We have reached the end of Contra Month, and what better way to wrap up the month than to talk what I think is the best made Contra and one of the top tier Genesis titles that outshines the SNES' The Alien War. Contra III is a very good game, but the one key element that puts Hard Corps over is they omitted the novelty level. Sure, with Mode 7, the SNES pulled off a cool looking visual with the overhead stages, but they're as cumbersome as eating soup with a fork.

Blast Processing may have been a marketing gimmick and these still images don't do it justice, but Hard Corps is an incredibly fast and fluid action rollercoaster. The visuals are sharp, the explosions are fierce, and enemies have great detail. The graphics are some of the best on the Genesis with the various boss battles.

Hard Corps also introduces new playable characters. Ray Poward (the series' secondary protagonist), Brad Fang (a wolfman with a cybernetic arm), Sheena Etranzi (a female guerilla and weapons specialist), and Browny (a tiny robot with the smallest hitbox in the game).

Each of them have a different weapon itinerary and abilities. Each has their strengths and weaknesses, though Fang is the strongest character in the game. His chargeable Power Punch and Psychic Blaster deal an unbelievable amount of damage, but it does require some patience and skill to use. Ray is the most traditional, having weapons like the Spread Shot and Homing Gun from the previous Contra games, so he's good for familiarity. Sheena has wide area affecting power-ups. Browny has good defensive style weapons and probably the game's second heavy hitter. 

New to Contra Hard Corps is a branching path that can affect the second stage and an earlier boss fight with Deadeye Joe. And later in stage 5, you are presented with a choice that can lead to one of five different endings. This reminds me of Castlevania III Dracula's Curse, which provided alternative routes and epilogues depending which character was your secondary. Hard Corps is perhaps the most in-depth Contra game in this regard, it expands on the lore and directly calls back to events that's happened in previous games. The enemies that break into the research center steal the alien DNA gathered from the Alien Wars five years prior. 

With the solid and quick gameplay, the varied characters, the story elements (I can be down on stories in video games, but only if they get unnecessarily preachy) and the respectable challenge, I feel Contra Hard Corps is the complete package and arguably still the best game in the series. 

It's been fun going back and offering these musings on the 8 and 16 bit era of the Contra series. They did try experimenting with Contra in different mediums on the next generation of consoles with offerings like Legacy of War and C: The Contra Adventure (just absolutely putrid), but it would be later before the franchise knew its magic is best at its roots.