Interesting interpretation of the arcade original – it follows a flip-screen structure, which was likely chosen due to scrolling being somewhat difficult to implement well on the hardware. Contra as a flip-screen game, makes for... a rather tedious experience, I would say? You generally need to take your time on each screen in order to wipe out every enemy turret, so that you can clear a safe path through. This is encouraged, due to how turrets and other enemies' fire tracks your movement in a particularly aggressive way.
Along with this approach to level & enemy design, Contra for the MSX2 has a greatly expanded scope over the original, featuring new stages, and more of them. The stage count is somewhat inflated, as some boss encounters are considered a separate “stage” here, but counting them all up, you have a total of 19 stages here. The quality dips a bit, particularly in the second half, which is unfortunate. The increased length of the game also risks wearing on the player overtime – the NES game is great at around 20 minutes or so, but the MSX2 game can take roughly 40 minutes to beat – about twice the time. So, that makes it a bit less enticing to pick up and play.
Overall, it's not bad. Not great. It has some interesting ideas (such as the “rear gun”, which fires both forward and backward, in any direction you're aiming in – that's something the series would never revisit. Spread gun doesn't actually seem to exist here... so the best gun by far is the machine gun), but this game makes for a somewhat middling experience. It's whatever.
Along with this approach to level & enemy design, Contra for the MSX2 has a greatly expanded scope over the original, featuring new stages, and more of them. The stage count is somewhat inflated, as some boss encounters are considered a separate “stage” here, but counting them all up, you have a total of 19 stages here. The quality dips a bit, particularly in the second half, which is unfortunate. The increased length of the game also risks wearing on the player overtime – the NES game is great at around 20 minutes or so, but the MSX2 game can take roughly 40 minutes to beat – about twice the time. So, that makes it a bit less enticing to pick up and play.
Overall, it's not bad. Not great. It has some interesting ideas (such as the “rear gun”, which fires both forward and backward, in any direction you're aiming in – that's something the series would never revisit. Spread gun doesn't actually seem to exist here... so the best gun by far is the machine gun), but this game makes for a somewhat middling experience. It's whatever.