beat the game, you will know that you have defeated the aliens, the xenomorphs, the facehuggers, whatever you have. And then this thing will slowly type onto the screen in red text, foolish earthlings, did you really think you destroyed us? We will take over all of Earth's spaces, and by the time you realize it, it will be too late. Red Falcon will live forever.
Man. Five dots. Wow. Joe, you had a theory about why they were taking so long to type. Yeah. I thought it was going to... While it was typing, I thought it was going to end with... And while you were distracted reading this message, we've been taking over Earth. They took that long. And that's why they were going so slow. Now that's pretty cool, though, right? A hidden message. Like, there's no way anybody thought, like, oh, I'll just hold down start and select for the entirety of the credits. So I thought that was really cool, and it's actually, it's teasing the next Contra game. So we'll get into that in a second. And the only other thing I want to talk about with the Famicom version is that I found a commercial for Contra in Japan.
And I'll just link it to the show notes. We're not going to play the audio or anything. But it's specifically weird because it calls out, like, three ways of scrolling or something like that, right? Isn't that... Yeah, they call it three-way scrolling, right? Three-way scrolling. They call it something as if it's a, like, tri-directional scrolling or something. They're talking about, like, the features of the game, you know, like directional attacks and three-way scrolling. And I'm like, what does that mean? And it means... We were, like, breaking it down a little bit. Right. You scroll to the right. Yeah, but not to the left. Right. Not to the left. You can go up. You scroll up. Not down. In. And in, but not out.
This is the first NES game. It's just funny that the three ways are not, like, opposites of each other. Right. The first NES game to feature three-way scrolling. Make note of it. And then it just has, like, over this, you know, it's English dialogue on this Japanese commercial before it starts getting into, like, the end thing about payment and MSRP and stuff like that. Otherwise, it's very creepy music and, like, weird alien imagery. So you're not really... You don't see any gameplay. It doesn't show you, like, what Contra looks like on the NES. It just shows you these alien creatures and describes, like, you know, you have eight directions of control. Like, great. It said, like, it uses an action chip or something, too, or whatever.
Anyway, I think it's time we talk about sequels and spinoffs. Sean, would you like to walk us through this? Uh, wait, so is there, like, is there going to be another one on the NES? Yeah. Well, what do you know about the Contra franchise in general? Like, anything? Well, I know that the more recent ones are, like, you know, they got all the cool sprite work and they're fun and hard and fast and I like turtles. And sometimes rare. Uh, they're worth a lot of money, some of these Contra games. But, uh, I'll help you out. Okay? Thanks, Mike. Super C is the game of the next Contra game. Obviously, you guys would know that Super C, C stands for Contra, right? It just seems like, are they trying to high-sepray that? Just call it Super Contra.
No, it comes to the NES. So we will play it. In 1990. So look out for that for it. Episode 400 or 500, who knows? Look out for that. This time, the alien forces have taken over an allied military base possessing most of its troops. Sounds like the hidden message. They said they were going to come after the bases and now they've actually taken over. Did they say base? Yeah. They did. They said, uh. None of your bases are safe or something. Right. They'll take over all of Earth's bases. So there you go. It's a little tease to Super C. Nice. And then in 1992, Contra Force comes to the NES as well. So a third Contra game. We're going to be playing these games in 1992? Yeah. The NES ends in 1994. Oh, dear. So there you go.
The villains. Oh, sorry. So in Contra Force, the description of the game is that the villains in this game are human terrorists and there's no mention of aliens. That's interesting. I don't like that. I think those are the aliens. And that's Contra Force.
It's like, that's, like, I guess Red Falcon is still, like, a terrorist organization. But it seems like the stakes are less high now. It's like, well, we've fought people before. Like, people fight people all the time. People fighting aliens. That's, like, a big thing. Next, we'll be fighting, like, bugs.
