Geekatana Game Review: Contra: Shattered Soldier

I'm a big Contra fan ever since playing the first game back on the family com many years back. Although the game kicked my butt more times than I can count it's still a game  I go back to time and again with my friends simply of how fun and frustrating it was. it's one of those rare games that you tend to both love and hate at the same time.

So when I find out that a Contra game named Contra Shattered Soldier was on the playstation 2 I knew I have to play it even I know as heck it's probably going to be hard as heck.

Contra Shattered Soldier is a run and gun shooter game by Konami. It was developed by Team Kijirushi which is a group within KCET (Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo). It is a sequel to Contra Hard Corps for the Sega Genesis. It is also known as Shin Contra in Japan. The game is 3d rendered polygonal graphics but plays as 2d action shooter with the game switching views on certain levels.

You take control of either Bill Rizer (blonde guy from the first Contra game) and Lucia, a female Bioloid as you try to defeat the terrorist organization "Blood Falcon." And to top that off in the earth is now overrun by aliens due to events of the previous Contra games. And Bill and Lucia are probably the only ones that can set things right again.

The gameplay is a mix of Contra III: Alien Wars and C: Contra Adventures. There is no power where you can only use three weapon types but each weapon has a charge attack giving the player a total of six different weapon types to progress throughout the game. Switching between the weapon types is key to finishing the game.

Graphics wise game is pure eye candy with its gun metallic color backgrounds giving it that post apocalypse atmosphere the game was going for. Although some scenes are a bit too dark for my taste but nothing a brightness adjustment wouldn't fix. Some of stages and the bosses are also a call back to other Contra games that came before it with a few surprises. If you're used to the 8 bit bright colors of past Contra games the visual of Contra Shattered Soldier does take a while of getting used to. 

Much like the other Contra games before it Contra Shattered Soldier doesn't take names and won't pull its punches and new players will find see the game over screen a lot even with a Konami cheat activated. But perseverance, patience and memorizing the enemy attack patterns. Knowing what weapons works best on what is key to victory.

The soundtrack of Contra the Shattered Soldier has a mostly haunting electric hard metal rock music that was composed by Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill, Snatcher, Gradius and Kensai: Sacred Fist) and Sota Fujimori (Castlevania Chronicles and Rumble Roses). With each stage finishing with that iconic Contra fanfare.

The game also offers multiple ending which you unlock depending on how well your hit rate is on each stage. Destroying items and enemies increases the hit rate so shooting and destroying everything is encouraged and it adds to the replay value if you want to unlock all the different endings.

The game isn't perfect however as the stages are too short. Mostly you end up running into a mini boss or sub boss just going into a few minutes into a stage. The Boss takes multiple forms and various attack patterns before you get to kill it and takes about half the time you consume in each stage making each stage feel more like a Boss Rush game than actual stages.

The unlockables are too hard and not worth the effort to unlock unless your a completionist and have a lot of free time on your hands. I personally feel this game would have benefitted from having unlockable characters or maybe a chance to play as an enemy character or two.

Thankful as hectic and frantic the stages and the bosses are they aren't as hard as certain *cough* Battletoads *cough* games. Also switching to a certain weapon type to kill a certain enemy before that certain enemy turns you into fertilizer can be rather frantic at times but still doable to some extent for new players even at the easiest difficulty setting.

Overall Contra Shattered Soldier is a great game for fans of the series. The game isn't perfect but it has all the stuff that made Contra games great. The game has a bit of a high learning curve specially for players new to the franchise but won't be enough for you to throw your controller in frustration. If you want a run and gun shooter with a bite than this is a high recommendation. If you love Contra then this is definitely a game you should try.