It's considerably impressive how poor this game is. The core concept of an overhead run-n-gun isn't folly, but execution is important. Contra: Legacy Of War fails at executing . . . basically everything. The graphics are repugnant, the music is boring, the action is a mess of flat muddy textures with some blocky models, and--worst of all--the controls are horrendous.

This game would have benefited from waiting a couple years so it can utilize the twin analog sticks, but this was being developed when Playstation still had the one basic controller design, thus it was unable to have controls similar to other isometric run-n-gun games such as Smash TV or Total Carnage.

If there's any Contra game to completely avoid, it's this one.