Man versus man. Man versus nature. Man versus self. Man versus aliens. Right. There you go. And it would be another 30, 35 minutes if I went through all the other sequels and spinoffs. So I'm not going to do that. So here we go. But, yeah. So there, you know, they come to Super Nintendo. They eventually go to the Genesis. There's a PlayStation 1 game. There's, like, a little bit of a hiatus. But then there's Contra Road Corps, which came out on September 24th, 2019. Wow. What? Yeah, for Nintendo Switch and PS4 and everything, it's out there. How have I not seen this yet? And it's bad.
People do not like it. It looks nothing like Contra, the NES game, in the sense of, like, even in style or play. It's not a 2D side-scroller. It's, like, it does focus a lot on the co-op part of it. But imagine, like, four minifigures with, like, a very zoomed-out screen just running around shooting bullets in any direction. So it's, like, a twin-stick shooter now?
Yes. You can think of it like a twin-stick shooter in that regard. I think that's the best way to compare it. But not, like, top-down. It's, like, from a 90-degree view. A 90-degree view. Yeah, like... Top-down? 45-degree angle. Oh, okay. So, like an isometric thing. Yeah, yeah. Like an isometric. There you go. Yeah. Very strange-looking. I don't know. It didn't get great reviews. But the story is set several years after Contra 3 The Alien Wars on Super Nintendo. And the last thing I do want to mention, since we're in the fun area of the sequels and spinoffs, is that the Contra game book is a choose-your-own-adventure-style game book released by Konami to go along with the release of their mascot game, Contra.
Huh. So is it, like, a shoot-up, shoot-right? Right. I'm trying to find... I so desperately, I want you guys to know I tried to find a copy so that we could play the choose-your-own-adventure in the post-show, but I cannot find it. Damn. So we won't be doing that. If you have a copy and you just want to, like, transcribe it... Oh. The whole internet would probably like that. So whoever has a copy, you should definitely go ahead and do that. However, it is now time for the Essential Games List.
Sam? Oh, sorry. Sorry, guys. I was asleep. Yeah, I've been asleep. Okay. So just give us your vote, you know, and you can give us a little story since you've... We're doing Essentials. Yeah, Essential Games List. Yeah. Oh, okay, cool. So what do you got? Contra. Oh, right, right, right.
It's a good game. It's, you know, I'm sure we're going to see more games that are like this, but this is, like, the game, you know? This is the... The only video game. The run and gun. Desert Island video game.
It's like, it's the kind of game that's hard, but you can get better at it pretty quickly, I think. Got some solid mechanics, got some really cool levels, fun bosses. I'm going to go ahead and put it on the Essential List. All right. And so Sam has put it on. That is now one in favor. I want to remind everybody that you, according to the new rules of the 1988 season, you need the majority. So three people must vote it into the Essential Games list.
Sean? This game has so much more than what I expected out of the beginning of 88. I thought we were going to slog through a bunch more sort of half-baked shmups. I thought we were going to see a lot more of the third parties sort of dump shovelware on us. Um, I, I'm seeing growth in the utility of the system in terms of graphical fidelity, in terms of, uh, variety of gameplay, uh, situations. Uh, I mean, the, the one knock I have on the game, aside from some really frustrating points, is that it's a little short and it really relies on that, uh, difficulty to extend the gameplay, uh, experience. But aside from that, and I know that I have, I've harped on other games for that much, much worse, I will also put this game on the Essential Games list.
Okay, that's two. It's just going to take one more to get this thing on the Essential Games list. Uh, keeping in mind that the Essential Games list I think now is down to 11 games. It was at 13.
So, Joe, what's the stance? Uh, at this point it's also sort of, like, transcended the, the group of games that I consider good NES games. And this one, I just had a blast because it's just a good game to me. This is another one of those games that I would just play to play at any time, and I think it's because it is actually just good game design. It's aged really well. I mean, yes, there have been some flaws, but overall, it was a great experience. I will also put it on the Essential Games list. So that makes it an Essential game. Uh, I hope all of you are proud of yourselves for getting it there. I'm very proud. Okay, good. Yeah. Sam, still proud? Okay, good. That was Sam, for those of you wondering, not Kermit the Frog.
