What Up Steemians? I greet you here and inform you that I come with a new post on retro video games, this time it's up to Contra, the version of FAMICOM which came out on the market in the year of 1987, this version unlike the American and the European had a graphic chip integrated in the cassette which allowed to have visual effects that did not have the other versions, besides going narrating the story as you went from levels in the game.
The story of the game begins in the year 2631, a meteorite falls on an island in New Zealand and brings with it an alien life form, two years after this event a terrorist organization called Blood Falcon is created which takes the total control of the island and plans to attack humanity and conquer it, so the soldiers Bill and Lance members of the unit Contra will be in charge of stopping this threat and saving humanity (leaving the fate of humanity in the hands of only two soldiers, why not?)
The style of this game is called "run-and-gun platformer", you must avoid any contact with the enemy, that you reach the projectiles that they shoot you or touch the limit of the screen because this way you will lose a life and You start only with 3 so the game is a real challenge. You move through jungles, bunkers, fields of snow until you reach the alien's lair.
While you advance in the game you can find flying capsules which contain weapons that will help you in your mission and are differentiated by letters. The ones you can find are:
- (R) Rapid Fire: So you can shoot with more speed than normal, this combined with the turbo button of the FAMICOM will make you shoot next and at incredible speed.
- (M) Machine Gun: Drop some red balls that do more damage than the standard weapon.
- (F) Flame: Shoot some spiral fireballs
- (S) Spread: This weapon increases the range as it moves away.
- (L) Laser: This weapon is the most harmful of the game however it is the most difficult to control since you can only shoot one per screen.
- (B) Barrier: To make it short it works like the star of Mario Bros, only that there is no sound that tells you when it's going to end so you have to be careful when you take it.
- Emblem: An unidentified emblem that destroys all enemies that are on the screen at the time of catching it.
Nothing like getting into the skin of a soldier and go shooting everything that moves, so it is Contra, I have fond memories of this game, to start was the first game to happen in my life, the nostalgia I can feel to play it It is almost palpable.
In the technical section, I'll start talking about the graphics, simply sensational, without the konami graphics chip they were already good, with this version that improves them is just great, if something characterizes this video game company is to make them very colorful and Contra it is not the exception of it, the movement of the palm trees in the level of the jungle, the scenes after passing each level and that final scene where you run and ride in the helicopter to escape the island to burst is for remember for generations.
The gameplay is brilliant, the character moves smoothly, the controls are responsive and work brilliantly with the turbo buttons, the only negative I could capture is that when jumping is a bit more complicated to control where your character will fall Of course, it's nothing to go mad, it adds difficulty and makes it more challenging. At the end of each level you must defeat a boss to move forward.
Sound? Fantastic, they are songs that you have left hours in the mind after playing, the sound is clean and indicates nostalgia nothing more and nothing less.
As for the duration, the game can be passed quite quickly, if you are a pro, otherwise you will consume very quickly the few lives and few continuations that they give you.
Originality is ... is the pioneer of action and shooting games.
I remember spending hours and hours in front of the FAMICOM playing this jewel and I remember playing a modified one where you had 30 lives, everyone who has had a first generation console should know this game and if you do not know it, I'll present it to you.
Final scene of the game only seen in the japan version.
Trivia
There is a code to acquire 30 lives in the game and this is done in the menu before starting to play the code is as follows (↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → BA) is known as the Konami code and is called like that already that works in several games of the time with different effects depending on the case of course.
The European version of this game is called Probotector, here they change the plot and instead of shooting humanoids you shoot creatures more like aliens.
In the American version of the game the names of the protagonists were changed by Mad Dog and Scorpion respectively
There is a version of the game released for MSX (a Japanese home computer) where there are 19 levels instead of 8 as the arcade and FAMICOM version.
