Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX

The Good
Easy to play and get into. Fast and fun side-scrolling action. Very good conversion of classic Contra levels. Co-op mode. A nice opportunity to draw in new players to the series.

The Bad
Some changes made streamline the game too much. Level arrangement is a pastiche of different sources, which destabilizes the continuity. Short game, and a bit too easy. Save system isn't intuitive. Wasted potential on a half-made conversion rather than a full game conversion or entirely new game. Will disappoint old fans.

The Bottom Line
Blast from the past

An unfortunate truth of the game Gameboy Advance system is that it’s apparently doomed to endure companies who forget about creativity and churn out ports of older games, with the occasional change made to give it a breath of fresh air while still attempting to draw in gamers acquainted with the old versions. Companies usually return to their 16-bit games for inspiration and adapt them to recent consoles, and while they generally do an adequate job, there’s still something disappointing about great potential being replaced by quick profit. This isn’t to say some of these games don’t justify a sequel or even a simple conversion; some would make some sense.

Such is the case of Konami and their long lasting Contra series. Spread over nearly ten different gaming platforms, the series puts players in control of a commando (or two in cooperative play) armed to the teeth and pitted against alien forces set to invade their world. Not terribly original, but then again the Contra series payed no mind to the story. It was all about how fast and furious the action was. Its fast combat, no-brainer control scheme, entertaining action sequences and devilish bosses made it a resounding success, and the 16-bit versions are still considered by many gamers to be the zenith of the series.

Maybe because of this, Konami decided to release Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX, which is basically a repackaging of the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis versions into a single game, taking some levels of each game and laying them out as a linear series of mayhem-filled levels that take players across different scenarios, fighting many enemies and overcoming several hazards. But how does this GBA title stack up as a conversion of the original versions and as a standalone game? A fun diversion that combines aspects of both 16-bit titles, but in the end it fails to incorporate their biggest assets and the final result could be so much more.

Aliens ate my grandma

Contra Advance has a simple premise: the Red Falcon, a brutal alien force of enormous power, decided to invade Earth and you are mankind’s best, last hope. You play the part of Billy, a survivor of the invasion, on a solo suicide mission against the aliens. If your eyes have unwillingly started to roll over, rest assured that the game doesn’t try to come up with a way to make the B-movie story more than it is. This premise remains a mere excuse for what the game is all about: fun side scrolling old-school shooter action.

Back in the day, the Super Contra for the SNES raised the bar for similar games. It featured great graphics, inventive monster designs and simple and exciting gameplay. It even managed to throw in a couple of catchy tunes no doubt forever imprinted in the mind of many long time gamers. The simple gameplay of run, jump and shoot makes it that much more accessible and entertaining, and has been the series’ strong foundation. Even with an inferior graphical palette, the Genesis version, Contra Hard Corps, took it a step further by adding four playable characters (each with their own weapons and play styles) and multiple paths with different endings, while providing the same kind of gameplay.

For the most part, the GBA version remains as visually stunning as the originals were back then, and nearly as engaging in its gameplay. But unfortunately the transition adds nothing over what were already two great games, which isn’t necessarily bad, but isn’t exactly good either.

Flamethrowers and cookies

Players will control one character as he ventures trough the game. The character can run, duck, shoot at things and jump, and also climb or cling to certain surfaces on some levels. And when hanging onto these surfaces the character will still be able to fire against enemies. To aid on your struggle against the alien invaders, you will have several weapons at your disposition, strewn about in the levels, and found on floating pods which you must shoot at to gain them. Aside the main weapon in the form of a machine gun, you’ll encounter classic Contra weapons, from a scatter gun to missiles to a flamethrower. These have their advantages and disadvantages. For instance, the scatter gun will cover a large arc in front of you, but its spread arc reduces its damage, while the laser is extremely powerful but can only shoot in a straight line. Every weapon has its uses, and you’ll eventually find yourself getting to know which ones work best in given situations.

Strangely gone from this version is the ability to carry two stored weapons, and subsequently shift between them for given combat situations. This means that when you get a new weapon, you’re stuck with it until you find a new one, and this artificially increases difficulty. Since you can no longer carry two weapons you’ll invariably find yourself in situations where you must go to great lengths to kill enemies with an inadequate weapon because there’s no secondary option. This is especially true of some bosses where a certain weapon works great but if you reach the end of the level with a different one, aiming and hitting can make things more complicated than they should be. This can be seen as something players can adjust to in time, but it would be better to have the secondary option instead of adding another layer of trial and error to a game that already relies a lot on it.

