Contra: Rogue Corps

Genre: 2-Stick Shooter

Players: 1-4 (Local, Local Wireless, Online)

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Review:

Contra: Rogue Corps is at least nominally a return to Konami’s long-running series of Action-Platform games, although this entry is largely a 3D Action game that plays more like the top-down sections of the games throughout the series. However, this game definitely takes things in a different direction… for better or worse.

This game has gotten a reputation for being one of the worst games of 2019, and it’s easy to see why. Many point to the game’s guns overheating being one of its biggest faults, and that is indeed a huge flaw – in an arcadey shooter based on an arcadey shooter series, telling the player that they can’t fire their gun has to be breaking some sort of sacred pact. However, that’s not the least of this game’s problems.

No, as bad as the guns overheating is, the molasses-slow character movement is far worse. Players do get a dash that doubles as a melee attack, though it’s cumbersome and leaves you exposed after using it. For any sort of nuanced movement, you’re going to be moving your character excruciatingly slow to avoid damage.

Perhaps for this reason, enemies move hilariously slow, and explosive attacks take a while to detonate. It’s kinda’ hilarious that the game’s designers seemed to understand there was a problem with the game’s speed, and rather than speeding up your character and getting rid of the overheating, they instead slowed down the rest of the game to compensate for this.

That said, it’s not impossible to have fun with this game – there’s still some good action here, if you want to struggle to find it. Though… one wonders why you would bother, when all of the best games in the series are sitting right there in the Contra Anniversary Collection, or conversely, if you want a newer experience, you can go for the solid spiritual sequel to the series, Blazing Chrome. Both of these games will offer a much better time than Contra: Rogue Corps.

As far as graphics go… this game is ugly. The game has none of the cool otherworldly grotesque flair of the earlier games in the series, it doesn’t impress on any technical level, and the one direct homage to the earlier games I see here, the way your character rolls into a somersault when he jumps… just looks ridiculously stupid in 3D. I suppose this game’s presentation functions, and it gets across that yes, this is supposed to be a parody of those testosterone-filled games and movies it’s inspired by… but it’s not a very good parody.

In the end, no, I do not think Contra: Rogue Corps is one of the worst games of 2019. Hell, it’s not even one of the worst games I’ve played in the last week. However, it is not a good game, and fans of the Contra series will see very little they recognize here. If you want an action-packed game like the Contra games, you have multiple better options on the Switch.

tl;dr – Contra: Rogue Corps is a 3D Action game with 2-Stick Shooter mechanics that doesn’t really play much like the other games in the Contra series, and has some severe, glaring flaws. That said, it’s not completely unenjoyable, and it doesn’t really earn its reputation as one of the worst games of 2019… but it’s not a good game, by any stretch.

Grade: D

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