Thanks god for gamepass.
I was dead set on grabbing it on Switch but I'm glad I didn't.
CONTRA is one of my favorite series, as is everything run&gun/shmup.
I think the game only looks the part, on the whole it's a pale imitation which doesn't hold on its own. It pains me to day this because, like Battle Princess Madelyne did for G'nG (another fav of mind) before, I'm just glad games like this are being made but under the shiny first impression, I don't find the result very good and honestly a bit of a waste.
Minor gripe: those are some shitty filters.
At least give the option for just scanlines or at least a Flat CRT RGB (some of us were lucky enough to own Sony WEGA 4:3 34" CRT flatscreens).
I've only beat the first 4 missions on Normal but I think it's enough to form an opinion.
The level design, enemies placement and pace is just painfully mediocre and derivative. Just plain two-level platforms where only the bg is different: I mean, Alien Wars was a tour the force constantly one-upping itself throwing you on the craziest and most adrenaline fueled situations the devs could think of. There's none of that in the first 4 levels of B.C.
The weapons suck. I would still enjoy a derivative Contra clone with good pixel art any day of the week, and despite the (imo) bad weapons selection the gunplay is the best thing about the game (together with the gfx and nailing the Megadrive aesthetics) but I just don't find Blazing Chrome any fun to play imo. I just kept playing cause wanted to see what the next level would look but I definitely wasn't finding the gameplay interesting.
As a carbon-copy of Alien Wars it sure fails to deliver on copying the nuances of its gameplay: there's zero space for improvisation and you need to constantly use the lock (also fuck not allowing me to rebind the controls! Lock on RB is awful) if you want to stay alive and not credit feed.
Well, I wrote more than I wanted to, I think I gave a clear idea on how I feel towards B.C. but I'm glad most of you have been enjoying it! We definitely need more games like these and I applaud the devs choice to go for the 16bit aesthetics and pulling it off so well.... that's a lot of work and a lot of talent involved!
