Episode 593: The Contra Ranking Hootenanny

Stuart:Hello there, my darlings. Would you like to listen to a really, really long mega-ranking of every single Contra game ever? You’d think myself, John Linneman, Thomas Nickel, and Audi Sorlie might tire in the process of such a task, but… we didn’t. The energy stayed high, the opinions and anecdotes stayed flowing, and… in my admittedly biased opinion… I think we got a pretty damn good episode out of it!

See, WayForward are beavering away on a brand new entry in the series, Contra: Operation Galuga. Before that came out, I wanted to line up the other console and handheld games in the series and get them all nice and ranked, but I wasn’t sure who to bring in. Thankfully, what I’m now calling the Euronauts were all keen to pass around the Conch...tra. That joke didn’t really work at all. It was a Lord of the Flies thing, you know, the conch shell. For talking. Because it’s a podcast, and—look, just forget it.

Sixteen games are covered here. You know the format. We all rank the games then give our respective numbers. It ain’t rocket science. Because it is, in fact, rocket math*. Indeed, we rocket through the NES, SNES, Mega Drive, Game Boy, GBA, PlayStation, Saturn, PS2, Xbox 360 and PS4 in this round-up. I’ve probably missed at least one system there, but the bottom line is we covered everything I thought it made sense to cover, and hopefully you’ll agree. Sound off in the comments with your own favourite Contra titles, my dear, sweet little Nauties.

*s.

Edits by Greg Leahy. Art by Leeann Hamilton.

• 08:00 - Contra (NES): Jungle Battle
• 14:38 - Super C (NES): Lightning and Grenades
• 23:21 - Operation C: Area 2
• 31:06 - Operation C: Area 2 (cont.) | Contra III: The Alien Wars (SNES): Ground Zero
• 50:41 - Contra III: The Alien Wars (SNES): Neo Kobe Steel Factory
• 1:01:34 - Contra Force: Stage 1
• 1:11:28 - Contra: Hard Corps: The Hard Corps
• 1:28:24 - Contra: Hard Corps: Last Springsteen
• 1:43:19 - Contra: Legacy of War: Final Stage (Part II)
• 1:54:43 - C: The Contra Adventure: Stage 1
• 2:07:31 - Contra: Shattered Soldier: Sky to the Ocean
• 2:18:26 - Neo Contra: Safety First (Stage 1, Section 1)
• 2:31:02 - Neo Contra: Battle Train Redux (Stage 2, Section 1)
• 2:49:49 - Contra 4: Jungle (Stage 1, Easy/Normal)
• 3:03:26 - Contra ReBirth: Another Medley (CD Bonus Track - Operation C Ending)
• 3:15:22 - Hard Corps: Uprising: Stage 1 - Desert
• 3:33:05 - Contra: Rogue Corps: Invasion
• Closing - Contra III: The Alien Wars (SNES): Cease Fire