Review #794: Contra Rogue Corps

 Contra: The looter shooter.

 A lot has been said about Contra: Rogue Corps, some true, some false, some good, some bad, but I'll just say that it's not bad because it's not really Contra, but rather, it's bad because it's bad. I'm fairly open to change, I like both Devil May Cry and DmC, I enjoyed Dungeon Siege 3 even though it's very unlike the first two Dungeon Siege games, which happen to be some of my favorite RPGs ever, and, heck, I like Silent Hill post Silent Hill 4, so believe me when I say that I wouldn't condemn a game just for being different from what came before.

 The first thing you need to understand is that this is a dungeon crawler but with twin-stick mechanics, which makes it a looter shooter. This is eerily similar to Silent Hill: Book of Memories, when Konami tried to make a dungeon crawler out of a licensed that didn't fit the genre, and it fails just as much. The game is made up of 7 ranks, a few more if you download the free patches, each one made up of about 6 missions. Which sounds like plenty, but a lot of the maps get repeated, although on higher ranks it means meatier enemies and, sometimes, a few alternate, tougher enemies to fight. There is offline co-op, but there are only 4 missions you can play in that mode, and they require a small fee to attempt, which, y'know, lame. Oh, and by the by, you can't pause the game. Even if you're playing offline, the pause menu is a lie, enemies will still harm you and the time counter will still tick, so once you start a mission you are in it for the long haul. And, on what can only be considered a bad taste joke, the Switch version looks very, very blurry. This is easily one of the worst looking games on the system, and even the PS4 version looks pretty bad, although at least not blurry. At least it keeps a steady 30 fps, I guess.

 Left stick moves, right stick aims, ZR shoots, ZL dodges/attacks and A jumps, and that's pretty much all you need to know. The dodge is more like an offensive dodge? It hurts anything in its path, and you're invincible while you use it. And you'll need to use it a lot in order to get away from swarms of enemies or from more elite mooks that will keep you on your toes. Your weapon loadout is made up of two different guns, and you'll need to swap between them because, yes, they overheat. Overheat is a dumb mechanic that makes it so that you can't use your weapon all the time, because.... reasons? There's already an affinity mechanic in place(Fire, Poison, Electricity) that makes some enemies take more or less damage from different elements, so I really don't understand why they need to force you to swap weapons. Some weapons are awful when fighting enemies on higher/lower altitudes, so it's not like it's easy to get a single weapon to cover all your needs. Heck, some levels have 'shooting gallery' sections, in which it turns into a pseudo third person shooter in which you can only move from left to right, as well as some small degree of freedom on the Y axis, and some weapons just won't reach far enough. If you happen to equip two weapons that don't reach far enough the game will warn you that, hey, those two weapons you like? Yeah, neither of them work in that mode. Fun. Honestly, the Overheating mechanic makes no sense in the game other than to annoy the player or to create some fake sense of depth.

 I called the game a looter shooter, because after every mission you'll amass a ton of 'body parts', that can be used to alter any of the four playable characters, and different weapons, weapon blueprints and weapon mods, and yes, every body part, weapon and mod come in rarities: common, rare and epic varieties, because, as said before, this is a looter shooter. Body parts come in four: Brain, Eyes, Skeleton and Organs, they don't change how characters look, but it grants you passive bonuses, like Extra lives, extra shield, extra bombs, longer dashes, stronger dashes when your weapons overheat, etc. Weapon Mods have two distinct functions: Enhance your equipped weapons or as parts to create weapons from their blueprints. Sometimes it's a bit painful having to choose between creating weapons or using them as a resource, but do you really want to grind for parts in this game? Nay! You want to spend the least amount of time possible playing this junk!

 Alright, so onto the positives, I really liked the four heroes. They are all freaks: A Gentleman alien, a dudebro with a drill-arm, a female mercenary with an alien grafted on her abdomen and a panda with the brain of a scientist. As far as gameplay goes, the only thing that sets them apart, besides looks, is their unique R ability, but, hey, they are a weird bunch and I love it. I also enjoyed the comic-book cutscenes, very low budget to be sure, but the art is gorgeous. Also, there's a lot of variety when it comes to weapons.... although, honestly, I hated most of them. I tried out a whole lot of them, but they were either two weird to use, or too useless. For example, the Chainsaw and the 'swords' look cool, but they slow you down to a crawl and you need to get too close for comfort. The incendiary gun shoots in bursts which made it rather useless when it came to swarms. I stuck with the Gatling Gun and the Fire Gun for the rest of the game, because they worked well most of the time. Also, I think it's rather lame how the gun-model your character holds doesn't change for whatever weapon you equip, the chainsaw is just a giant chainsaw that comes out of your gun, and the shotgun is just a shotgun spread that comes out of your rifle-looking weapon. Lame.

 Alright, Konami, you tried it with Castlevania and it kinda worked. Then you tried it with Silent Hill and most decidedly it didn't work. I'm pretty sure you tried it with Metal Gear Solid V and it didn't work. Now it was Contra's turn to get turned into a loot-based dungeon crawler, and guess what, it didn't work. Again. Stop trying to turn everything into a dungeon crawler or a pachinko machine and just make the games people want to play, dammit!
 3.0 out of 10