Is it a shame to do such an in-depth review on such a horrible video game? Or is that precisely the charm of this challenge? You decide. I'll just focus on typing this as tears roll down my eyes after having seen the credits roll on this monstrosity.
I've recently made it a goal to try harder at actually beating these games rather than just giving them an honest shot before abandoning them partway. This started with game 125, Vandal Hearts. It nearly ended with game 126, Contra: Legacy of War. And it's not like it's a long game. On easy difficulty, a skilled player can get through it in 30 minutes. But I'd wager getting to that skill level will take you 30 hours. And if you spend 30 hours in 2025 trying to git gud at Contra Legacy of War of all games, you frankly deserve the anguish that awaits you.
So it goes without saying that after trying it the legit way for an hour and a half and not getting past the first stage, I decided to make generous use of save states to aid my cause. Yes, it's cheating, but me winning these games counts for nothing and allows me to review the full product, so I'll gladly do it when the alternative is not feasible.
So what is it that is so wrong about this game when previous Contra titles (Alien Wars, Hard Corps) are such big hits among Contra fans? Well it all starts with the move from 2D to 3D, but that's just the first of many D's wrong with this one.
It's Deceitful for Contra advertisements to call this "the most explosive Contra ever" and the "first real 3D game on PlayStation". It's Damning that the game thought putting a 73% review score on their ads was a good look. It's Digusting how ugly the game is. It's Dumb to have allowed an external development studio, Appaloosa Interactive, to develop this game when Konami's guys knew exactly what Contra fans liked. It's Diarrhea the Game.
But that's just the start of a long list of things wrong with the game.
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| Title Screen |
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 1/10
The game itself has no story. There are four characters to choose from, the only difference being (as far as I could tell) that some move even worse than others.
While a run and gun video game does not need a story whatsoever, the game did the only thing worse than having its backstory hidden in the manual, and that is having a backstory that makes no sense.
"1957. A large object lands in the Amazon basin. [...] Scientists dismiss the incident as a trivial cosmic occurence."
In what world would a large object be simply ignored? That makes no sense. It's ridiculous to nitpick at something like this, I know, but this tiny detail is indicative of the effort that went into the game's design as well.
Now this is not the story of Contra: Legacy of War. It's the story entry to cover the "legacy" of the Contra series so far. Not sure if this was how they sold those games or if that was added with this game, but both choices are not good.
Anyway, the alien threat that started with this incident led to the present, when a dictator named Colonel Bassad used an alien embryo to breed an army of fierce alien mutants. Now you gotta put an end to Bassad and his army.
Nothing about this becomes apparent in the game.
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| Character Selection Screen |
GAMEPLAY | 4/20
Oh boy. As I mentioned, this game made the unnecessary move from 2D to 3D. While I understand that the new possibilities where undoubtedly exciting at the time, it just doesn't make sense to make the move yourself if you're gonna half-ass it or not have the talent to do it right.
It starts with the perspective. You can only see your character and a small area around him, from a top down perspective. Enemies come into the screen way too late but start shooting a split second before. It is so bad that more than a few times I didn't know where to go because I couldn't see.
The worst part about this is positional depth. Am I safely on this platform or am I about to fall off? Am I gonna make this jump from one platform to the other because I can't fucking tell where my character is versus the platform I am jumping on. Am I standing on the same plane as the enemy or am I an inch too far above or below? Because if so, I am gonna miss. And doesn't matter for the enemy, because most of them shoot homing ammunition that will relentlessly stick to your butt even if you dodge and run away. And this issue is present throughout, making it extremely hard to hit anything without taking a bullet yourself. And considering your health points as well as that the enemy's fire bullets non stop, you gotta be extremely quick and lucky with your initial positioning or you will trade a kill for one life of your own. Doesn't take long before that math works against you.
Weapons are pretty much the same as in previous entries. Since enemies shoot so many bullets so quickly, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get a single kill with the flame thrower without taking a hit. The rest felt similarly weak in damage output, which left one oh-so clear winner: The homing laser gun with Ray. The laser hits the enemy nearly irrespective of where you aim at. This actually gave me a chance to get shots in without presenting myself on a silver platter.
