I'm beginning to think that the first Contra is the only great one. I remembered this being a lot better: the switchable weapons, the goofy special attack, the climbing, the numerous minibosses. It seems to point towards something expansive, where movement and creativity are what's being asked of the player.

In practice, it's usually the opposite. This is a very rigid, cramped game. It constantly forces the player into small areas, to wait, to occupy just this part of the screen and no more. When you know what to do it feels like a solved equation instead of a fight. And the interstitial non-sidescroller levels were always an issue with Contra games, but those top-down Mode 7 levels are the worst. Ugly, disorienting, and simplistic. Also what's up with that legacy-obsessed last level? It's more than a little embarrassing fighting watered-down bosses from the two prior games.

Yeah, it's still Contra. The sidescrolling levels had never looked as good. It's responsive to be sure, and when the game encourages movement (like the stage 3 boss) it can be a pretty good time. But going back and playing this was a really disappointing experience.

Something a bit cavernous about this one. It's big but it's small. It's a grand world in the balance narrative where you're just a corporate grunt. You pilot something that's 2 or 3 stories tall but feel like a flea in movement and in contrast to the surroundings. It's an operatic AAA new school Fromsoft title laid over the B-grade old school structure of their longest running series. I've played the first AC and I thought it was tough and atmospheric, but a lot of that is gone here in favour of spectacle.

This one's easy and smooth. Every piece of military machinery short of the stage bosses is easily taken care of. It's elegant, and in its finest moments feels like a dance on ice. The story with it callsign machismo and tinny voices feels convoluted and hard to care about at first, but it does a good job of clarifying itself as it progresses. The NG+ variations are welcome, but they don't change enough of the game up enough for me to march all the way through them.

A weird one. Some fun highs for sure but the moment to moment of it I found a bit underwhelming. Basically a perfect rental though, if those still existed.

Contains probably the most believable being found in the medium so far, and I think that's worth a lot. The game is built around you understanding it and it understanding you, and it achieves this with an elegant mix of writing and game design. The story is intelligently presented; it's beautiful and moving---perhaps moreso than Ueda's other games.

And while it gets scale and detail right, with a vertigo-inducing world of towers and dilapidated ruins, it can feel like a series of puzzle rooms at times. A less contrived or even slower sense of progression would have been more welcome in my view, as its instances of stillness and idle behaviour were among my favourite moments.

Common complaints about this game seem to align with a common idea of what a good game is (smooth, responsive, agreeable), but the ways in which this game underperforms, or performs in an unconventional way, all strike me as either artistic choices or technical bargains that preserve or enhance what the game is doing that is exceptional. It's imperfect to be sure, but it achieves something no other game has and still feels ahead of its time.