From the Memory Bank: My History with Video Games

Reflections: "Contra: Hard Corps" (Genesis)

"Now wait a minute!" you say as you lean toward the monitor with a confused look on your face. "Didn't you spend years saying that the original Contra was the only series entry that you liked and that you had no interest in playing or talking about any of its sequels?!"

Well, yes, reader, I certainly did.

For over two decades, in fact, I continued to reiterate that I had no desire to play Contra's sequels. My conception of them was that they were overly difficult just for the sake of it, and thus they weren't any fun to play. And I wasn't willing to give them a fair chance to prove otherwise. I just "knew," after playing two or three of them for only a few minutes apiece, that none of them were as good as the original because clearly their focus was in the wrong place. And attempting to play through and beat any single one of them, I was certain, would only prove to be an exercise in extreme frustration. So I went out of my way to avoid all of them.

Though, I'm happy to tell you that recent events have caused me to completely change how I feel about the Contra sequels.

"What events were those?!" you ask in the most excitedly inquisitive way.

Well, let me tell you about them.

So for the past year or so, I've been on something of a Genesis kick. I've been eagerly exploring the console's library and seeking out its best games. And about two months ago, I thought to myself, "You know what? While I have the opportunity, I should take some of this energy and dedicate it to checking off one of my bucket list's most dreaded items."

I decided that right then was the perfect time to play through a game that I needed to play through because doing so was a necessary step in the process of putting together a future piece. That is, I needed to play Contra: Hard Corps. But just for that reason--just for the purpose of examining it and understanding how it was different from the other series games that I'd be covering. I had no plans to emotionally invest in Hard Corps or take it seriously.

But along the way, something unexpected happened: I started to enjoy Contra: Hard Corps. I became excited about what it was showing me, and I was eager to find out what was waiting for me in its as-of-yet-unexplored paths. I found that I was having a great time with it. And by the time I fully completed Hard Corps, I was a huge fan of it. In fact, I considered it to be another of one of my favorite 16-bit action games!

I never thought that such a thing could happen.

Coincidentally, my history with Contra: Hard Corps is pretty similar to my history with the subject of my previous "Reflections" piece: Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts: I avoided it because, based on what I'd seen, I believed it to be unreasonably difficult. I decided to play it not because I desired to but because I felt I had to. I basically save-stated my through it and even then had a miserable time. I subsequently swore it off. Then, after realizing that my failures weren't the result of poor game design but rather my unwillingness to give the game a fair chance and actually understand how it works, I decided to try again and this time put in an honest effort and thus aspire to beat the game legitimately. Because I made such an investment, I was able to form an understanding of its mechanics and formulas and thus gain a strong appreciation for them. And in the end, I learned to love it.

And now I'm ready to tell you why Contra: Hard Corps is such an outstanding action game and why you'll be making a big mistake if you decide to pass up the opportunity to play it!

 Now here's the thing: I can name all of the games in the Contra series, yeah, but I can't tell you much about the series' chronology or its overarching storyline. I've looked into such topics a couple of times over the years, but I've never managed to retain any of what I read because there are so many Contra games and so much history that it's simply too much to remember (I'd probably remember more of it if I were actively playing the games). So everything I tell you about Contra: Hard Corps' story and its connection to other series games comes from is the product of recent research.

From what I've learned, Hard Corps is set five years after Contra III: The Alien Wars, and, in part, it deals with the fallout of the hugely destructive Alien War.

As the game's manual tells us: The world is slowly beginning to recover from the Alien Wars, though civilization is still in turmoil. The disastrous war has caused people and goods to concentrate into few areas, and as result, cities have turned into hotbeds of crime. What's worse is that the rapid development of genetic engineering and cyborg technologies has led to the creation of newer, more fearsome types of crime. In a bid to combat this threat, the government forms a team of elite troops and names it the "Unified Military Special Mobile Task Force." In the public sphere, the unit is given the name "Hard Corps" in honor of the heroes who saved the planet during the Alien Wars.

Flash forward to the holiday season and a time when the citizens are beginning to engage in festive activities. Things are getting better, they think, but little do they know that evil forces are hiding in the shadows and advancing their dark plans. One day, an unknown person infiltrates the city's defense computer complex and causes unmanned weapons to run amok. In response, the government sends in the Hard Corps unit. And this event marks the first chapter in the unit's fight against an enormous conspiracy of evil.

The story's following chapters play out over the course of the game. And each chapter is driven by dialogue exchanges and cut-scenes that occur before a stage's action begins and after the stage has been completed.

So Hard Corps is easily the series' most-story-heavy entry. It contains several cut-scenes (including pre-stage briefings in which the Hard Corp unit's leader, Commander Doyle, lays out mission objectives), and its action is frequently interrupted by dialogue exchanges. It's a pretty chatty game. You'll spend at least 15% of your time reading dialogue and watching cut-scenes, and there's no way to skip any of it. The only thing you can do is speed up the dialogue exchanges a bit by holding down the B button.

These scenes don't drag the game down, no, but they do, at times, harm its pacing. All I'll say is that a press-start-to-skip option would have been ideal.

 At its root, Hard Corps is classic Contra, and its action will instantly feel familiar to anyone who's ever played a Contra game (and it'll feel especially familiar to anyone who's played Contra III because Hard Corps is built on its engine). You run and gun, you mow down hordes of enemies, and you take on huge, often-grotesque bosses. And at certain points, item pods containing new weapons will fly across the screen.

