It’s protected to say Contra handed on its crown as run-and-gun royalty a very long time in the past. The final actually nice entry was 2011’s Exhausting Corps: Rebellion—an unrecognizable-as-Contra recreation which doesn’t even bear the sequence title—and even earlier than that time, Contra had muddled via a number of halfhearted reinventions in between high quality video games. I approached Operation Galuga with embers of optimism: It is by WayForward, builders of 2007’s distinctive Contra 4, however its insistence on new playable characters with particular talents, perks purchased with in-game foreign money, and an overhauled 3D look had me cautious of one other misguided try and complicate a method outlined by its simplicity.
What I bought with Operation Galuga was simply the other: a rock-solid celebration of basic Contra with new concepts that remix and recontextualize, however by no means crowd out, the shooter’s foundational meat and potatoes.
Nowadays Contra has stiffer competitors than ever, with trendy masterworks like Cuphead, Blazing Chrome, and Huntdown constructing out the run and gun method with extra extravagant setpieces and extra various fight. However even amidst these video games Galuga has some novel concepts. My favourite is the brand new overload mechanic: You choose up particular weapons as you go like in most different Contra video games, and you’ll solely carry and swap between two at a time. However now you can overload your lively gun to destroy it in alternate for explosive advantages, like an precise explosion, a bullet-soaking defend, or the power to cease time for just a few seconds.
On high of this, you may choose up two weapons of the identical sort to wield an ultra-powerful model of that weapon till you get hit. These additions threw an fascinating wrench into my typical Contra game-plan—get the unfold shot and maintain onto it for expensive life—and had me eager about greater than dodging bullets within the warmth of the second.
The perk retailer gives equally {powerful} boons: character-specific particular strikes, further lives, free weapon upgrades, further hit factors, and so forth you could purchase with credit earned by enjoying. When you get pleasure from run-and-guns for the tough-as-nails issue, this may all sound just like the kind of stuff you’d discover on a Sport Genie, however the customization goes each methods. From the very begin you may up the issue, make each enemy assault a one-hit-kill, and even deactivate 360 diploma aiming (making Galuga stress me out as a lot because the famously brutal Contra: Exhausting Corps). It’s all non-compulsory and simple sufficient to disregard solely, however if you wish to wring all the worth you may out of the sport, nabbing and toying with each considered one of these cheat codes will take quite a lot of pizza-fueled Friday nights.
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When you forgo any non-compulsory modifiers, Operation Galuga is “simply” a souped-up, modernized retelling of the NES authentic—with so many new ranges, setpieces and redesigned encounters that it’s unmistakably its personal factor. Leaping feels snappy and exact, iconic arms just like the homing shot and laser gun return alongside just a few new ones, and double-jumps and airdashes make you a nimbler glass cannon than ever.
My solely actual gripe is with the story and dialog, which often pipe up whereas I’m busy attempting to shoot stuff. It’s not that the writing or performing is dangerous, it’s simply that it’s devoid of a lot substance; shattering a run-and-gunner’s movement state so some evil robo-terrorist can remind me he’s an evil robo-terrorist is a sin most video games are aware sufficient to keep away from. Cutscenes are skippable, however the truth that they set off mid-level nonetheless brings the motion to a screeching halt. Earlier Contra tales had the nice sense to both be hilariously zany or utterly absent, so until I’ve missed one other secret ending the place my G.I. marries a chimpanzee, I’m holding this one towards you, Operation Galuga.
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The sport’s eight phases make for a brisk playthrough assuming you don’t die as a lot as I did, however replayability is thru the roof. Problem mode, uh, challenges you to grasp particular weapons, speedrun the sport, get via ranges with out firing a shot, and so forth. After 2 hours in Arcade mode with the issue choices absolutely cranked, I would almost crawled almost the midway mark once I dropped my beloved unfold shot and died to a one-hit-kill bullet. That is the previous Contra torture that hurts so good.
And with Undertaking Galuga’s excessive diploma of customization, you may actually dial in the way you select to self-flagellate. I’m undecided it reaches the eye-straining highs of the easiest Contras, however it’s an exciting return to kind for a long-dormant titan, an accessible entry level to the style it helped outline, and a wealthy playground for veterans to check their mettle.
