US biased NES history mostly, where it does seem to have been a big deal. Spirits / 3 / Super Probotecter did well everywhere when new(deservedly). The home 8bit ports got onto a bunch of compilations, so were well known but never as a god game. Decent reviews, never great. Like the arcade games
Joe Euro never even heard of Contra until SFC Spirits if they were lucky. Gryzor / Probotector land When new, Gameboy ver basically unknown. Hard Corp, basically unknown & only got OK reviews, hence why now 'OMG rare'. PS1 games were memes. PS2 games were too but are now semi-respected
later Gameboy stuff was all re-hash, remakes tldr, out of a ton of OG games in the 80s-90s only 1 was big everywhere (SNES) & 1 was big in US (NES), with a side of Super C there too. 8bit Gryzor was pretty ubiquitous in Europe. Japan had a lot of games but none were ever 'biggest thing ever'
It seems bigger than it ever was at the time but with so many games, so many regional variants, so many that never crossed regions etc there's much more to talk about 'these days'
I suppose that's all valid- tbf the only thing brought up that I didn'f really know was that Hard Corps. only scored ok at the time, I always assumed that rated high (but you know what they say about assuming). Either way yeah I do suspect "it seems bigger than it was" is in effect
as is American NES Bias but again even accounting for that its still kinda nuts to me in some ways that NES OG Contra was as big as it was over there but as AS pointed out, lotta those folks absolutely played and still play w/ ye olde Konami Code so the brutalness is less immediately evident
i'm also kind of surprised the PS2 games were a bit memed on initially but I'm also not surprised at all because like, I've seen the Contra Neo intro sequence, I can imagine how well that mist've gone down particularly with US Contra Heads at the time lmao
Late era games, wonky 3D, not much like the NES game, edgy styling with mostly dark / dull graphics. Nobody gave a shit & reviews were much as you'd expect Try finding people hyping them up pre idk, a decade ago
there almost certainly isn't because unfortunately many people are weak and unable to accept that "janky" 3D is Good, Actually, because they lack the refined taste of individuals such as myself 🍷 (though I will grant you Shin Contra is very brown. incredibly brown, actually.)
i joke obviously but i do have to like, stop being surprised by these things. it's not even a case of "oh they're praised a lot now so I guess they always were", its usually "well *I* think Thing is cool so surely a significant majority also think Thing is cool". not consciously,
and not in a huff-my-own-farts "i'm the arbiter of all taste" way, I just tend to forget objectivity is a thing lmao. which, given how many of my favourite things are the underdog or even flat out disliked, you'd think i'd already know better
contra is also the unofficial mascot game of the famicom in regions that relied on piracy.
also very true!
being the OG for being referred to as a run n gun def hasn't hurt it either But it's like any big series. Some huge games when new in some regions, that are more relevant worldwide now than they were at the time Try finding a Euro gamer who knew what a Dragon Quest was pre-93, let alone played one
Dragon Quest? that some sort of sequel to Dragon Saber or something? (please_laugh.tiff)