However, in motion the visuals begin to charm and impress thanks to a bold comic-book art style, fluid animation, special effects that make bullets and lasers incandescent, and more sprite scaling and rotation than all those early Super NES games that made "Mode 7" famous put together. The net result is a relatively straightforward and accessible Contra, but this is not without its problems (the Spread weapon is back to its highly overpowered best here) and some fans may miss the greater intricacy of previous titles.Īt first glance, Contra ReBirth looks like an unremarkable 16-bit title, running in 4:3 and exhibiting less focus on graphical detail than even 1992's Contra III. Most noticeably, the controls leave the fire rate of all the weapons automatic, so no hammering of the fire button is ever required. ReBirth even leaves a few things out from Contra III, such as the screen-destroying bomb, plus the Flamethrower and Charge weapons, but it otherwise plays near-identically. For instance, the more complex elements of WayForward's portable edition of the franchise, such as weapon-stacking and the grappling hook, have been omitted. In gameplay terms, Contra ReBirth is much closer to Contra III: The Alien Wars than the recent DS title, Contra 4. The difficulty can also be customised, both in terms of the number of lives available and the challenge level (Easy, Normal or Hard), with the higher settings offering different attack patterns for bosses in addition to adding more enemies and bullets. Leaving the continue system aside, Contra's trademark high difficulty has been left mostly intact, so ReBirth will still challenge players despite demanding less of their time. However, the downside is that ReBirth ends up feeling less epic than its predecessors, and to some may well seem somewhat insubstantial, even for the 1000 Nintendo Point price tag. This approach ensures a less frustrating experience than previous Contras and combined with ReBirth's generally brisk pacing, makes repeated play (there is still no save, nor a VC-like suspend feature) through the levels more palatable for today's gamers. (Note: the Super Famicom version of Contra III featured unlimited continues where its Super NES counterpart did not, so this aspect could be subject to change when Contra ReBirth is released outside of Japan) Moreover, by providing relatively frequent checkpoints and unlimited continues, Contra ReBirth demonstrates that it isn't afraid of players seeing much of what it has to offer in a fairly short period of time-distinctly unlike many games of its kind from years past that were burdened with high price tags. ReBirth dispenses with such stages, instead providing five tightly-paced levels that continue to up the ante right up to the final boss. Ever since the franchise began in the arcade, Contra's side-scrolling action has typically been punctuated by 3D or overhead stages to change-up the gameplay and extend the running time (the Genesis title, Contra: Hard Corps, being one exception). My playtime with it so far has shown this approach to be welcome in some respects, and less so in others.Ĭontra ReBirth adapts the series to the WiiWare format primarily by stripping it down to a pure run-and-gun foundation, and making no attempt to stretch out the experience. Downloadable retro titles may be nothing new, but unlike the multitude of titles on Virtual Console, or even the meticulously 8-bit-like Mega Man 9, Contra ReBirth feels distinctly like a new $10 game rather than an old $50 one. With the release of Contra ReBirth for Japan's Wii Shop Channel, the legendary action franchise became the second (after Gradius) in what looks sure to be an ongoing series of WiiWare revivals for classic Konami properties.
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