Contra: Hard Corps Turns 30

The year is 1991 and the Super Nintendo or SNES had just been released in North America and Konami was releasing hit-after-hit games for the system such as Grasius 3, The Legend of the Mystical Ninja, and Super Castlevania, but in 1992 they released Contra III: The Alien Wars was released and it was a massive hit. Genesis/ Mega Drive owners wanted a Contra game and they did in 1994 with the release of Contra: Hard Corps.

Contra: Hard Corps is a massive run-and-gun game that was directed by Nobuya Nakaato, who was also the director for Contra III. Both games are 100% completely different in terms of everything. Hard Corps doesn’t have the main heroes from Contra III, instead, we are introduced to four new heroes and they are Ray Poward, a male soldier, Sheena Etranzl, a female soldier, Brad Fang, a wolf-like humanoid and Browny a small size combat robot. The game also had a new weapon setup where you can carry 4 different types that are very original and exclusive to each of the four characters, in short, each character will have a set of weapons made for them alone.

There is also a slide for everyone and the level of difficulty is on a whole other level, it was said during development the game was so hard for the test players, they had to put a life bar for the Japanese release and before the North American and European release they took the life bar system away and the game went back to is a crazy level of difficulty. What also set Hard Corps apart from Alien Wars was the different path choices you can take during the game and depending on that choice, you will get one of five different endings and a hidden one if you know where to look.

Contra: Hard Corps set the bar for run and guns for not just the home console but for gaming as well, until SNK released Metal Slug 2 years later in 1996. Hard Corps felt like a different game from Alien Wars and any other game that the series ever had since its release and I think that is what makes Hard Corps so memorable.