Uh, I don't know. And, uh, you know, just so that we can keep it on the record, I will also vote. Uh, I won't give a whole spiel. I will just say that, uh, this game really surprised me, and for it to be a, like, first of its genre, even though, like Sean said, genres are kind of loose. Yeah. Uh, for this to be the first of its kind, to succeed so well, and I get that, like, there are a lot of these things on the arcade, and, like, it was on the arcade before this, but for the NES port to be as competent as it was, I think that this is one of the highlights of the system so far.
And so, yeah, I'm going to put it on the Essential Games list, too. And so that's going to make it essentially essential. Yeah, go ball, man. That's what we call when all four people vote. It becomes an Essential Essential Game. Right. Uh, that's a joke. Completely incomplete. Don't look for a separate list. Uh, but unless you find it. If you press start and select while looking at the website, Yeah. Essential Essential list. Yeah. You enter the, has anyone tried entering, uh, the Konami code on NostalgiaCast.com?
Uh, don't, because nothing happens. Or will it? No, definitely nothing happens. By the time this podcast comes up. Yeah, nothing happens, uh, on a particular page. Uh, but if you did go through every single page of NostalgiaCast.com, you would know that we have tons of content there. Uh, there's a section where if you like a particular game,
you can actually click on that game, read our thoughts about it, and then get a bunch of other recommendations for games just like it. Uh, and that'll take you to other episodes, too. So, say you don't want to go through the entire back catalog. Say you're new to Nostalgia, and you're like, eh, Mike, you know, you're on episode 93. That's, uh, 92. Uh, that's kind of crazy. That, uh, you expect me to listen to 91 older episodes, and I'd say you're wrong, because there's also some specials.
But, that defeats the point. I'd say listen to the ones you want to listen to. But if you're looking for suggestions, if you go to the website, if you click on a game you like on the episodes list, it will recommend other ones based on that. And that's a really cool feature. There's so many clickable elements. You can click on that, unlike these other things on the side, that can bring you to different parts of the website. I want to say there's scrolling. You can scroll. There's only two-way scrolling. Oh, is it three-way? There's two-way scrolling. Two-way scrolling. If you make the window smaller, you can scroll to the left and right. Four-way scrolling.
I don't think so. You're right. If you make them smaller, it could be four-way scrolling. Our website is better than Contra. If you open it on your phone, then you can go, you know, you can scroll around. We are supported for iPhone and iPad resolutions and stuff. And I can't legally say Android products on this show, so that's why. For anybody wondering, that's just a joke. When you hear that, that's all bleeped out. You'll know what he said. Yeah, it's all bleeped out. But I'm just not really a fan of Google at the moment. But I also love Google, in case they're listening.
Google, please sponsor us. Yeah. Another thing, always write to us. Always. Always write to us. Never stop writing to us. If you go to NostalgiaCast.com, you can use that in the, there's a form for the contact, and that's the best way to get a hold of us. Also, Twitter, at NostalgiaCast,
is a great way to let us know your thoughts, too. A lot of people have been using that recently, and I think that that is a fun, fantastic way to let me know your thoughts in under 240 characters. Yeah, we also have a TikTok now, so if you ever want to just see us do some TikTok stuff. Yeah, we're not going to give the link to that, but if you can find it, definitely add us. And also, if you ever want to converse with us, you can make your own podcast for us to listen to.
Just respond to us. Just responding, literally, for every sentence we say you can have a response. Yeah, you can pause ours and then just form arguments. But don't play ours, because then, you know. That's copyright. And if you like Nintendo and want to have a bigger role in what they do, buy stock in Nintendo. Yeah, N-T-D-O-Y is their stock ticker. All you need to do is just own one share, and you can show up to stockholder meetings. Yeah. So that's a pretty cool tip. If you didn't know, if you want to, like, that applies to all companies. You might not get on to the actual earnings call, but you can at least listen to it. Yeah, which is fantastic. Listening to earnings call is a fantastic way to live your life.
I think that there's no better time spent than understanding how companies think that we are worth. That concludes this episode of NostalgiaCast. I'm Michael Esposito. You can find me on at Esposito Film on Twitter, and we'll talk to you soon about Gun.Smoke, the next game. I'm Michael Esposito.
