Contra playthrough without losing a life.

[Lendorien]

Friend and I used to play Contra 2-player. We didn't know about the Konami code, so eventually got good enough we could beat the game without using continues. We were NOT good enough to play it without dying once, or playing that way it single player!

[mbd30]

I beat this without dying for the first time the other night, after a few days of practice. Stages 5 and 7 (Snow Field and Hangar) gave me the most trouble. I don't think that stage 6 (Energy Zone) is as bad as people make it out to be. The temporary invincibility powerup lets you skip a lot of it.

[DJ Clae]

I can do that too. My brother and I should make a no miss video on 2-player mode.

[Austin]

I beat this without dying for the first time the other night, after a few days of practice. Stages 5 and 7 (Snow Field and Hangar) gave me the most trouble. I don't think that stage 6 (Energy Zone) is as bad as people make it out to be. The temporary invincibility powerup lets you skip a lot of it.

 

Nothing in this game is as bad as people make it out to be (unless we're talking the 7th or 8th loop of the game). You especially--having finished Battletoads and Adventure Island, you should be able to play this game with your eyes closed.

[DickNixonArisen]

Yeah I agree Contra isn't really in the top ten roughest titles; but it is a good mix of fairly difficult and tons of fun. I've no-deathed it four or five times and otherwise tend to get hit once or so. Once you're done memorizing everything really for me only the basic "football uniform" aliens offer any threat because their actions are more random. Of course, I always get and keep spread and R so; perfect runs with other weapons would be a lot tougher.

 

Austin; what do you mean by looping? The game starts over, but harder? I never noticed that.

[DickNixonArisen]

but I was definitely super pumped the first time I did it. I called literally everyone in my phone at 4am ish to let them all know. This was before widespread texting really... my friend Jordan was like

 

"gg..h.. h.. ..hh..wh? hello who is this? .. you .. what? huh? oh.. oh my god dude that's so cool. I'm seriously so glad you called me."

[mbd30]

 

Nothing in this game is as bad as people make it out to be (unless we're talking the 7th or 8th loop of the game). You especially--having finished Battletoads and Adventure Island, you should be able to play this game with your eyes closed.

 

 

Would you say that Contra is the easiest of the NES games that have a reputation for being very hard? The one hit deaths add to the difficulty somewhat, but the Ninja Gaidens and Castlevanias all have sections that are a lot tougher than anything in Contra. I still haven't no deathed the original Castlevania.

[DickNixonArisen]

Sheez the Gaidens are wayyy more demanding but DOABLE if you are a real psychotic. I got really good at 2 for a while there. I would agree that Contra is the easiest of the NES games that is known for being hard, yes. And honestly the difficulty curve, not the overall difficulty, is the battletoads problem. It just hits a cliff at the hoverboards; if that one section was toned down a bit it would've let kids get more practice on the Snake type platform and subsequent stuff. You just got to those levels so rarely as a kid so you couldn't memorize them well.

 

I think GnG pretty much deserves its reputation tho. Controls, sprite sizes, hit detection, your puny weapons, the red devils requiring so many hits..

[mbd30]

Sheez the Gaidens are wayyy more demanding but DOABLE if you are a real psychotic. I got really good at 2 for a while there. I would agree that Contra is the easiest of the NES games that is known for being hard, yes. And honestly the difficulty curve, not the overall difficulty, is the battletoads problem. It just hits a cliff at the hoverboards; if that one section was toned down a bit it would've let kids get more practice on the Snake type platform and subsequent stuff. You just got to those levels so rarely as a kid so you couldn't memorize them well.

 

I think GnG pretty much deserves its reputation tho. Controls, sprite sizes, hit detection, your puny weapons, the red devils requiring so many hits..

 

Battletoads is mostly memorization. It just takes patience. I mean, gamers will put in 40-70 hours to beat some modern game. Put that many hours into Battletoads and you can beat it legit.

 

Ghosts n Goblins is frustrating to the point of not being fun for me. I've never completed it, nor do I want to. Ghouls n Ghosts is better.

[DickNixonArisen]

I've beaten GnG and gotten pretty far in battletoads, but I kind of agree GnG was no longer really "fun" at all by that point and perfect runs on Contra are still fun. And the Gaidens are really fun despite being very difficult. Contra at least, usually, you could crawl through at your own pace, whereas say the some of the boss fights in Gaidens are just frantically paced and that's it.

