During the early days of the Super Nintendo, Konami was one of the companies that grabbed the console's supoerior capability over its' 8-bit little brother and ran with it. Contra III is no exception. Though the game is perhaps a little too hard (especially for newbies) and there are some graphical glitches here and there, this still remains one of the best run-and-gun shooters available on the VC.

The plot here comes right of of the Michael Bay playbook. Aliens have invaded Earth, and it's up to a couple of 1980's stereotypical roided-up Rambo knockoffs to save the world. The emphasis here is not on a deep story of gameplay mechanics, but just providing an excuse to unleash tons of virtual mayhem, which are brought to life via the SNES' much-lauded "Mode 7" effects.

Like other Konami SNES games of the time like Super Castlevania IV, that is where Contra III slips up. For the most part, the Mode 7 gimmickry is put to good use, but the top-down levels rely far too much on doing stuff like making the screen rotate and become confusing and come off as a bit of graphical wankery rather than providing excitement. Thankfully, those levels are only a relatively small portion of the game.

Overall, though, Contra III fufills the quota of anything and everything you might be looking for from an old-school shoot-em-up.

Virtual Console & WiiWare Reviews / Video Games Index / Back to Main Page