Hard Corps has everything you expect.

Though, as you'll discover, it also has a few profoundly different aspects.

First there's its remarkably unique style of stage progression. There are 13 stages in total (each stage is considered a "mission"), but you don't traverse all of them. Rather, you traverse 6 or 7 of them in any given play-through and do so by deciding between branching paths.

At two points in the game, you'll be given the option to take one of two separate paths. The first choice is presented after you complete Stage 1, the City Battle. The game will ask you if you want to (a) pursue Deadeye Joe, the controller of Stage 1's final boss, or (b) return to the Research Center, which is currently under attack. Either choice will send you to an exclusive stage--one of two separate Stage 2s (let's call them "Stage 2" and "Stage 2a"). And both of these paths converge at a shared Stage 3.

The second branching option is presented at the start of Stage 5, the Arena, where the trapped hero is given two choices:

• "Fight to the End," selecting which triggers a boss battle. If you win this battle, you'll be sent to one of two separate Stage 6s, and the one to which you're sent is determined by the choice you made earlier. If you decided to go after Deadeye Joe and thus take him out, you'll play through a stage-set in which he's absent and the focus is instead squarely on the main antagonist, Colonel Bahamut. If, conversely, you decided to save the Research Center, you'll play through a stage-set in which Joe is alive and quite ubiquitous.
• "Surrender and Fight Later," selecting which immediately sends you to one of two alternate stages. And, again, the one to which you're taken is determined by what you did earlier. If Joe's gone, you go to Stage 6a, the Alien Space, and confront the main antagonist; if he's still alive, you instead go to Stage 5b, the Military Train, and play through a uniquely scripted endgame sequence.

It's a bit confusing, I know. Though, we can simplify it by saying that Hard Corps has six possible routes that produce four different ending scenarios.

Additionally, you can earn a bad ending in the "Rescue the Research Center - Fight to the End!" path by accepting Colonel Bahamut's offer to join his army. If you select "Agree," the game will end, and the bad ending will play. If you choose "Agree" by accident, don't worry. The game's not truly over. After the bad ending concludes, the game will give you the option to continue from the stage's start (assuming you have continues left in the tank).

Oh, and there's also a hidden path that produces its own unique ending! You can find it in Stage 3, the Junkyard. If you climb up the wall at the stage's endpoint, you'll come across a shady carney type who will ask you if you want to make some money in the "Battle Arena." If you decline, you'll be able to drop back down and complete the stage. Though, if you choose to give it a try, you'll be taken to the arena, wherein you'll be challenged to fight three bosses in succession.

What's interesting about these bosses is that they're all Castlevania-inspired! You'll take on Simondo Belmont, a hipster android that fights like a classic Belmont hero (he alternates between executing a jumping whip-attack and tossing forward a, um, boomerang-like fish); the Psycho Mother, a large vampire that pushes around an armored baby carriage, within which rests her child: a grabby ghoul; and the Huge Face, a disembodied spike-covered cyborg head (honestly, I'm not sure which Castlevania character this boss is meant to parody). And the first battle comes complete with a rockin' remix of Vampire Killer!

It's such a cool secret. It tells you so much about Hard Corps' level of depth and its designers' creative spirit.

There's a whole lot to see in this game. There are so many options to explore. And you'll be cheating yourself if you don't seek out every path.

Me? I like to take to the "Rescue the Research Center" and "Fight to the End!" branches because they contain the most fun stages and the best bosses. Also, it appears to have the best ending, which is something I always look to get.

(Note that your choice of hero doesn't change anything about the endings' contents. All heroes speak the same dialogue and engage in the same activity. These scenes simply swap in the sprites of whichever hero you were using.)

 Then there's the expanded weapon system.

In Hard Corps, you can hold up to four weapons. Each obtained weapon goes into the weapon box seen atop the screen, in the UI. The weapon box, you'll notice, has five slots, and the first four are labeled A-D. There's a reason for this: Unlike in previous Contra games, in which weapon icons bear the signifying first letters of weapons, Hard Corps' weapon icons bear letters that correspond to the weapon box's item slots. So they instead denote weapon types, and thus each obtained weapon will always be stored in the same slot. The fifth (unlabeled) slot is reserved for bombs, which you can also get from item capsules.

You can toggle between slots by pressing the weapon-select button (the A button, by default). And thankfully, you can toggle between weapons while the game is paused. This proves to be a godsend when the action gets hectic and your brain starts locking up. You can simply pause the game and think about what you want to do next--about which weapon will best serve you in a given situation.

When you die, you lose whichever weapon was currently equipped (unless you were using the default rifle, which can't be lost). You don't have to lose your favorite weapon if you don't want to, though; if you sense that you're about to die, you can act quickly and switch to a less-useful weapon and sacrifice that one instead! Similarly, if you're in an unfamiliar space and worried about losing your best weapon to a surprise attack, you might want to employ the risk-reducing tactic of preemptively switching to a less-useful weapon. This way, you'll remove some of the stress.

Of course, you lose all of your weapons when you Game Over. None of them will be there when the action reconvenes after you use a continue.