 

Then there are games like Battle of Olympus, Deadly Towers, Zelda 2, Blaster Master - moderate "action difficulty" but stretched out across larger game worlds which are not terribly linear. in some senses just as "hard" esp before walkthroughs.

Ed: spelling

Edited July 30, 2017 by DickNixonArisen

[Austin]

Austin; what do you mean by looping? The game starts over, but harder? I never noticed that.

 

Yes, looping is when the game starts over and you can keep playing. Often times the difficulty will be increased, but it varies from game to game. In Contra, the difficulty ramps up considerably the more you loop it and what happens is more enemies will appear (usually the randomly spawning football soldiers) and larger enemies/bosses will take more hits to take out. I am not sure if Contra ever stops increasing in difficulty.

 

Would you say that Contra is the easiest of the NES games that have a reputation for being very hard? The one hit deaths add to the difficulty somewhat, but the Ninja Gaidens and Castlevanias all have sections that are a lot tougher than anything in Contra. I still haven't no deathed the original Castlevania.

 

Oh, absolutely. I don't know where its reputation for being "hard" ever came from either. I have thought about it and considered it potentially stemming from players who rely on the 30 man code. Rather than learning from their mistakes, they just push through the game without giving their deaths any real thought. Knowing that they've died nearly 30 times to finish it, the game must be hard then, right?

 

 

Battletoads is mostly memorization. It just takes patience. I mean, gamers will put in 40-70 hours to beat some modern game. Put that many hours into Battletoads and you can beat it legit.

 

Memorization is only part of the equation in Battletoads. Likely the biggest part, surely, but it also requires discipline, constant near-perfect timing, and a little bit of luck. 40+ hours may seem small in text, but when you're banging your head against the proverbial brick wall, it feels much longer (and more frustrating) than that.

[mbd30]

 

Memorization is only part of the equation in Battletoads. Likely the biggest part, surely, but it also requires discipline, constant near-perfect timing, and a little bit of luck. 40+ hours may seem small in text, but when you're banging your head against the proverbial brick wall, it feels much longer (and more frustrating) than that.

 

It helps that Battletoads is fun. Once you know how to beat it, it's fun to go through it again. On the other hand, something like Ghosts n Goblins is shorter and probably a little easier, but it's a chore to play.

[Austin]

 

It helps that Battletoads is fun. Once you know how to beat it, it's fun to go through it again. On the other hand, something like Ghosts n Goblins is shorter and probably a little easier, but it's a chore to play.

 

Eh, it depends. If you get so good at Ghost 'n Goblins to the point where it's nearly trivial to complete, you might think it's fun. I know I do with the other games in the series (Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, arcade Ghouls 'n Ghosts, arcade Ghosts 'n Goblins, etc).

[mbd30]

 

Eh, it depends. If you get so good at Ghost 'n Goblins to the point where it's nearly trivial to complete, you might think it's fun. I know I do with the other games in the series (Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, arcade Ghouls 'n Ghosts, arcade Ghosts 'n Goblins, etc).

 

I like and beat Ghouls n Ghosts on the Genesis and SNES. NES Ghosts n Goblins is a clunky Micronics port.

[Austin]

 

NES Ghosts n Goblins is a clunky Micronics port.

 

Thanks for reminder, Captain Obvious.

[mbd30]

 

Thanks for reminder, Captain Obvious.

[derFunkenstein]

That is pretty freaking outstanding. I have exactly one-time no-deathed a game, and it was Super Mario Bros, and it was using all the warp zones I could. LOL

 

This puts my to shame. I should hand in my gamer card.

[7800fan]

What about TMNT? Dealing with underwater bomb sucks.

[Torr]

What about TMNT? Dealing with underwater bomb sucks.

 

Bah... I'm in the camp that thinks TMNT is easy and Contra is hard!

 

TMNT is 'easy' until the Technodrome.... keeping all four turtles alive in there takes a LOT of skill, memorization, AND luck!

[Austin]

What about TMNT? Dealing with underwater bomb sucks.

 

Ha.. You haven't seen anything then. Try the final level.. ugh.

[DJ Clae]

The main problem with TMNT is that damn jump.