One of the biggest examples of "style over substance."

First of all, I want to give this game some credit for all the great things it does. The gameplay has converted into the 16-bit in probably the best way possible, just like earlier games controls are responsive; sounds and effects makes it pretty juicy. Overall it's pretty fun to play. Visually it's one of the best-looking games on SNES and just reading about the technical wizardry behind it makes me respect even more to all the details. As you can guess, music is great too.

I don't want to get too much into the details that were good in previous games so I'm going to talk about one of the most surprising things about this game for me: cinematic presentation. It has many over-the-top scenes and they're great, on presentation, it feels like a cheesy B-movie and that's what I want to see from Contra.

So what makes this game a disappointment for me? As you may expect the difficulty and stages. Earlier games weren't all that fair we all know that but their difficulty comes from their goal to push your reflexes to their limits. They're hard but you just have to learn how to dance with the controls, you need to think about your character's hitbox and your play style. But Contra 3 wants you to memorize levels not learn them. Unlike its predecessors, you probably won't understand how to react against certain obstacles at first and you will die then you will restart and play the sections you've played before over and over again, trial and error can be an amazing thing in games if you do it right but it's also something like a dangerous lab equipment, you can always blow it to your face just like this game does, you have limited continues and you just get sick of the game after a while, you must play it with save states or else it will become a torture (that is if you playing for completing it of course, it's fine for few minutes fun).

Also, these stages aren't as great as before, the first stage is iconic, and classic run and gun ones are fine but the remaining ones, or what I call "idea levels", are just some "You know what would be cool?" style levels were not handled in a good way. That grappling mechanic had so much potential but it isn't as responsive as it should be and the learning curve of that isn't some perfect line it's just a messy graphic.
I'm not a big fan of top-down sections in Super C, I still prefer the pseudo-3d mini game-like sections in Contra but I think that was implemented pretty well. In this, it's one of the most frustrating top-down shooters ever. Surprisingly they're pretty bad with graphics and like I said before there are ideas, most of them just plays with characters' position in a pretty stupid way, and of course, they're not implemented well therefore they are just confusing and frustrating to play.

Bosses are nice, while they're also trial and error based, they're much more acceptable than overall stage design because all of them are beatable with fast reflexes but you won't get them on the first try so it's the same thing in the end. I think we can see that certain elements don't come together very well in these bosses like climbing of course. Also to see the real final boss you need to beat this game hard so... Just forget about it, it's not worth it.

Another thing to note is the lack of codes, IIRC there aren't any codes in the NA version and while I don't like to use it except Konami code I think it hurts the "brainless fun" part of the game

I think with that you can now understand why I called this a "style over substance" game, you can just go on and play it for fun, you're in for a visual and auditory treat but you won't get the depth of previous games, it's clear that they did tried to make the scope bigger so they just sacrificed the depth but in games like this I think less is better most of the time and sadly this is one of the biggest proofs of that.

I played the NES version back when I thought them as 'good for their times but near unplayable for today', over the years my opinion changed. Yes most of them were too frustrating to play but I also played fun games like Batman (1989), Moon Crystal, Kirby's Adventure, etc and I always thought about this game because at that time it didn't felt right to me. Slippery controls, weird momentum, bad enemy placements, water levels that are literal torture, etc. but after playing some NES games that are actually fun I knew that I had to give this game one more chance but of course, I postponed it again and again and again. Recently I was looking into my SNES backlog and I saw the All Stars and started this game right away. I still think those things that I didn't like are still present in this game but this time I loved it because I saw the harmony in the game. What I'm trying to say is on paper this game has a lot of flaws but everything works great with each other. I can't say it works perfectly because I still think water levels and enemy placements are shit but other than that everything works just fine in a magical way and believe me when I say 'magical' I mean it, as a person who avoids using labels I just can't think of any other word that can describe this game better than magical.