Hard Corps also introduces a new slide move. It has two functions: You can use it to dodge enemy attacks or execute a sliding kick (you can otherwise use it as a speed-boosting dash). It's an incredibly useful move because you're invincible when you use it; while you're in your sliding animation, you can safely pass through enemies, enemy attacks, and stage hazards.

In a game in which enemies and projectiles tend to come at you at difficult angles, the slide proves to be invaluable. You don't have to respond to such attacks with tricky, reactionary jumps--by desperately trying to twist and weave your way around them--no; you can instead slide right through them! And once you master the slide, you can use it to trivialize many of the game's challenges.

You just have to make sure not to slide too early. If the slide animation concludes before you fully clear the object in question, you'll die instantly. You don't have to worry about this when you're dealing with minor enemies, because they die in one hit, but it becomes a matter of concern when you're attempting to slide through enemies that have higher HP or objects that are a combination of wide and indestructible.

 Another of Hard Corps' major differences is that it has four playable characters. And they're not merely sprite-swaps. Each character has his or her own unique physical attributes and an exclusive set of weapons.

First there's the default character, Ray Poward, who, the game's manual says, is a central figure in the Hard Corps organization. He was born and raised among the filth and pestilence of the city's slums, and at one time, he was the leader of a bunch of "rowdy, delinquent youths." He was recruited by the organization because he possessed unsurpassed combat skills and super instincts. His cool exterior, the manual adds, hides a burning lust for battle.

As for how he plays: Ray is the standard Contra hero, and he functions pretty much like every hero you've controlled in previous series games. In fact, he plays and controls identically to Contra III's Jimbo and Sully (which, again, makes sense because this game is built on Contra III's engine). So he's a known quantity.

Basically he's the game's most balanced character. He has average jumping and sliding ability and a solid selection of weapons.

These are his weapons:

• The standard rifle. This is Ray's main weapon. It can be upgraded to the Vulcan Laser (your standard Contra laser gun), which does considerable damage but isn't ideal when you need for your attacks to be precise (because the lasers are so narrow).
• The Crash gun, which fires small exploding missiles at a short range. You have to get closer to enemies to effectively use this weapon, yes, but it's worth doing so because its shots hits really hard.
• The classic Spread gun, which functions as you expect. Though, this weapon has seen a severe downgrade in usefulness since the original Contra, and thus it's no longer as overpowered as it once was. It's still good for plowing through swarms of minor enemies, yes, but it's not nearly as effective against bosses because it's only about average in strength.
• The Homing gun, which is taken directly from Contra III. Its rapidly-fired missiles home in on enemies and bosses' vulnerable points. It's a very useful weapon, but it has a downside: It lacks strength and thus isn't as effective against bosses.

Next there's Sheena Etranzi, a voluptuous woman whose appearance works to bely the fact that's she's actually a fierce, highly skilled warrior. She's especially skilled in guerilla tactics, and when it comes to her jungle-combat abilities, she's said to be the equivalent of "an entire squad."

In terms of physical attributes, she's very similar to Ray. Though, because she's slimmer, she has a narrower hitbox when she's in a vertical position and a smaller hitbox when she's in her jump animation. The biggest difference between them is the weapon balance. Hers is a little tilted. Two of her weapons are below average in terms of usefulness, but the other two are among the game's best.

Her weapons are:

• The standard rifle, her main weapon. It can be upgraded to the Genocide Vulcan--a large-caliber machine gun that fires large red and blue bullets that hit twice as hard as standard-rifle bullets.
• The Shower Crash, which fires small exploding missiles in a downward arc and at a short range. You have to get closer to enemies to use it effectively. Because its shots are forced to arc, it's not as useful as Ray's Crash gun--particularly when targets are above you.
• The Break Laser, which is similar to Rat's Vulcan Laser, though its shots are able tp pierce enemies and destroy multiple targets at once.
• The Axe Laser, which fires a wide-beam homing laser. Think of it as a combination of a Spread gun and a Homing gun. Though, it's better and more reliable than either of those two. Its shots fill the screen and absolutely wreck everything currently present within it. It has low strength, sure, but that doesn't matter because it's so effective--because it can overwhelm bosses and instantly neutralize all of their attacks. So the only "downside" is that you have to spend an extra four or five seconds holding down the attack button. The Axe Laser is the game's most useful weapon, and if you can hold onto it, you can pretty much tear through the game.

Then there's Brad Fang, who was created using the latest in genetic engineering and cyborg technology. He's said to be the ultimate fighter. Personality-wise, he's calm and collected, and for that reason, he's trusted by other members of the force. He's best at close-range hand-to-hand combat.

Fang is taller and thicker than any of the other heroes, he's the highest jumper of the bunch (and thus he's able to jump up to and grab onto ceilings that are out of Ray and Sheena's reach), he has the longest slide range, and all of his weapons hit hard and can take down bosses in a hurry. The problem, though, is that his beefy attributes come with some considerable downsides. For one, his being taller and thicker makes him a larger target, and because his hitbox is so expanded, he often gets killed by attacks that would be of no threat to the other heroes. If, say, there's a place in which Ray or Sheena can crouch down to safely avoid a boss' lower-firing laser attack, there's a good chance that Fang can't do the same; the attack will likely make contact with his big head.

Also, because he jumps higher, he's more likely to cling to ceilings when you don't want him to; and that's bad because even the smallest of intended actions can be enough to completely throw off your timing and get you killed. And three of his weapons are situational and apt to put you at risk. So, really, he only has one reliable weapon.

