Review of the Contra: Rogue Corps demo for Playstation 4. Contra: Rogue Corps will release on September 24, 2019 for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, and Xbox One.
Below is a transcript of the video that can be found here:
Story
So, I just found out that the PlayStation Store put out a demo of Contra: Rogue Corps, so obviously I had to check this out. It looks like it’s set a couple years after Contra III: The Alien Wars, which was released in 1992. It has the same director as Alien Wars, and I’m gonna butcher his name here, Nobuya Nakazato. He also worked on Vandal Hearts and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, so one could say at first glance that it looks like it’s in good hands.
Graphics
The first thing you’re gonna notice graphically is the top-down isometric view, which is a big departure from more recent games in the series, which, by the way, I wish Konami would just release them over here already because for some reason they keep dragging their feet on them.
Now, graphically speaking, I don’t think this game is gonna set the world on fire by any means, but it looks good from what I’m seeing and for the demo. The explosions look good, the chaos looks good. It’s a fast-pace game, so I think it’s kind of what you expect for this genre.
Controls and Elements
As far as controls and elements, this is definitely a twin-stick shooter. It makes me think a lot about Smash TV, which if you’ve never heard of the Smash TV series, if you’re a little bit younger perhaps, that was effectively the grandfather for the twin-stick shooter genre, in my opinion.
As far as weapons, you have your primary and your sub weapon, which you can swap between at any time. Each one of them has unlimited ammo, which is nice, but the weapons can overheat, so that’s something you have to contend with as you play. If they do overheat, there’s a cooldown period and then you can use them again.
The weapons can also be upgraded between stages and customized, but I wasn’t able to experience that in the demo, unfortunately. There’s a hype trailer of sorts at the end of this demo, which makes that claim, that you can upgrade your weapons, which I think is interesting. I’m curious about it. I think that would actually make the game maybe even more compelling.
There’s a bomb attack which effectively just wipes out all the enemies on the screen, so a nice throwback there to Alien Wars. There’s a dash attack which allows you to dodge everybody, that iconic flip jump, and then there’s also a special ability with a cooldown period that each character has. And, in this case, I’m playing as Kaiser and it looks like his powers up his firepower, so you get extra spread shot. Maybe it fires faster too, I’m not quite sure on that. So, that has a cooldown about 20 seconds or so, if I recall.
The other characters we didn’t get to play as, but there’s four of them. So, there’s Kaiser, who you’ve already seen, there’s an alien, an assassin, and this cyborg giant panda because of course there is.
Pacing
Now, as far as pacing, what I expect from a game in this genre is just pure chaos moving checkpoint to checkpoint as quickly as possible. I think that’s what you’re gonna get here, that’s what the demo felt like to me. A little side note here, but I was hoping I got to drive this tank. Unfortunately, it was just a little cut scene, but still amusing, nonetheless. Hopefully there’s gonna be some vehicles to drive, though.
Conclusion
So, I think the big question here is gonna be do people want side scrolling Contra or do they want isometric Contra? And I think you’re gonna have people split and divided on this. I would have been fine with side scrolling, to be honest. The twin-stick shooter didn’t feel that bad, though. I was entertained with what I was playing. I think this game would really shine in a co-op mode, which unfortunately there wasn’t an option to do that here. I think that’s probably the best way to play a game like this, is have a buddy.
So, overall, though, fairly compelling. I think this hype trailer at the end kind of really sells it, especially with some of the big monsters you can fight in the game. So, I don’t know, I think people should probably consider checking it out. I think right now they want $39.99 for it. That might be a bit salty. I kind of feel like maybe this is a $20 range type of game. But, you know, would I want side scrolling a little more personally? Yeah, but it is what it is.
So, anyway, that’s all I got for this demo review. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you if you watched all the way through to this point. Please leave a like, comment, subscribe if you did. And even if you don’t feel like doing that, just thanks for watching this long. Have a good one.