But even then, it is so ridiculously hard to dodge anything in this game and to get hits in because the controls are so bad and positioning is so unreliable.
The only kind of neat part was driving a motorboat and driving up to mini bosses. Don't get me wrong, it is really poorly implemented and weird, but at least it was kind of creative.
Imagine playing a 2D Contra game and not being able to dodge all those bullets flying at you. That's Contra: Legacy of War.
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| This is as creative as the enemy design gets |
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 6/10
Probably the best part about this game, but not great. Some tracks remind me of the other Contra games, so that's a plus (sometimes exactly, City 1 sounds a lot like the first Alien Wars level). But it's forgettable overall.
The music is also too quiet on some stages, and the sound design for the weapons is of poor quality.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 3/10
The move from 2D to 3D hits the visuals the worst. And that says a lot considering how bad the game plays.
Instead of a side perspective like in previous 2D entries, with detailed backgrounds of destroyed cities, military bases and alien structures presented in varied, distinct color schemes to convey the devastation the war left behind, the 3D top down perspective gives us ... grey and muddy floors.
Yes, seriously, your vision is limited to a few feet around you. You see enemies way too late, you see very little of the level design and there is no background to look at because you can not see it. The game mainly uses muted colors, not to set the tone, but because the graphic designers didn't give a fuck, and it's just ugly to look at from start to finish.
Enemy design is also very basic. Some are repeated from prior entries and there aren't a lot of enemies in the game in the first place. Visual effects from shots and explosions are the best part here, but calling it anything other than average at best would also be an exaggeration.
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| Looks beautiful, doesn't it? |
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 2/10
If you called this game War: Legacy of Contra or Legacy: Contra of War or Of: Legacy Contra War, it wouldn't matter. Outside of being called Contra and having the same weapons you can find in other Contra titles, atmospherically the game gives you nothing. You're in a military base looking area at first, then in a forest, then at sea and then in an alien core (I didn't know this, I needed to google what the final stage represented). If you didn't read the manual, this game would have no real meaning or relation. And that's rough if your gameplay sucks on top of that.
CONTENT | 2/10
About a handful or so stages, about 5 normal enemy types, 4 weapons plus rockets at your disposal, 4 characters with very little (almost nothing) to offer in between them, and 30-50 minutes of unique gameplay are enough for me to summarize like this: The offering ain't good.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 3/10
The final stage (on Easy) sees you fall down a near endless pit and fight the Red Falcon. In typical fashion, I couldn't dodge any of its bullets reliably, even though it shot very few, but I succeeded in the end, and the game ended abruptly. All I had to do was move side to side as Ray was falling down. That's it. And you know what, that was the most exciting stage in the entire game.
There is also the motorboat stage I suppose. But these are still bad. Their nature just disables them from being so awful as the other ones, where enemies start shooting right as they appear in your very limited line of sight, where you can't even see where to go sometimes and where creativity is at an absolute minimum. Not to mention the awful visual design of the stages, because I already did that above.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 1/10
Taking a formula that works and completely ruining it in the name of innovation is the complete opposite of what this score aims to praise. If you put this game's features into a 2D game instead, it would be equally innovation-free as far as the evolution of Contra and run-and-gun games go, but at least it would have the chance to be good.
REPLAYABILITY | 1/5
Yes you can chase higher scores, yes you can try to focus on different weapons, yes you can play on higher difficulties, but that would be generous reasons to bump up this score. It's not worth replaying, let alone beating it once.
PLAYABILITY | 3/5
It works. But at what cost? Having to adjust to a game's flaws to "figure it out" has never been good game design. I never felt like I could reliably dodge anything. It's possible, I've seen it on YouTube. But as I mentioned in the opening of the review, there are roughly 8,600 games I'd much rather get better at.
OVERALL | 26/100 ⭐
Contra: Legacy of War manages to do what only 2 other game franchises have managed in this challenge: Make it to the Hall of Shame (score of 35 or less). So far, that was reserved to Bugs Bunny and Spider-Man games. And now Contra is on the list. And that's a big shame, considering how much I enjoyed Contra III.
The move to 3D was just a total bust. With 3D being all the rage at the time, I understand the temptation. But to waste their big 5th gen Contra game on this leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I should play some Contra III to wash it down.
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