His weapons are:

• The standard rifle, his main weapon. It can be upgraded to the Beast Shooter--a Vulcan cannon that has devastating power. It fires large, destructive projectiles in a combination spread-wave pattern, and it covers a lot of ground.
• The Power Punch, which, the manual tells us, allows him to throw speedy punches that produce damaging hurricane-force winds. In reality, the punches produce large explosions, but they do so only at very close range and only in a forward direction. So you have to get right up in enemies' faces to use this weapon effectively, and, of course, doing so puts you in a lot of risk. And this weapon is of course useless against overhead-positioned enemies.
• The Flame Thrower (another weapon that will be familiar to anyone who has played Contra III), which, as its name suggests, is a medium-range flame thrower. Its spewed flame will stay onscreen for as long as you hold down the attack button, and all the while, it will continue to damage enemies with which it's making contact. While the flame is active, you can steer it and move it a full 360 degrees. You have to remember to release the button if you wish to turn and fire; if you don't release the button, you'll have to wait for the flame to arc all of the way to the screen's opposite side. By the time the flame finishes its arc, though, it'll probably be too late.
• The Psychic Blaster--another punching-type weapon. In its default form, the Blaster allows you to throw single fireballs straight ahead. If you charge it up, though, you can fire a powerful multi-projectile energy blast! The blast hits very hard, though it takes a while to charge up, and you have to fire it accurately if you hope to actually hit the target. Also, it's useless against overhead-positioned enemies.

So Fang is strong, yes, but his troublesome physical attributes and demanding weapons make him the type of character that only experts will enjoy using.

Finally there's Browny a combat robot (Model CX-1-DA300). Members of the force refer to him as "Browny" because he has a warm personality. He possesses the ability to link up with numerous "data systems" and is thus an unsurpassed intelligence tool (this is an interesting fact, certainly, but it doesn't translate to anything in-game).

Browny is the game's most unique and quirky character. He's a lot shorter than the other heroes, and thus he has a small and very low hitbox; he's so short that he doesn't even have to crouch to evade low-firing attacks! He can't jump as high as the others, no, but he still has a great aerial advantage over them because (a) he can double jump and thus travel long distances, and (b) he can slowly hover his way down to the ground, Racoon Mario-style, after executing his second jump. Browny doesn't have to slide through medium-sized enemies and thus put himself at risk, no; he can simply jump over them! So if you use Browny, you'll never have to worry about being precise; his ability to basically hang in the air will provide you a ton of leeway.

Also, he has the longest sliding range (tying Fang).

And he's packed when it comes to his weapon-selection. He has a variety of options, and each is both useful and powerful.

Those weapons are:

• The standard rifle, his main weapon. It can be upgraded to the Victory Laser--a rapid-fire gun that fires a V-shaped beam. Its beam, much like the Flame Thrower's flame, is steerable and capable of full 360-degree movement. Though, unlike the Flame Thrower, this weapon has full-screen range! The only downside is that the beam steers more slowly than the flame. Still, it's a very useful weapon.
• The Gemini Scatter, which fires out mine-type projectiles in boomerang-like patterns. It's a short-range weapon, but if it's used to its fullest potential, it can fill the screen with a storm of whirling mines.
• The Electromagnetic Yo-Yo, which, despite having a silly name, is the game's most overpowered weapon. It extends outward and homes in on enemies and bosses' vulnerable points, and it stays active for as long as you hold down the button. It moves about erratically, yes, but still it's able to hover somewhere around its target and repeatedly strike it. This weapon is so strong that it can destroy some bosses before they have the chance to trigger a second phase! While you're using it, you don't even have to move; you can pretty much just stand there and let it do all of the work for you!

Browny's supreme jumping ability and set of powerful weapons make him very friendly to newcomers. He makes the game feel a whole lot easier. (He's my second-most-used hero only because I prefer to be challenged.)

And, as I said earlier, each hero can also obtain bombs (they're stored in the weapon box's E slot). Much like Contra III's bombs, they explode over a wide area and inflict a massive amount of damage. They can help you when you're in a bind--when you're overwhelmed because the screen is crowded with enemies or when you've lost your most useful weapons during a boss fight--and they can even one-shot certain bosses or promptly end an entire phase of a boss battle. You can hold up to 9 of them.

So what you have is four playable heroes, multiple paths, a ton of weapons, and thus a game whose replayability factor is through the roof. Each path has a different level of difficulty, and each hero performs better or worse than others in certain stages; and because the game has these and a number of other impactful variables, you can enjoy it in many different ways. You can have many unique experiences.

So yeah--this game is simply packed.

 Now let's talk about the basics.

In Hard Corps, you start with only three lives (and you can't adjust that number upward in the options menu), but, thankfully, you can earn more lives during the course of gameplay. You earn lives by reaching certain points-totals. Though, because the score doesn't display during gameplay (it's only shown on the Game Over screen), you're probably going to be completely in the dark as to how the lives system works.

Fortunately, though, Gamefaqs has the answer: According to its users, you get an extra life when you reach 2,000 points, and afterward you're awarded an extra life for each additional 6,000 points. The game is pretty generous in its points-doling (it even gives you points for obtaining weapon icons!), so you can potentially earn anywhere from 7-10 lives in any play-through.

