Contra: Operation Galuga breathes new life into the iconic 80s run ‘n gun classic. Known by us PAL-region dwellers as Probotector, this reimagining pays homage to the original while injecting fresh excitement into the beloved franchise.
I recall spending many hours in a friend’s basement playing Super Probotector: Alien Rebels (Contra III: The Alien Wars). As soon as I learned of this reimagining, I was keen to get my hands on it and start the double jumping, frantic running and gunning action I fondly remembered.
Sound and Visuals: Reloaded and Remastered
From the retro title screen jingle to the slick animation as the burning ‘C’ of Contra appears on screen, you can tell a lot of care and love has gone into this game.
The art style of the character portraits is clean and screams 80-90s action hero. These images have a crisp comic book style and offer insight into each character’s personality.
Each character’s personality is further expressed through excellent voice work, even if it’s a bit cheesy at times (I enjoyed the cheese!).
Bill Rizer sounds exactly like he looks, gruff and gritty, which is the opposite of Lance Bean’s more cold and calculating performance (Lance or ‘the red Probotector’ was always my choice, likely because my older brother always made me Player 2).
Contra: Operation Galuga features a completely remastered soundtrack, made up of the original game’s Contra tracks. They sound great and really helped to establish this new iteration while still staying faithful to the source material.
Through playing, you’re able to unlock bonus music tracks, including classic Konami themes (hello, Castlevania!). This was a nice addition and only helped fuel the nostalgia fire even further.
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Level Perspective: Pay Attention!
Every aspect of Contra: Operation Galuga looks great and is impressively detailed.
Vibrant colours and constant shifts in environments help to make things feel fresh and provide new challenges.
As someone who is easily distracted, I found myself often trying to see what was happening in the background of levels, as little details popped up here and there (often leading to my death). Characters running around, or helicopters being shot down, helped bring each level to life — a huge step up from the original game.
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Some later levels add clever perspective shifts, something I wish they pursued more to further elevate the game from its original.
Gameplay: Run ‘n’ Gun Galore
Gameplay is exactly what you’d expect if you played any of the original Contra titles. It’s run-and-gun action across a 2D plane, always moving forward, with enemies coming at you from all directions.
All the original weapons are here, including the Machine Gun, Flame Weapon, Laser Beam, Homing Missile, Crush Bombs, and — my personal favourite — the Spread Shot.
Weapons have two levels of power, each acquired by collecting the same power up twice, as well as a new overload feature. The Spread Shot, for instance, when overloaded shoots red bouncing bullets all over the screen for a few seconds, and Laser Beam freezes or slows all enemies enabling you to blast them to bits with ease!
Overloading a weapon means you lose it, however, if it’s level two it’ll just drop down to level one. This feature introduces an additional layer of tactics and strategy to the game, enriching the otherwise basic combat experience.
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Unique Weapons: Black Hole Gun, Anyone?
Depending on your character choice, certain weapons may evolve after they level up. Bill and Lance’s Crush Bombs are missiles that fire straight before exploding, then they turn into a black hole gun at level two. Ariana, however, shoots out cluster bombs in an arc that bounce around before exploding in a radius.
To further differentiate the characters, they each come with different abilities and health amounts. Bill and Lance can double jump and dash, Ariana can slide and the high-tech, armoured Stanley can hover and grapple to the ceiling.
On top of these differences, each character can be equipped with two perks, bought through the Perk Shop using credits. Credits are earned through gameplay, no microtransactions here! Perks include extra abilities, increased health, instant level two weapons — just to name a few.
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The Perk shop is also where you can unlock extra characters not earned in Story Mode, and the aforementioned retro soundtracks.
Story, Arcade and Challenges: 80’s Arcade Nostalgia with a Twist!
There’s three different modes of play: Story Mode, Arcade and Challenge Mode, each with various difficulty settings. The staple easy to hard difficulty settings are on offer, but you also can choose a perk to assist you further. Health bar mode enables you to take a few more bullets to the face, and the classic one-hit-kill mode is available too.
Story Mode offers an eight-level experience, either solo or with up to two players, which can be completed in just a couple hours. The reimagined story is essentially the same experience as the original game, with added cutscenes to explain what is happening and introduce new characters — most notably Ariana, a native tribal warrior and protector of the titular island of Galuga.
Classic bosses have returned, some have remained the same, though others have been rejigged with some fun perspective shifts.
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It also features some new twists (which I won’t spoil), adding to the piles of fun already on offer. For this sort of game, I wasn’t expecting much of a story but it’s entertaining and well-presented — cheesy dialogue and all.
Hungry For More
It would’ve been nice to have a bit more meat to the story; expanded levels and such. While it stays faithful to the original in terms of length, my enjoyment was purely from a nostalgic perspective. As I get older, I find I enjoy shorter affairs with my gaming… I’m not sure new fans and ‘hardcore gamers’ will view it with the same lens.
Arcade Mode is Story Mode without the cutscenes and up to four-players can partake. This mode is perfect for playing with friends and is the closest thing to the original experience. Arcade Mode was where I sunk most of my time, pushing for the highest score to earn credits for the Perk Shop.
Challenge Mode is where you can polish your bullet dodging and double jumping, with seven different playable challenges. Each challenge has a par time to beat and you get credits as your reward — these were great fun.
There’s also a speedrun mode for players to truly test their abilities.
Is It Worth the Price Tag?
Contra: Operation Galuga is a great reimagining of the franchise which shows love and respect for its roots. The new features and characters complement the heart of Contra, helping to modernise the gameplay. It manages to do this without losing traditional elements, nostalgic to those of us who grew up during this era of gaming.
But at $70, is there enough here to warrant that price tag? Unfortunately, I don’t think the majority of gamers will feel there is. What’s on offer, whilst highly polished, is not enough to feel like I’ve received my money’s worth — more so for new gamers to the franchise, without nostalgia to drive them.
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In an age where $20-50 Indie games are redefining genres and becoming mainstays of gaming, it’s hard to justify the price tag. This is a shame for this old gamer, as these sorts of games were a staple of my childhood and I long for the days of yore, where I don’t have to spend 100s of hours just to see the credits.
Contra: Operation Galuga is coming to PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch on March 12th, 2024.
Quest Daily Scores Contra: Operation Galuga:
7/10
Early review access to Contra: Operation Galuga was provided by the publisher.
