/vr/ - Retro Games

>>1550537
>>1550745

Hard Corps is not just the best Contra game. It's the pinnacle of run'n gun subgenre, and one of the best action games ever made. Even Metal Slug games didn't surpass it imo(except in the visual aspect of course), MS series continues to rely on Hard Corps for inspiration(evident in branching paths and some bosses in MS3, later games also included switching weapons and slide move).

It expanded upon the previous games with branching paths and truly different characters with completely different weapons and even abilities, which gave this game a lot more replay value and variety then previous Contra or any other similar game had. More subtle inclusions like switchable weapons and slide move also added to the standard formula. Treasure Influences are evident in Hard Corps, most obvious one being the focus on boss battles, which are, like the ones in Treasure titles, simply amazing(it's still not a 100% boss rush game, like Alien Solider).

What makes this game so exceptional, besides things mentioned above, is its insane tempo, and mostly uninterupted flow of spectacular, completely over the top, extremely intense action. From the very start it just explodes on the screen and doesn't let go.

It has some brief text, but its so minimal it doesn't slow down the pace of the experience. What does a bit though(after years of replays) is one unskipable slow autoscrolling section with the big mechanical egg boss. That should have been an optional area. Still, its much less pace breaking then those top down levels in Contra 3.

Hard Corps also excels in technical terms. It runs fluidly and manages to do things that were considered impossible on the Mega Drive(sprite scaling, sprite rotation, and some mode 7 like effect). The only "flaw" of the graphics is the color palette. Mega Drive never excelled in this aspect, but in some areas, low color counts of the backgrounds are a bit too obvious.Still, gritty cyberpunk setting makes them fitting somehow.