Contra (video game series)/YMMV

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  • Adaptation Displacement: Both Contra and Super Contra were originally released in the arcades, but the NES ports of these games are more popular than the arcade version.
  • Breather Boss: The Stage 7 boss in Contra 4.
  • Crowning Moment of Funny: Your reward for getting a rank of S in Shattered Soldier and Neo are this and this. Double as Crowning Moment of Awesome.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: Offered as a reward for trying Contra 4 on Hard Mode.
  • Dork Age: The Appaloosa-developed games released during the late 1990's.
  • Excuse Plot: In later games, deliberately used.
  • Game Breaker: The Spread Gun in the NES games, especially if combined with the Rapid Bullets power-up.
    • Brad Fang in Hard Corps with his Psychic Blaster (fully charged). Takes down bosses in two or three blasts. And considering that there are lots of bosses in Hard Corps... Hell, Brad is like designed to break Hard Corps, his other arsenals include a short range explosive punch which hits a lot for short range, and his upgraded first weapon is a much more rapid Spray Burst which decimates enemies real quick, and his other weapon is a mid-range flame thrower that moves to wherever Brad changes his aiming...
      • In the same game, Browny is half the size of the other characters, lowering the chance of getting hit tremendously, has a double jump and is in possession of the Electro-Yo-Yo: a homing, long-range electric spike-ball-tipped beam that pierces through just about every single obstacle and defenses in the game and deals insane, continuous damage. You hardly need to aim with the thing, allowing you to concentrate on just dodging.
  • It's Easy, So It Sucks: The opinion of many on Neo Contra.
  • It's Short, So It Sucks: Many peoples' opinions on the original arcade games, Neo, and Rebirth.
    • The arcade versions of the first two games were intentionally made to be short, as most arcade games are meant to play in short sessions. A perfect playthrough of either game can be done in less than ten minutes, which is an ideal time period if you're a kid in the 80's waiting for his mother to finish her grocery shopping.
  • Porting Disaster: Contra: The Alien Wars for the Game Boy and Contra Advance for the GBA.
  • Scrappy Mechanic: The use of both dual screens in Contra 4. In a game series where the player character can't take much punishment, the lack of visible space between them (to see incoming enemy bullets) can hinder things a fair bit.
  • So Cool Its Awesome: In spite of being insanely difficult (or because of it).
  • That One Level: Stage 4 of Neo Contra.
  • Uncanny Valley: One of the final bosses of Contra: Hard Corps is an alien whose first form has a face resembling a human woman that distorts hideously when hit.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Political?: At the time the earliest games were released, there was controversy over the US, under Ronald Reagan, supporting rebel groups in Nicaragua called the Contras, short for Contrarevolucionarios, or "Counter-Revolutionaries". This caused some minor controversy and may have contributed to European release of the arcade game being titled Gryzor (since support for the Contras was considered right-wing and heavily opposed in Europe) and why the NES version of Super Contra and the Game Boy Contra game were retitled Super C and Operation C respectively.
  • Woolseyism: The localizations of the first two NES games and Operation C changed the setting from the 27th century to the then-present (as well as the names of many of the characters). This became problematic when Contra III featured an obviously futuristic setting, so they had to change the main characters' name and claim that they were the descendants of the previous heroes.