Hard Corps' controls are expectedly topnotch. Character movement is super-tight. Jumps are highly modular. Heroes smoothly climb along walls and ceilings and transition between them; though, the heroes are kinda clingy, and they tend to grab onto walls, ceilings and rails at times when you don't want them to; so you're always at risk of unintended clinging when you're in proximity to one of these surfaces.

Crouching is a simple matter of pressing down on the d-pad. What's cool is that the position you assume changes depending upon the type of surface you're traversing upon. If the ground is flat, you lie flat on your stomach; if it's sloped, you kneel down. This is one of those "little touches" that says a lot about the game's developers and their level of ambition.

There are three inputs and thus three main functions: You press B to shoot, C to jump, and A to toggle between available weapons (you can remap these inputs in the game's option menu).

Also, you have the option to select between two shot types: Type I, which allows you to shoot as you're moving, and Type II, which causes you to hold your position as you fire away (the currently selected shot type is displayed in the HUD, directly below the life counter). How you toggle between the two is dependent upon the type of controller you're using. If you're using a three-button controller, you have to hold down the B button and then press the A button to cycle through the weapon box. If you're using a six-button controller, you can toggle by pressing just the X, Y or Z button.

Obviously the six-button setup is highly preferable. If you're using the three-button set, instead, things can get confusing--particularly when the action is hectic. It's easy to forget the correct button combination and do something unintended, like (a) walk forward, directly into an enemy, when your plan was to hold your ground or (b) become stuck in place when your plan was to dodge an attack and open fire at the same time. Though, like I said, you always have the option to pause the game and make your selections while the action is frozen (as long as you don't get so flustered that you forget that the Start button exists).

Oh, and auto-fire is on by default, so you don't have to mash the attack button to fire any of your weapons. That'll save you some finger strain.

 Hard Corps is also unique among Contra games in terms of level design. Its stages are basically structured like this: action scene, boss fight, action scene, boss fight, repeat.

In actuality, though, Hard Corps places the majority of its focus on boss fights, of which there are a great number (some people have even suggested that the game's campaign is more or less one long marathon boss rush, and, well, they're kinda right). There are certainly a fair number of action scenes, yeah, but, on average, they tend to be short and lacking for complexity; you can clear a lot of them simply by staying in motion and spamming weapon-fire.

Yet, still, the game has some very interesting, very substantive action scenes, and such scenes have good variety to them. There are vehicle sections in which you battle robotic enemies and large aircraft while riding on hover-cycles or jet skis, either of which transform into bipedal land-runners at certain points. There's a toward-the-camera section that uses 3D-style scaling (the type seen in racing games like Outrun and Hang-On). There's one in which you fight an array of enemies while riding on a carrier aircraft--first while hanging from its skids and then while moving about its roof. One in which you take on overhead and undersea aggressors while riding on a boat. And one in which you're being chased by a wall of flame.

So it would be unfair to say that Hard Corps' designers didn't give much attention to the game's action scenes.

On the whole, though, Hard Corps is still mostly about its boss fights. In each stage, you encounter multiple bosses, sometimes one after another. Hell--some stages are comprised of nothing but boss fights!

And, really, that's fine because Hard Corps' are some of the most wildly creative, most awe-inspiring bosses you'll ever see in a 16-bit game. They're Hard Corps' main draw. There are, as mentioned, a great many of these bosses (somewhere close to 50), and they come in just about every possible form. Along the way, you'll battle huge behemoths, all kinds of military aircraft, transforming robots, virtual-reality constellations, killer mutants, giant bugs, hideous aliens, and dozens of other adversaries that are so weird and so unusual that they simply defy description!

I'd be derelict in my duty if I didn't give some examples--if I didn't talk about the enormous one-eyed golem that throws cars at you. The long-armed mech that assaults you from every possible plane as it chases you down in that aforementioned 3D-style section. The hanging robot skeleton that grabs hold of scrap-metal blocks (its toys) and, in real time, constructs uniquely functioning attack devices. The scrap-metal robot that breaks apart and reforms and attacks by continuously whipping its tail in a 360-degree motion. The set of twisting and turning virtual-reality tiles that form into a large T-shooting block, then a tank, and finally a helicopter. The snouted, claw-handed skeleton creature that grabs hold of the bridge below (the one on which you're standing), with either one or both of its hands, and jerks it around as if it were a rope.

The adaptable mech that transforms into anything from a crab-like robot to a unicopter as it assaults you over several phases. The team of gymnast soldiers that forms into a large rolling ball, then a Slinky, and finally a tall pyramid. The screen-filling mother alien who flails her long multi-sprite arms, generates numerous flying eyeball creatures, fires lightning, and gets a pained look on her face whenever you damage her. The trio of robots that combine together, in Voltron-like fashion, to form a giant runner, then a large bird, and finally a cybernetic tank. And the giant superpowered "Yokozuna" robot that runs alongside the train you're standing atop and then proceeds to get in front of it, stop it from moving, and then jump up onto its roof.

Hell--I'd talk about every single one of the game's bosses (and do so in great detail) if I weren't self-conscious about producing overly lengthy written works (I like to keep it under 100,000 words, you see). So instead I'll keep it simple and say that just about all of Hard Corps' bosses are amazingly-well-designed and a lot of fun to fight.

