

Co-op is a lot of fun though, because hey, it’s Contra. The PVP is kinda janky, but it is what it is. There’s the story missions gated by overall power, PVP and PVE co-op modes, various individual challenges, so on and so forth. If you play mobile games, you’ll be familiar with all the different ways to play. For real though, the dialogue in this game is hilarious, whether it’s trying to be or not, and that lack of clarity works in its favor big time. He’s really proud of his pants, loves to fight aliens with his friends, and hates zombies. Especially since Bill is characterized like a less problematic Duke Nukem, which kinda rules. You get Bill and Lance for free through, which is what’s important. It is what it is, and there are also tons of characters you get through various means.

Powerups show up during levels in classic Contra fashion, but there’s also a buttload of weapons you get through the gacha. You have the running, jumping, ducking, shooting and dodging of any Contra game, alongside various powerups and cooldown-governed skills you’d expect from a mobile game. And while there are certain caveats, the run ‘n’ gun style is totally present here, even if it is necessarily chunkier compared to “real” Contra games. The game itself is surprisingly fun, though! It even has super customizable controls and native gamepad support, making playing Contra Returns with my Backbone a blast. There’s a polar bear with a strange European accent? But it’s also full of content, including an impressive reverence for the source material alongside a totally unhinged roster of original characters. It has all the bright, metallic UI strangeness you see in similar games, the confusing menus and multifaceted demands of real life money. Most of these questions are unanswerable, but I’ll do my best.Ĭontra Returns is a very Chinese mobile market game through and through. How does Contra have a battle pass? Who are all these characters? Wait, why did I buy the battle pass? Who am I? From the game’s hilariously grotesque art direction to the sheer strangeness of the premise, I had to see what this thing was. But no, this one was all about morbid curiosity. I mean, Contra is rad and all, and I have beaten the first game (only the first game, and only with The Code). I grabbed Contra Returns this week, not out of any sort of hype or loyalty to the Contra brand. Related: Contra Rogue Corps Revealed With Epic New Trailer And Release Date There’s also been a lot of movement on Contra in China, including potential multimedia projects and a… mobile game? That mobile game showed up in global markets this week, and it’s a doozy to say the least. Aside from the recent classics collection, we’ve also seen an absolutely bizarre (but lowkey fun) top-down shooter on consoles. Contra, Konami’s classic run ‘n’ gun, cheat code lionizing classic, has been weirdly present lately.
