Doing It All Again

In 2007 the ContraStarted by Konami in 1988 the run-n-gun platform series Contra was, for a time, one of the flagship franchises for the company. series came back in full force, with WayForward delivering a classic-style game, Contra 4, that both honored the legacy of the original series while finding ways to update and modernize the gameplay without losing the core feeling of Contra. That game delivered all the hard-hitting run-and-gun action fans of the series have craved for years, as the Contra series had been pretty well lost in the weeds in the years between Contra: Hard Corps and Contra 4. Over ten years between stellar entries, with Konami trying everything they could think of, but WayForward showed how to do it right. One would think that would prove to be the template going forward for the franchise.

I mean, you’d think that, but it really wasn’t how it worked. Two years after Contra 4 came out, WayForward was out and M2 was in, releasing a new title in the series, Contra ReBirth, to once again try and redefine what Contra could be going forward. And while it’s not like Contra ReBirth is bad – in a void, without Contra 4 being around, it would be considered a pretty solid entry for the series and a return to form – it pales in comparison to the game that had come out just before. M2’s work was fine, but there was another game sitting right there that did everything Contra ReBirth did, but better. It was simply too hard for this WiiWare title to compete.

Like with Contra 4, Contra ReBirth is a semi-sequel to Contra III: The Alien Wars. Bill Rizer is resurrected (quite literally from a pod) to help the Galactic government take down a new, evil, alien, insurgent threat. It seems that Neo-Salamander Force, led by their mysterious leader Chief Salamander, has traveled back in time to 1973 to set up a jungle base and kill off the Contra force (but not the Contra Force) before it even gets started. Bill, alongside fellow soldier Genbei Yagyu, the robotic girl Brownie, and the snake-man called Plissken, has to go back in time and infiltrate the alien jungle base before Earth’s only defense is wiped away for good.

Contra ReBirth follows the tried and true gameplay of the classic entries. You take your hero (Bill or Genbei to start, although the other two can get unlocked later) and move them (generally) from left to right, shooting anything that moves, blasting any obstacle in your way, and jumping over death pits as they come. Action flows fast and heavy with plenty of enemies moving in from all directions to keep you ducking, weaving, and hopping through the action. Occasionally you’ll have to grab hold of flying objects, or climb up walls, but this game doesn’t usually push too far past the normal “run right and hold fire” mechanics.

It also features a very stripped down set of power-ups. Along with the standard machine gun you start with, the game features the Spread, Homing, and Laser upgrades. There aren’t any grenades to throw, and some of the other traditional power-ups, like Flamethrower, are missing entirely. It also doesn’t feature the two-level power-up system where-iin collecting an item twice makes that gun more powerful. This is very basic, very simple action stripped down even further than what Contra III: The Alien Wars gave us.

In fact, the game does feel very stripped down in a number of ways. It features five side-scrolling stages, plus a special final boss battle (if you don’t play on easy), for the whole experience, making it one of the shorter games in the franchise. If you watch all the cut scenes, and take your time in stages, you’ll still finish in just shy of half an hour. Move faster and you could be done in closer to 15 minutes. It’s a tragically short game that feels very light on content, start to finish.

The lack of variety is strongly felt, especially once you realize the game doesn’t have any kind of fortress stages or other interstitial adventures for the heroes to go on. Fortress stages (and their ilk) have been a hallmark of the series since the original Contra, and despite this being a kind of sequel, kind of reboot for the series, there’s no equivalent stages included in the package here. It would be nice to get a little more variety in the game beyond the standard side-scrolling action, even if a couple of stages do try to mix up the formula a little.

To its credit, Contra ReBirth does have some creative ideas on display. One stage sees you riding on the top of a jeep while missiles fly at you and robotic camels wander around, bumping into your car. Another stage sees you holding onto slowly descending bars, avoiding mines and lava traps, before reaching the bottom of the tunnel. These are good stages that change up the basic mechanics some, but they don’t feel that different from the side-scrolling run-and-gun stages, especially because the perspectives are the same and the goals feel unchanged: kill everything, find the boss.

It’s weird because this game, despite having the heroes, power-ups, and general style of a Contra title, just felt a little off. It doesn’t feel like Contra, instead reminding me of Metal Slug and Gunstar Heroes in mechanics and feel. And while I recognize that I called Gunstar Heroes “the better Contra,” that game has its own vibe and I don’t need too much of that in my classic Contra. Each fills its own niche and it seems like Contra ReBirth was too caught up in mimicking other games than in finding the right vibe for Contra itself.

The game also doesn’t look as nice as Contra 4. While the graphics are decent, and it’s nice to continue having sprite-based graphics for this series after years spent with 3D design, the sprites we have here aren’t as richly detailed as what WayForward put forth in their adventure. It’s surprising since the Wii should be more powerful, and more capable, than the Nintendo DS, but the portable got a much better looking game than its console brother, and I have to wonder why that’s the case.

The best I can think is that this game was rushed out the door to meet some kind of corporate deadline. M2 was tasked with creating the whole of the ReBirth series, handling not just Contra ReBirth (which released in early 2009) but also Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth (in late 2009) and Gradius ReBirth (in 2008). That’s three games, back-to-back-back, and it feels like something had to give. Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth is a lovely game filled to the brim with style, substance, and new ideas, and Contra ReBirth, by comparison, feels like a real disappointment.

What is the case, this game feels like it got the short end of the stick. It’s not as long as it needs to be, nor as pretty as it should be. And when you compare it to all its contemporaries (both what WayForward made and what M2 themselves were capable of) it feels like it falls very short. It’s not that Contra ReBirth is a terrible game, it’s just that it’s nowhere near as good as it should have been. And considering we had a fantastic game in the series not two years prior, just being a step down is enough to call this title a real disappointment.