More than anything, Hard Corps' bosses are showpieces for late-era Genesis technology. They represent the designers' ambition to push the console to its absolute limits and impress you in every way that they can. They exhibit a level of rotation and scaling that honestly feels transcendent. Huge bosses spin, expand, contract, and stretch like rubber bands, and they do all of this while transforming in complex ways and moving between planes. It's worth playing Hard Corps just to see these bosses in action! Their animations are that impressive.

If you love rotating and spinning sprites, you'll be in heaven.

There's some occasional sprite-flicker, sure, but such a thing is forgivable when you consider how ambitious the animation is and how much activity is occurring. Usually it's barely noticeable.

 All of the other characters--the four heroes and the scores of minor enemies (the soldiers, the robots, the aliens, the mutants, and the rest of the strange and bizarre creatures)--too, are impressively animated. On average, their running, jumping and attack animations measure in at 6 frames, and thus they have serious depth to them and are fluid- and smooth-looking. It's the same story with the vehicles (the helicopters, the boats, the hover cycles and such); they all move with great fluidity.

Most of Hard Corps' stage environments are formed from multiple scrolling-background and -foreground layers, and quite often each of these layers contains a texture that animates in some interesting way (even if it's something as simple as the flashing or glowing of machinery). My favorites include the City Battle's flame-engulfed cityscape. The Air Combat stage's sunset-illuminated pyramids and multi-directional clouds (the clouds' movement changes depending upon which direction your assisting aircraft is moving!). The Junkyard's blazing, shimmering sunset. The Tracking Robot battle scene's curving and turning highway and parallax-type cityscape. And the Military Train stage's exterior with its five layers worth of mountains.

It's all so breathtaking.

Granted, it can be hard to take it all in because you're constantly under attack and thus always forced to focus on the action, but if you can somehow find the time to look around, you'll see some very impressive visual displays.

Hell--even the hero-select screen has something interesting for you to see: a cool morph effect! One hero hypnotically shapeshifts into the next as you cycle between them!

That's the story with Hard Corps: There's amazing animation everywhere, and it's worth your time to look for it and intently observe it.

 Artistically, Hard Corps is of course topnotch. Its background, foreground and sprite-layer textures are beautifully rendered, attractively colored, and finely shaded. And because stage environments are so finely shaded, they look as though they have real depth to the them; their floors, walls and other surfaces seem to stretch into the distance.

Now, is Hard Corps better-looking than its 16-bit cousin, Contra III? Honestly, I don't know how to answer that. The only thing I can say is that Hard Corps' graphics, in comparison, are darker in color and tone (which is usually the case with Genesis games compared to SNES games). That's not a bad thing, no; it's just a different type of flavoring. The darker visual tone actually works in Hard Corps' favor because it gives the game's world a rough, gritty texture--one that's more appropriate for a "war-torn" world.

On top of all of this, Hard Corps is loaded with spectacular visual effects. It hits you with them constantly. In its first stage, alone, a building topples over and crashes into another, and thereafter its side becomes a traversable slope; a giant cyclopean alien stomps its way across the background and levels the city and then proceeds to jump forward to the closest foreground layer and continue its attack; and the final boss cuts through a building's base and causes it to violently collapse into itself.

In Stage 2a, the battleship seen flying along the background crashes into a building and levels it. In Stage 2b, the assisting aircraft tilts, changes angles, and even turns towards the camera and flies along the Z-axis. In Stage 3's opening segment, members of a motorcycle gang ride in from the distance and jump over mountainous formations as they do so. Bosses smash and tear their way through walls. And backgrounds distort and warp in mesmerizing fashion.

This game never ceases in its mission to continuously impress you, and for that reason, it's a visual feast from beginning to end.

And then there are all of the cool little touches that do so much to provide the game character and give greater depth to its world: Fun-loving bosses take time out to do little dances. The hanging skeleton boss gets pissed when you destroy his constructions and throws tantrums. The seemingly friendly dinosaur spews deadly mist at you if you shoot its face. The Yokozuna boss' death, appropriately, plays out in an epic-feeling slow-motion scene. The Alien Space stage's environments grow progressively more alien-like as you near the source of the outbreak. Enemies indiscriminately attack and eat each other. And the heroes display slick idle animations.

It's obvious that the development team really went the extra mile here. Hell--I'd say it went an extra 5 miles!

And I'd be remiss if I didn't bring attention to one of the other signifiers of the developers' ambition: There are very few instances in which stages recycle minor enemies. Each stage introduces its own uniquely tailored brand of enemies. When you're in the Junkyard, you fight scrap-metal robots. In the jungle, you fight angry monkeys and killer plants. In either of Dr. Geo Mandrake's labs, you fight exclusively appearing mutants that were created by the doctor, himself. In the alien den, you fight aliens!

And this creative decision, too, does a whole lot to help Hard Corps form a unique personality.

 "It has all of that going for it, sure, but is it any fun to play?" you ask while still feeling skeptical.

Well, certainly! Hard Corps gives you everything you could want in a Contra game: smooth controls, cool weapons, fast-paced action and intense boss fights. It's just so much fun to charge forward and tear through hordes of enemies and to absolutely unload on the game's large bullet-absorbent bosses!