Pretty good for what it is actually. An incredible variety of game modes, a diverse roster (not just, as the number of fighters, but also their playstyles. Some of them attacks with their strength, some of them uses their speed and some of them uses their techniques like clinching, and I must say if you don't learn how to counter a clinch you're done, in terms of button prompts it's very easy but in terms of managing your cardio it's pretty fun and tricky for some fights againts tough opponents like Brock Lesnar), solid career mode (albeit being too repetitive and having a slow and unpractical UI) and, of course, kick ass gameplay, but it would be good to have more combos and the ability to get behind the opponent I'm not an UFC guy so I have no idea how many combos they could've add without hurting the realism but I think getting behind the opponent was a must, it could've ended up as a op move that breaks the game but I think with tricky button combinations and clever risk/reward balance it would be a move that makes the game much more fun.

I played the PSP version of this game and I know that it's a downgraded port, but just like SvR games, the lack of commentary makes these games too calm for their genres, but SvR games are much more arcadey than this, so you get used to them much faster. Unlike SvR, this game is based on a sport that is not scripted. There are no over-the-top punches or kicks, so you need to understand if the punch you landed was strong or not, but it's not easy in this game. They tried to use the frequency of crowds' voice but they just go nuts too easily, so it doesn't work as intended. Also, the animations sometimes feels great but sometimes feels like they're just touching each other instead of hitting. Overall the communication with player via gameplay is awful and it's pretty sad because these types of games are one of the genres that pumps up dopamin relatively high, biggest sign of this being how it made me feel when I knocked some random fighter off with a punch that I didn't expected to knock him out...Come to think of it this sentence is the wrapped up version of this review you don't expect things to happen but they do and when they do they're great but when they don't it's just lame and discouraging I'm sure that all of these things are much better in home console versions but this is a review for the PSP version.

The visuals are just amazing for the PSP. The character models looks so weird in portraits but they look good in fights. I understand why they didn't use hand drawn portraits or photos of fighters, but they could've put the models a bit further, just to hide their toy-looking faces because with shitty looking UI all the little hype you have for the match vanishes away. Also, these visuals come with a cost. There are loading screens everywhere in this game. They're not too long but definitely annoying.

While F13th is fun, it has some serious issues such as imbalanced gameplay, numerous bugs, frustrating matchmaking problems, and etc, especially during its initial release. This game also has some of these problems, but to a much lesser extent, particularly in terms of balancing issues. I was initially apprehensive about the concept of having three Slashers in the game, but the developers executed it pretty well. Shortly overall gameplay is great. While there is room for improvement in the level design, it still holds up quite well. I must also mention how effectively the developers captured the essence of the original film. Sound design is also great, all of those gory things, that dirty environment and the strange noices leatherface makes(?) all of them are great. Also the way sound is integrated into gameplay contributes to the both tension of the gameplay and atmosphere. Until now this may sound like a 5/5 game but the problem is the content. Yes it can be enjoyed for dozens of hours with friends but that enjoyment probably won't come from the game itself but rather trolling your friends. Despite all the licensing issues, they did a great job with the support they gave to the F13th and unlike that game this won't have licensing issues (or it seems like it for now) also with the positive feedback and attention that is coming from gamepass, I'm guessing that the team is motivated and I'm very excited to see how they will follow up.

Simply put, this is just System Shock with "relatively" modern gameplay. I said relatively because the game has clunky gameplay that doesn't feel like a 2023 game, it's definitely not on par with modern shooters (Of course not including shitfests like Cyberpunk). Not only that but also shitty AI, pixel-perfect jumps, lack of juice (except explosions those are great), enemies and grenades coming out of nowhere, etc hurts the game so much. The visuals are pretty good, I liked how they knew their limitations and went on with a "Retro x Modern" art style, and the sounds are decent enough. Level and puzzle designs are amazing but they're exactly the same as the original game and that makes me question the purpose of this remake, nearly everything worth mentioning about this is from the original. Still, considering the development hell this game has been through I think the team did a nice job with this but it could've been much better.