Put aside your morals, pick up your gun, and blast away the alien threat. For you solider you are the Earths one and hope, you a lone wolf, you the under dog, must beat the odds, you must rise to the challenge and you must defeat the alien oppressors again from ending all humanity and life as we know it.This is reality as you know it, this is Super Contra.Super Contra is incredibly different from the original and in many attributes better than its predecessor which you should expect from a game that came out during what I like to call the second coming of the 8 bit era Nintendo NES games. I would categorize Super Contra as a Nintendo NES classic and must have. In addition you don't have to play the original Contra to get into it's squeal Super Contra.

Overall I rated and deeply felt Super Contra deserved it's rating of a perfect 10/10 for a number of reasons.Just to name a few of the top of my head,the movement and overall mechanics of the game.The games player movement is simply better and more free flowing than the original and really feels fast and loose compared to the originals slow and stiff.In addition you can now shoot in any/all directions and move around in any direction during boss fights and in the basic stages.In addition what earned Super Contra this overall rating is the environments that are seen throughout the game, they are really interactive and visually stunning and look/feel alive (so to speak) very good animations and backgrounds that really sell the story and set the dark theme/mood of the game.

For the graphics I felt Super Contra deserved a 10/10. The programmers really went above and beyond what was expected and created an environment the really came alive and set the mood for the game. The backgrounds are would I would describe as gif images and are constantly moving and making the player feel as though the world of Super Contra is really going on around them, they just visually pull you into the game.The backgrounds are hand drawn clearly and honestly look and feel vibrant they really make the game stand out and look just stunning. As for the sprites seen in the game, you can clearly make out the characters and enemies and each enemy is unique with regards to how they look. With the sprites you can see all their different uniforms and cloths and body structures clearly with ease and one can tell the programmers really took the initiative to focus more on physical details in this game.

As for sound I felt Super Contra earned a 10/10.The soundtrack for the game matches the flow of the game which is fast pace with that said the music goes along perfect with Super Contra's fast pace action.The soundtrack featured on all eight stages(areas) sounds new and really helps create an illusion effect that makes the player get lost in the gameplay and the world of Super Contra. Notably though When encountering a boss stage I really felt the music in the game hit it's peak and made me both pumped and scared when entering a boss stage. Basically the music invokes an emotional response which only adds to the great gaming experience of Super Contra.

For addictiveness I rated Super Contra a 10/10. Now I know as a reader you feel I'm pushing it with all these 10 out of 10 ratings but bear with me, Super Contra deserved this rating because the game makes the player interested and eager to play and beat the game, I literally beat the game right before I wrote this review, beat the entire game in about 4 hours without leaving or taking a break. What makes Super Contra so addicting is the games combination of a fast paced action adventure side scroller shooter and the visuals,animations in the game plus the amazing motivating, hype'd soundtrack that doesn't make you wanna stop playing.In addition what also added to the addictivness of Super Contra is its difficult and fast pace.You don't want to stop playing because the game is hard and you feel as though you have to beat it now or never.

The story of Super Contra I felt deserved a 8/10. While I do give Super Contra points for staying true to it's source material, the story scored rather low compared to other segments. This is because the story hasn't changed at all from it's original and first installment Contra. The Story of Super Contra goes like, you are a solider fighting a one man waged war against an alien attack and conquest of the Earth and only you can stop the alien menace from taking over and destroying humanity.

As for the depth of Super Contra, I felt the game deserved a solid 7 out of 10.I felt Super Contra deserved this rating because the game didn't take very long to beat and could have used more stages in it.While I am not a fan of dragging out stories, games etc longer than they need to be, I felt Super Contra was an exception. I feel as though the creators could have put in some bonus stages or unlockable secret stages.The game however does feel rather big to only have 8 stages and there where multiple points in the game where I lost track of what stage I was on due to the length of each stage and how many mini or sub bosses I had to get thru in order to get to the stage boss to advance.

Now for the difficulty of Super Contra, it stayed true to the original with regards to it's difficulty and I felt Super Contra deserved a difficulty rating of 9 out of 10. I felt Super Contra earned this rating because the enemies have gotten smarter, faster and more elusive than what was seen in the first Contra. Now with that said the enemies in Super Contra will shoot back at you and almost mirror move the way you move. The game's enemies spawn quickly and at times can easily overwhelm you. Enemies will also use a verity of different weapons to attack you and at times you will find yourself pinned down under a hale of bullets unable to simply shoot your way out.Personally I feel as though the spawning rate of enemies was incredibly to high in Super Contra, I found myself constantly having to blast enemies behind me while trying to focus on moving forward. While the game has an insane difficulty, the difficulty is also what makes the game fun and gives the gamer that feeling of accomplishment once the game is beaten.

Final thoughts on Super Contra. The game is diffidently worth a play. Rather if you played the original or not you can jump right in and get sucked into the story of Super Contra.While the game is difficult it only adds to the experience of Super Contra and truly makes the game more exciting and enjoyable.With the games soundtracks and animations/visuals the player will be drawn into the game immediately and feel as though they themselves are right there with the main character and apart of the story.Super Contra is exciting and dangerously addictive and is the perfect mix of action adventure/side scroller and I would recommend it to anyone that is a fan of the action/adventure genre.What are you waiting for? come play and see for yourself you won't be disappointed!

Interesting, I hear (but haven't bothered to try to confirm it) that the original story in Contra was that the enemy was a terrorist organization, but upon porting to the west they changed it to aliens. That certainly explains why the enemies look so much like humans if it's true, and I assume it'd be the same with Super Contra as well. Don't know.

Anyway, good work here!

Eirinn : Thanks for taking the time to read my review and comment! I really appreciate it!And the original, I thought does have both a blend of aliens and human enemies like Super Contra lol when playing Super Contra it started out as humans as enemies but then went to full on aliens after about stage 5.