The best way to describe Hard Corps' action is "explosive." In this game, everything explodes: enemies, vehicles, buildings, machines--you name it. There are little explosions, big explosions, and all-encompassing full-screen explosions.

The game even starts out explosively, with the hero ramming his or her armored vehicle through a pack of rampaging enemies and epically jumping out from it as it crashes into a broken-down car. It's a spectacular opening scene that sets the tone for the rest of the game. It correctly tells you that Hard Corps' is "explosive action." That's exactly what it delivers. The game is literally a series of screen-rocking explosions! And it's all so satisfying! It's fun to both effectuate the "explosive action" and observe its results!

Believe me: You'll simply love blowing everyone and everything to pieces!

 Hard Corps, expectedly, has a rockin' soundtrack. Though, its music isn't of the thunderous-sounding, highly reverberant heavy-metal variety as heard in Contra III, no; it's not the type that's designed to raise your adrenaline and make you feel as though you're the star of a pulse-pounding action movie. Rather, it's a softer type of metal whose purpose is to set a tone and thus guide the action. It's rhythmic and dynamic, and it works to (a) inform you about the nature of the game's environments and (b) tell you how you should feel about them.

It's really distinct-sounding music, too. It has a lot of synthwave action to it--a lot of trilling and vibration. It's the most "Genesis-sounding" soundtrack you'll ever hear.

It's not the most memorable Contra soundtrack, no. Even after you play through Hard Corps multiple times, you probably won't be able to remember more than three or four of its tunes. Though, I'm happy to say, the tunes that do stand out are definitely among the series' best, most bangin'. My favorites are Something Wonderful (the sea- and train-stage theme), an energetic, empowering piece that makes you feel as though you're a confident superhero on the move; and Hard Corps (the Stage 1 theme), a rousing, headbanging-inducing piece that inspires you to exuberantly sway in rhythm as you mow down baddies.

Though, whether the music is memorable or not isn't of great relevance. Its job, like I said, is to set a tone and create rhythm, and it performs that job masterfully. That's why even the bosses like to dance to it!

Hard Corps' sound design is just about pitch perfect, which is to say that its sound effects are wonderfully violent- and explosive-sounding (Hard Corps has some of the best, most viscerally pleasing "exploding" sounds you'll ever hear in a 16-bit game). Enemies, vehicles and objects explode with thunderous force. Environments intensely quake, shake and rumble. Bosses and their attacks violently crash into environments and their surfaces. And weapon discharges are piercing, popping, and, yes, explosive (notice a theme here?).

Also, this is the first Contra game to have voice samples. Heroes utter catchphrases when they're selected and when they respawn, and they scream when they die; and villains mischievously laugh and taunt. Because we're dealing with Genesis sound hardware, the voices are of course compressed- and scratchy-sounding, but that's OK; it doesn't diminish their presence. It's just cool that the designers thought to include them. It's another example of their going the extra mile when they really didn't need to.

I'm glad that they did.

 Of course, we can't talk about Contra: Hard Corps without addressing the obvious: its high level of difficulty. That's probably what you're most concerned about. You've heard that Hard Corps is the series' most difficult game, and that scares you because you consider the entries you have played to be in the upper tier of difficult games.

Well, I'm here to say that what you've heard isn't necessarily true. Hard Corps is a very difficult game, yes, but it's not the series' most difficult nor is it in the upper tier of difficult games. That's just the perception. It's what people come away thinking after they play through (or attempt to play through) only the first segment of the game's first stage.

The problem is that Hard Corps' opening segment, much like Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts', gives you a false sense of the game's difficulty. While it's short in length, it's inexplicably one of the game's toughest run-and-gun segments, and thus it creates the impression that Hard Corps is not only absurdly challenging from the get go but also that what lies ahead must be so much worse. Neither of those things is true. What you see at the start isn't really indicative of what the rest of the game is like. It's just that Hard Corps' opening segment is kinda chaotic, and often it's hard to see what's going on because all of the wide-ranging explosions function to obscure the enemies' bullets; and for these reasons, it becomes very easy to dump all of your lives and continues in this one segment (I'm a highly proficient Hard Corps player, and even I tend to drop a life in this segment).

But again: It's not really what goes on in the segments and stages ahead.

It's a similar deal with the stage's main-boss encounter: The first time you face the Powered Ninja Murasame, you won't be prepared, and you'll likely dump all of your lives; and then you'll repeat this same process two or three times. And after that happens, you'll think to yourself, "These designers are crazy!"

Though, it's not really like that. The bosses aren't as difficult as you think. If you pay careful attention to how they operate, you'll see that they have clear patterns, and within a couple of attempts, you'll become proficient at predicting their movements, dodging their attacks, and locating all of the safe spaces.

I'm not saying that you'll instantly become a master, no. You won't be waltzing through the game simply because you know the bosses' patterns. Boss battles can still be unforgiving because, quite often, bosses are swift-moving, and they have attacks that are just plain hard to dodge. So you will have to devote some energy to sharpening your reflexes and learning how to execute quick movements. And it's worth making that effort because you don't want to miss seeing what lies ahead.

It's helpful to know that each boss is weak to a certain weapon, so you should definitely take the time to experiment and find out which weapon is most effective. Having an effective weapon can be the difference between a stressful minutes-long encounter and a twenty-second blowout.

I think it's great how the game encourages and rewards the use of different weapons. It shows you how much thought went into the creation of the game's systems.

