Game Stooge

REVIEW: Contra 4 (DS)

• Scribbled on January 8th, 2008 by Jonathon Howard
• Filed in Action, Nintendo DS, Platformer, Reviews

I haven’t had my ass handed to me so quickly and so often in a long time. Contra 4 (C4) is hard, balls-to-the-wall hard. If you’re used to your video games coddling you along with dozens of lives and unlimited continues, leave this cartridge on the shelves. If you’ve been yearning for those long ago times where you had to memorize every enemy location, while dodging hailstorms of bullets, then this game is for you. It’s strange that despite the high difficulty level of C4, it’s just as enjoyable. Thankfully, Konami knows their game is tough, which is why they’ve thrown in a bunch of extras to distract the gamer from how much they suck at it.

If you don’t know the story behind Contra, and are intimidated by that four at the end of the title, don’t be. Contra doesn’t have any story to speak of, though the manuals are full of talk of Red Falcons, Black Vipers, and other random combinations of animals and colors… none of which matters, since all that matters in this game (all that has ever mattered in a Contra game) is that you shoot everything on the screen before it kills you. C4 is a 2D side-scrolling shooter that uses the DS’ second screen to expand your kill range (translation – death from above). The developers, Wayforward, have done their job well - C4 looks and plays a lot like Super Contra (SNES). Run from the right side of the screen to the left, killing everything along the way, and at the end, fight a boss that dwarfs your avatar. There are a few 3D stages as well, reminiscent of the base battles in the original Contra where your sprite runs up a single vanishing point corridor blowing the walls away in front of him to advance the level.

The game takes place across 9 stages, the last two are only accessible to those playing the game on Normal or Hard. Your trip through the stages is assisted by an assortment of exotic weapons, all of them familiar to veterans of the series: machine gun, spread, crush, flame, hunter and laser. Just as in Super Contra, you can carry two weapons at a time, switching between them on the fly. Your guns are also upgradeable as well; collecting two of the same gun in the same slot will give you an improved version, though keeping a weapon that long can be difficult.

At least all of your dying will look good. The sprites for C4 are large, smooth, detailed and beautiful. The backgrounds have been shown the same attention, with forests and buildings fading into the distance, with plenty of variety. Your mission, to destroy all the filthy aliens, will take you through a jungle, up a waterfall, into a lab, across a bombed out city and eventually into the disgusting body of giant alien. It all looks great!

C4’s biggest drawback is the difficulty. Gamers may be ill-prepared for how tough they’ve made the game, even on Easy level of difficulty! The inherent difficulty is compounded by the comparatively large sized sprites on the DS’ tiny screens. The field of vision is very small. The game only scrolls forward when your running past the mid-line of the screen, giving you little time to react to bullets or baddies appearing on the right hand side. It almost would have been better if they could have flipped the DS and found someway to play the game on the split screens horizontally. It took multiple runs to beat the game on Easy, using 10 lives and 5 continues. (I find the game sufficiently challenging on Normal even on re-plays, that I don’t see why anyone would want to torture themselves with Hard.)

I happily admit that I would have put the game down much earlier and given up on it if it weren’t for the challenges. The game comes with 40 of them, the first 10 you can take in any order, with the rest being unlocked as you beat them. The challenges are small snatches of the stages with a goal to meet, like refighting bosses, timed runs, or maintaining a certain accuracy level. Your reward for completing the challenges are unlocking the first two games in the series, two comics, and additional characters to play with. If you happen to be curious about the history of the series, a digital museum is also included which talks about the history of the franchise and each title in it. All of this kept me coming back to the cart, while avoiding the titular game, until I was ready to brave it again.

Oh, best of all – that old code you’ve remembered since you were 6? It still works… Good thing, too, as you’ll probably need it at some point.