contra in my memory operates a lot like how i felt about castlevania, its something that you'd see so often on earlier retro games internet that if you were around at a certain point of time, you've basically seen the game in its entirety and so it ends up feeling nostalgic to play, even though you've never actually played it. its a standard run and gun ala metal slug, but a much more basic and simple example of one, power ups (the spreader is the most useful though, i stuck to it for the whole game), not many lives (without a code) and extreme difficulty, though this one does spice it up with some very cool, downright impressive 3D hallway sections! it's fun though, the lives code gives you enough that a lot of people will be able to beat it without save states if you have much experiance with these kinds of games and its so short that extra attempts won't run you much time to do and there's some decent variety here in the levels, with some jungle, some snowy mountain levels and even a little bit of body horror near the end when it goes completely off the rails, it's really solid, even the soundtrack is great, some really iconic songs here and they're all fantastic, the sound here was by Hidenori Maezawa (of castlevania, lifeforce, granblue versus, sunset riders and most recently yurukill!) and Kiyohiro Sada (of games like bayou billy, harmoknight, code veronica and several summon night games). i would reccomend the famicom version though, it has some better looking levels with moving backgrounds and snow effects in the mountain level, is a little easier and it even has some super cute cutscenes inbetween levels! i would reccomend save states as an option though, even with 30 lives i had a very tough time here even with all the help, thankfully the contra collection has these and even has both versions playable!

after this the team had went on to make super C for the nes in 1990, the less iconic but i think much better game. it plays better, is overall much easier and has some super fun top down shooter segments that have been my favourite part of all 3 of these games, it's even a little longer and the cooler aspects of the original, like the 3D perspective which is used very well in some areas like the opening level and the top down segments and the later body horror parts are done up to the max (seriously the final levels are some of the goriest on the console, on a level with the likes of abadoxx) and it just ends up i think being a better game overall, sure the music, by Hidenori Maezawa and Yūichi Sakakura (of gyruss and crypt killer) may not be as good barring a fantastic ending theme and some of the starting levels are a little boring thematically, but this is the best of the lot and is the one i'd reccomend the most, i do miss the cute cutscenes though and it does lack a lot of the colour of the original, but the overall level design and difficulty is much better here, if you can't beat the original you may still be able to beat this. if you check out any, let it be this one, it's also in the collection.

lastly i played is operation C for the gameboy from 1991 and it's basically a slightly different portable version of the same kind of game, with aspects of both games, like 1's music and super's top down stages, it feels like a greatest hits version of both combined into one and its great! for a start its just impressive that it runs at all, it is a 1:1 deal gameplay wise with very few comprimises, which while i'm not the most familiar with the GB as a system, feels beyond what i expected from it and it helps its also a great game to boot. of course its also the shortest game here, 15 mins or so and it shouldn't take you more than two or three tries to clear it, but if you use save states this is a 20 min ride at most but you get a good variety here and i think its well worth the trip, i liked this one even more than the original, though i do still prefer the levels in super C, fantastic music by Hidehiro Funauchi (of castlevania 2: belmonts revenge, tiny toon adventures and quarth) .

i went into these unsure if i would like any of them but i came away very pleasently surprised for all 3, sure the difficulty may be too high but with save states i had a good time and they were all so short that it made for a breezy play, check out the collection if you can, it has all 3 and you can even get it physically from limited run! the series went some cool places after this, the ps2 games seem super fun and i'd love to get around to them sometime, the ps1 game seems like a janky good time and the mega drive hard corps game (along with its ps3 sequel) will be right next on my list to try! the newest game looks great too, contra rogue corps, it was the reason i even tried these to begin with because it seems the most "my thing" of the games, so i'll be hyped to eventually get to that one, there's even a new game coming soon by wayforeward!