What's also great is that you don't have to use the most effective weapons. You can instead challenge yourself--attempt rifle- or single-weapon-only runs. By doing this, you can make Hard Corps even more replayable!

The only problem is that you automatically switch to a weapon the instant you obtain it. This can potentially put you in a serious bind if you're, say, trying to hold off a crowd of enemies with a fast-firing spread-type weapon and then suddenly you find yourself in possession of a gun that fires explosive projectiles slowly and at short range. If this happens to you in a segment like the one you traverse at the start of Stage 5--one in which hordes of monkeys start to pour in a split second after hard-not-to-shoot item pods appear--you're screwed. The best thing you can do, if you're cognizant enough, is quickly pause the game and switch back to the weapon you were using previously. Even then, though, it still might be too late.

But the point is that Hard Corps' difficulty becomes very manageable once you learn all of the bosses' patterns and realize that you can clear most run-and-gun segments simply by charging forward and holding down the attack button.

In terms of "rules," Hard Corps is quite standard: You have three lives, you die in one hit, and you get a limited number of continues (5 in all). Thankfully, the game has generous checkpoints, and very rarely does it force you to re-traverse multiple segments. Also, it's nice enough to restart you right at boss battles! And it even allows to continue from checkpoints! It goes out of its way to be fair.

The game is also generous in terms of how it handles invincibility frames. When you respawn, you're invincible for three whole seconds. And if you fall into a pit during this three-second span, you won't die and lose a life; rather, thanks to a forward-thinking mechanic, the game will drop you right back into action, and, as a bonus, it'll provide you an additional three seconds of invincibility! How thoughtful!

I can't speak to the multiplayer difficulty. From what I've seen in videos, it looks as though the same classic Contra problems emerge: Boss battles are trivialized because two players can quickly overwhelm bosses, and stage traversal becomes more difficult because the two players have to contend with stifling camera-control restrictions. I don't doubt that the game's multiplayer action is great fun, no, but my feeling is that Hard Corps shines more as a single-player experience. Its solo action, I'd say, provides a more ideal level of challenge.

Closing Thoughts

 Well, I certainly didn't foresee this. Not once during the previous 30-year period did I ever imagine that there'd be a time when I was not only regularly playing a post-original-Contra game but also routinely gushing over it! Yet here we are.

And in 2022, I can say to you, with utmost sincerity, that I regard Contra: Hard Corps as (a) a standout Contra game, (b) one of the best run-and-gun action games ever made, and (c) a 16-bit favorite.

How's that for a turnaround?

And the same thing can happen for you. Forget what you've heard about Hard Corps being unreasonably difficult. It's really not. It has some rough spots (like the opening segment), yeah, but, as I've stressed, they're not really indicative of what the game contains on the whole. Hard Corps, like so many others, is all about simple memorization and pattern-recognition. Overcoming its challenges is rewarding; it makes you want to improve and grow into a better player. And you will improve and grow. Then you'll be in a position to enjoy all of the amazing things this game throws at you.

 What surprises me most about Hard Corps is how amazingly ambitious it is. There's so much going on in this game: the four playable characters, the large array of weapons, the expanded systems, the multi-path stage progression (with its great depth), the huge number of bosses (so many of which are wonderfully inventive) and all of the epic boss battles, the abundance of spectacular effects, and the incredible animation (all of the sprite-rotation, sprite-stretching, sprite-warping, and other super-impressive graphical tricks).

Hard Corps' developers had a grand vision, and they carried it out with great gusto. They put so much care and effort into the creation of their game. They didn't skimp in any area; rather, they always made it a point to go the extra mile. And the result of their effort is one of the finest action games ever created.

This is 1990s Konami and the very top of its game.

That's why it's such a shame that Hard Corps is so criminally overlooked (probably so because it came out so late in the Genesis' life and so close to the release of next-generation consoles, including Sega's own Sega Saturn). There are so many people who don't know that they missed out on a top-tier run-and-gun action game and a great video game in general.

Hopefully pieces like this will bring more attention to the game. Because, really, it deserves recognition.

 The best thing I can say about Hard Corps is that it's an addictively fun game. I've played through it multiple times, I've traveled its every route and earned every ending, I've seen just about everything it has to offer, and still I want to return to it. At times I've had to stop myself from playing it, and I've had to do so because I don't want fatigue to set it.

Still, it's hard to resist the urge. This game calls to you. It says, "You know you want to play me again. You know that there are many character-path combinations you haven't yet tried." And it's not lying. There's still so much more for me to do! And I'm gonna do all of it. Though, I'm going to put some space between each play-through and do what I can to make Hard Corps' action feel fresh each time. Because that, too, is what the game deserves.

 For the moment, Hard Corps is my second-favorite Contra game. Contra III, which I'm currently in the process of completing, probably won't bump it from that position. It just isn't as fun; certain parts of it are too unforgiving, and it has those absolutely wretched top-down stages that I dread playing. It's a good game, sure, but it's just not on Hard Corps' level.

So for now, Hard Corps is a safe second.

But will it retain that rank? Does it have what it takes to top all of the other series entries? I don't know! That's what I intend to find out!

One thing's for sure: I've horribly misjudged the Contra series. And now it's time to remedy that mistake. It's time to finally get into the Contra series!