Originally published at: Review | Contra: Operation Galuga - XboxEra
Nothing beats a good run ‘n gun, particularly with a couple of friends. And what other game series can indulge you in the genre better than the ‘Contra’ series, with developer WayForward and publisher Konami bringing us a remake of the first Contra: dubbed ‘Contra: Operation Galuga’, the Contra duo are sent in to the island of Galuga, where mercs working against their will and aliens are all ready to shred you to pieces in what can be a very challenging run ‘n gun experience.
Galuga takes players through eight stages of the main story, with additional speedrun and challenge levels available in challenge mode. The main story offers two player cooperative play and arcade up to four. Playing the story mode unlocks characters for arcade mode use, but said unlocked characters cannot be used in earlier story mode stages. Each modes also allows you to choose difficulty but also whether or not you want to have a health system or lose a life immediately upon being hit. As much as I like my ‘Metal Slugs’, it’s nice to have a system that lets you run ‘n gun without too much trouble and it helps ease in players that are new to the genre.
Speaking of which, Operation Galuga plays and controls very nice. Bill Rizer and company control like a dream (no surprise there, given the developer) and each have their own abilities that let you tackle challenges head on or get a little tactical. As you run and gun, you’ll find weapon pick ups that make taking on foes just a bit easier, depending on the stage and the current gimmick. Some character abilities, such as Lucia’s grappling hook, feel a little useless due to the game’s level design, however (and I’ll touch on that shortly).
Completing stages rewards you credits and said credits can be spent at the Perk Shop, where you can get additional lives or ability enhancements for the cast. On level load you select up to two perks to take with you, and I personally found the “heal on Overload” perk to be the most useful. Typing in the KONAMI code while the game is booting also gets you the original score to play with as well, complimenting the remake’s solid score.
The Overload mechanic is part of your arsenal of things, where you sacrifice your current weapon pick up for an additional effect or bonus weapon for a couple of seconds. It’s super useful in clearing rooms and it’s especially necessary in this game as there are constant weapon drops and lots of baddies on screen. And while I liked this mechanic, it does feel like a bit of a crutch to one of the issues I have with this game: its levels.
Operation Galuga’s levels leave a lot to be desired, even if it is a remake of the original Contra. The main stages have players running and gunning and then occasionally ride on vehicles to change up gameplay. But a lot of stages end up feeling a lot longer than they should be, and I think that’s because it doesn’t move onto the next gimmick quickly enough. What you’ll sometimes feel like you’re doing is shooting endless amounts of bad guys over and over again without much difficulty and sometimes outright just anchoring in one spot while doing so. The boss fights are fun but are otherwise a brief moment of respite from what are otherwise long hallways where the next segment of action just takes too long to arrive. On the bright side, the story segments were entertaining and I like Steve Blum, so some of the boredom was taken away.
Now the final level actually does offer a nice change of pace, but its a shame it takes so long to get there. The temple-themed level prior to it is fairly obnoxious, its only notable mainstays being that you’ll fight more scenery than bad guys—and it’s more so annoying when you’re primarily playing in eight directions as opposed to 360 aiming, as you will have you switch to precision aiming even to clear out enemies that are in front of you. This stage’s gimmick also has brief moments where you’re reliant on crystal reflections to progress, which I’m not big of a fan of, but it highlights the 3D visuals developer WayForward has gone with for Operation Galuga.
This is the first I’ve seen the developer utilise full 3D for its games, as previously they’d rely on it for stage sets all the while keeping actors as 2D sprites. While 3D allowed the game some cool action shots, I ultimately didn’t find the visuals very appealing as it feels like characters and stages lack definition and shading. As for the rest of the levels, they are filled to the brim with traps and enemies ready to pounce at you from off-screen all the time. This genre has always been about knowledge checks, so I’m not worried about dying a bunch as on a second playthrough I was able to more or less breeze through the coop.
On a lesser note, this game doesn’t offer online cooperative play. While its not the end of the world (and I much prefer local play for these kinds of games), I feel it should be standard especially for the price point (as a favourite of mine, ‘Hard Corps: Uprising’ does). As the developer has patched online support into their previous games, I hope they can do the same here.
A new score and weapon mechanic compliments Contra: Operation Galuga’s fun gameplay, but they can’t cover for levels that feel poorly paced and uninteresting enemy design. ■