Also gone are the aura bombs that players could acquire in the same way they did with weapons. These bombs were a player’s last ditch when there were too many opponents on-screen, or if the player wanted to score additional damage against large opponents. When activated, they would destroy all weak enemies and targets present on the screen, or just harm tougher opponents. It’s anybody’s guess why these two features were removed, specially the aura bombs. While Contra Advance never gets as hectic or hard as the originals it’s being based on, it doesn’t justify the absence of these elements.

It’s possible to play and finish the game without these features, but their removal just unnecessarily streamlines the game.

Heart of the alien

Contra Advance nets you conversions of four levels present in the SNES game and two levels of the Genesis game. For those that never got around to play the SNES original, there were two overhead levels (in the style of arcade hits such as Smash TV) which added a new dynamic to the game by switching perspective and enemy tactics. Boss fights were also interesting as well, with players needing to come up with different methods of escape and attack. They provided a nice diversion and alternative to the abundance of remaining side scrolling levels.

Another mystery of this GBA conversion is that these levels are now gone. Instead, players are rewarded with two levels of the Genesis version. The GBA could no doubt render the overhead levels, but instead we get a constant sequence of side scrolling levels. This wouldn’t be too bad, except the removal of these levels and the inclusion of the other two makes the game feel inconsistent. Not only is the sense of continuity in the levels missing, you can also quite clearly notice that the Genesis levels don’t belong here. Not only is the colour palette a bit more washed out when contrasted with the vibrant colours of the SNES levels, the enemies and level design is also distinctly different.

It would have been better if the level layout had been better planned to avoid the feeling of chopping and pasting we get. In the end, the SNES version feels incomplete and the Genesis version doesn’t get the attention it deserved. Other than that, the graphics and animations remain overall attractive. Even the inferior palette of the Genesis produces some nice effects and touches, and the SNES portions still execute scrolling very nicely. The detail of scenarios only suffers a bit in the two Genesis levels, but in their whole the graphics of Contra Advance are very appealing.

Rolling, rolling, rolling

The game spans a very short amount of levels – six, to be exact – but these are all filled with fun alien blasting and the occasional devious action segment. You’ll be facing off against enemies and navigating inside a moving train, driving a futuristic motorcycle, and doing other things until you get down and dirty in the alien lair for the final face-off. Between the situations you’re placed in and the amount of enemies and the boss fights that occur twice in each level, it doesn’t ever get boring. Kicking some alien butt with a macho commando packing heat still works surprisingly well. There's also no noticeable slowdown, which helps the action. The atmosphere is kept in check not only with the graphics but also with the music and sound effects which, for some reason, seem to sound worse than they were.

Contra Advance has link cable support for two-player co-op mode, but you’ll need an extra copy of the cartridge, though. Still, hooking up with another player to play trough the game’s levels can be fun, even the levels that would provide the most fun – the overhead originals with split screen control - are not present in the game, which is a pity. The game also lets you save your progress at the end of each level, but uses a surprisingly outdated method: passwords. Why it was decided the game could not be saved normally is anyone’s guess, but the password it’s neither a good nor fast substitute, as it takes too long to type and fumbling for a piece of paper when all you want is to get back in and grin at the alien body count you’re leaving behind.

Final Words:

Contra Advance is yet another port that shows too well how companies waste good opportunities. The conversion is handled well, but at the expense of presenting a game with schizoid level arrangement and a gameplay that brings no surprise or excitement for old fans. Players that never got around to play the originals have a good opportunity to play this blast from the past and get to experience the Contra series in a different way, but even they will likely concede the game still falls short for today’s standards set by games like Metal Slug, also available in the handheld.

As far as the conversion goes, I believe a better option would have been to go with either game fully converted instead of taking levels of both and mixing them haphazardly. Preferably, Konami should have converted the Genesis version only, as it is much better than some gamers give it credit for, with some truly unique situations that are not represented here. It also had the advantage of multiple characters and endings, something that would definitely help this conversion which sorely lacks any kind of unlockable content or reason for replayability.

Nonetheless it’s a competent shooter with its moments. A disappointment for old time fans, and an incredibly short (albeit fun) shooter for newcomers. Give it a go, but don’t expect much from this conversion.