A very odd quasi-remake of the original Contra 3 port on Gameboy, hence why it has such a weird name. Contra 3 was already ported to Gameboy like a decade before as Contra: The Alien Wars. But this was for the Gameboy Advance, so it added "Advanced" and "EX" to the title.
And I dig what they were going for! This wasn't just slapping a rom file into a GBA (it probably couldn't do that anyway), but instead a remake from the ground-up with crunched assets to make it palpable for the GBA's little screen.
A lot of people say the most interesting aspect is the mode-7 stages were replaced with side-scrolling stages from Contra: Hard Corps. And while that is neat in its own right, it makes for a bizarre clash in art styles since that original Genesis game looked so wildly different from its SNES predecessor. I suppose Konami didn't want to foot the bill to recreate the mode 7 stages with the GBA's 3D capabilities (yeah, the damn thing could actually render stuff in 3D, crazy right?)
Something else I think is interesting about this bite-size packaged Contra game is how they included the strafing mechanic first seen in Contra: Shattered Soldier on PS2. It kinda tells me the people involved in this little game wanted it to at least feel good to play, just a cool feature to add when they really didn't have to.
Regardless, it's an annoying, claustrophobic port of Contra 3, and I just don't really enjoy playing it. With portable gaming no longer having its own identity these days, the novelty is gone. You can buy the Anniversary Collection for next-to-nothing on Switch. You can get Nightly PCSX2 to run Shattered Soldier flawlessly on your Steam Deck. This no longer has purpose.
And I dig what they were going for! This wasn't just slapping a rom file into a GBA (it probably couldn't do that anyway), but instead a remake from the ground-up with crunched assets to make it palpable for the GBA's little screen.
A lot of people say the most interesting aspect is the mode-7 stages were replaced with side-scrolling stages from Contra: Hard Corps. And while that is neat in its own right, it makes for a bizarre clash in art styles since that original Genesis game looked so wildly different from its SNES predecessor. I suppose Konami didn't want to foot the bill to recreate the mode 7 stages with the GBA's 3D capabilities (yeah, the damn thing could actually render stuff in 3D, crazy right?)
Something else I think is interesting about this bite-size packaged Contra game is how they included the strafing mechanic first seen in Contra: Shattered Soldier on PS2. It kinda tells me the people involved in this little game wanted it to at least feel good to play, just a cool feature to add when they really didn't have to.
Regardless, it's an annoying, claustrophobic port of Contra 3, and I just don't really enjoy playing it. With portable gaming no longer having its own identity these days, the novelty is gone. You can buy the Anniversary Collection for next-to-nothing on Switch. You can get Nightly PCSX2 to run Shattered Soldier flawlessly on your Steam Deck. This no longer has purpose.