When I was writing up Contra Month back in 2019, Contra Force sat on the bubble. Initially because it take quite a bit to get my copy of this game working for an adequate refresher. I'm very big on the Konami brand, they've made some of my favorite games on the planet, and while the Contra series is very notable for its run-n-gun action, it has seen some pretty bad days. C: The Contra Adventure remains the bottom of the basement, in my opinion. 2019's Contra Rogue Corps is better than it gets credit. Where does that leave the black sheep, Contra Force? Well, better than The Contra Adventure, much in the same way you'd rather step on a bed of thumbtacks rather than having hydrochloric acid thrown in your grandmother's face. 

Contra Force was originally going to be the start of a spin-off Contra series in Japan titled "Arc Hound" in 1991, but the concept was completely scrapped. I haven't been able to track down any information as to why it was cancelled, but the project that was developed was packaged as "Contra Force" and has only seen a release in the United States. To my knowledge, no port was ever sold in the U.K., making this the only exclusive "Contra" game to the US. What a piece of trivia to be proud of...

Contra Force apparently must've sat on the development backburner throughout 1991, because it feels like no work was put into fine-tuning any of the game's kinks and imperfections before its release in September of 1992(!?!). Contra III: The Alien War was already out on the SNES by the time this game hit stores, and the NES had long shown its age by 1990. Some of those long in the tooth Nintendo games really showed a lot of ambition, even in the wake of the awesome power of the Super Nintendo, and maybe with a little refinement, Contra Force could have been much better than what the final product was. In its current state, Force feels like a game that's going to cause your NES to have a stroke if you play it for an extended period of time. From the moment I turn the game on and encounter the first two enemies, the slowdown hits like you just dosed on acid. Nintendo games are known for having lots of lag when the action picks up, but if Contra Force moved any slower, it'd be Valium. Castlevania III Dracula's Curse pushes the Nintendo to its limits without going too ham and hampering the GPU. This game is so overclocked and demanding, it feels busted.

On the positives, one of the cooler things about Contra Force that separates it from other games in the series at this point is the ability to select between 4 characters, each with their own set of weapons and upgrades. Not every character can duck and evade enemy fire, either. Beans' default animation is he's always crouching and prone. I actually like this, it makes them very distinct from each other, even though one's Contra senses would tell you to press DOWN to avoid getting shot. Like Konami's other series Gradius, Contra Force has a power-up bar that can level up Burns', Smith's, Iron's, and Beans' guns and secondary firepower. Once you die, you're back to your base gun. 

The controls are significantly behind Super C and feel less responsive and delayed. Jumping at maximum height requires holding the button down until the apex of a character's jump. There's some very inconsistent character collision detection issues with objects and sticking landings on boxes and platforms. Some characters jump a little higher than others, so those are variables I don't mind. The overhead stages play a little close to Super C's top-down portions, and feels a little better. It does nothing to change how completely laggy and bogged down by the flickering it gets, but after missing so many platform jumps and traveling across the slow conveyor belts and elevators in Stage 3, it's a breath of fresh air by comparison.

Firing weapons is okay. One of the differences between this and other Contra games is a lot of the guns don't fire full screen. Again, this is something I don't have a problem with, and I could realistically see how other ideas ended up being used in other Contra entries like Hard Corps. At its core, Contra Force's controls feel vaguely in line with the franchise, but it doesn't take long to see how unpolished it is in a lot of areas. 

There's a lot going on with the graphics in Contra Force. I think the sprites are pretty well detailed and their animations aren't technically bad, but it's very clear that it's incredibly demanding even when the action picks up for a moment. The hues and explosions are nice...when you're allowed to see them. Since Contra Force doesn't involve the alien battles, there aren't any trips to the bowels of a veiny, gross H.R. Giger inspired monstrosities. Just some terries. there's a part of me that likes to view this as a G.I. Joe game of sorts, even though the playable characters probably give off more of a Metal Slug vibe. 

Contra Force is saved in some degree by some incredibly amazing OST, they almost make a lot of the frustrating elements tolerable. This game is playable by the most minimal of standards, but incredibly rough. I'd chalk it up as being something that can be fun if you're playing it co-op with a buddy and at least have some laughs (and probably some drinks). Or you can set the CPU to run assist and quickly off itself. It only gets the tiniest of passes for being a scrapped project, but it's still incredibly cynical to take a broken game and ship it stateside. Even if it's for retro collecting bragging rights, don't waste your money on it. The pros aren't worth it. Buying bad games on purpose does harm to the ecosystem.