Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start.
An intrepid gamer in the late 80s and early 90s knew that when a Konami game was booting up, this series of inputs would net the player a reward of some kind.
It generally came at the beginning of the adventure, and while it delivered to varying degrees depending on the title one was playing, the “Konami” code always signaled a new beginning or fresh start (though since the code never changed, it also inspired a feeling of familiarity?).
Probably more importantly, the Konami code represented the equivalent of a person starting on third base. It was a chance to beat the game (or at least gain the advantage) before the fight had even commenced.
It was also a fairly new concept for its time. Sure, you had Super Mario Bros. warp zones and other shortcuts available to you in other games, but generally not something you could do to affect the outcome of the game before it even kicked off.
And giving it a forbidden fruit vibe, it’s debatable whether the gamer was even “supposed” to use the code to begin with.
The Konami code, like the warp zones or other “cheats” that preceded it, was put into the game not to assist the gamer, but rather the programmers and designers who needed to get to later sections of the game in quicker fashion to do testing.
And it makes sense; putting these tricks into the game will increase productivity, so why not do it?
Once these cheats made it out into the wild, however, they were fair game for everyone to use, whether people were meant to have access to them or not. Not knowing made it almost illicit. Like, “Oooh, I’m part of the cool kids club because I know this thing I wasn’t supposed to know.”
Maybe this was a little silly. Despite public acknowledgement that the code only remained because of a lack of time to remove it, if we’re honest with ourselves, I think there was a wink there from the developers. Why would they keep the code the same from game to game if they positively didn’t want the end user to have it?
Moreover, the secrecy of the code evaporated fairly quickly. It eventually became so pervasive and ingrained in pop culture that it was deemed T-shirt worthy. It is a secret no more.
Regardless, this code made its first appearance in the 1986 NES port of the side-scrolling shooter Gradius – a very fine game with the code’s effect of course being beneficial (all power-ups attained) – but the code didn’t REALLY become synonymous with Konami or gaming in general until the release of Contra in 1988.
The difference here, with Contra, was significant.
Deliver those commands in quick enough fashion, and the player would be given 30 lives instead of 3, an improvement in odds so ridiculous that the entire context of the game itself is changed.
Instead of a brutally difficult game that allowed for no missteps whatsoever and required a thorough memorization of every step of the process, you’re left with a forgiving, breezy adventure that encourages repeat plays anyway (and said memorization that would occur a little more organically through desired – not forced – repetition).
“Contra is stupid hard and always has been.”
“What about the Konami code?”
“Well, yeah, okay, that made it easier.”
Presto, the entire game is different.
Not that it needed to be.
“Contra” at a glance:
Genre: Run-and-gun shooter
Released: 1988
Platform: NES
No. 13 on Game Informer’s best games ever
Contra, like Gradius, was a port of an arcade game. But in this case, the port was VASTLY superior to its arcade cousin, which had been a glitchy, unfair bullet avoidance platformer that didn’t actually let you avoid said bullets (all the better to suck more quarters out of you, my dear!)
Your character ran along a variety of topography looking like Commando or Rambo all jacked up on steroids and brandishing various ridiculous firearms.
What almost certainly made this level of violence palatable for parents and general audiences were the limited visuals, which of course reflected the hardware limitations of the time.
“Wait, you have a machine gun in this game?”
“Yeah, but look at the game. Just LOOK at it. That lizard guy is purple and pixelated as hell.”
“You have a point.”
Then again, back then we had Rambo and Robocop action figures for R-rated movies. It’s entirely probable most parents weren’t paying any attention at all.
The 80s were wild, man.
So anyway, the basic objective here is to run through a particular stage and gun down anything you encounter, popularizing the name and concept of a whole genre of video game, which you guessed it, is the “golf simulator.”
Ha, I’m kidding. These games were appropriately coined “run and guns.”
I recall playing this game at a buddy’s house and basically never tiring of it, despite not knowing what it actually was coming into it. We’d load up the two-player mode (another great point in the game’s favor), blast through the whole thing … and then one of us would suggest another run and we’d do it all over again. Over and over, blowing up dudes, weaponry, and aliens to our heart’s content.
The run and gun concept at the time, though it had existed in several previous titles, was still new and exciting and different (but mostly just fun) for mainstream audiences.
So yes, popularizing an entirely new category of game is certainly a point in Contra’s favor. And it did that because the base experience (as opposed to the one in the arcade) was such a good one.
I spoke to the memorization aspects earlier, and I really believe that to be the key to the whole deal here.
Yes, it has to reach a certain level of competence in visuals, music and style, and yes the controls have to be there, but once those elements are in place, it all comes down to a basic question:
Is the game fair?
Could one, in theory, take a bullet to the face, die, respawn, come back to that same point in the game, learn from one’s mistake, avoid that bullet in the face and advance further in the game (only to take a bullet in the groin instead)?
Yes! The answer was a resounding yes.
“You too can take a bullet to the groin!”
The game also provided the occasional happy accident situation where you simply tried to avoid taking a hit by any means necessary, only to inadvertently survive by sheer dumb luck and learn a new path in the process.
Granted, those situations were less common, but if they didn’t exist at all, if you were instead repeatedly greeted with “bullet hell” with no means of escape whatsoever, you’d be left with a recreation of the arcade experience, which as we’ve already established, was as appetizing as a bag of moldy onions.
So yes, the Konami code changed the game. But the core game was good enough to stand on its own merits.
A person can play this game with the code and have the aforementioned breezy experience. Or they can punish themselves and force the necessary memorization because they like the challenge. But either method works. The game works either way.
The NES version of Contra was successful enough upon release for Konami to create an army of sequels. By my count, we’re at something like 15 games in the series now, give or take. (This is fuzzy because you can define all the various ports in differing ways.)
A bunch of those games are really good! But none of those games, and indeed perhaps few subsequent games in the entire run-and-gun genre, happen without this one.
This was the kick-starter.
So what makes it worth playing today?
If you’ve been reading along with this series, or really just dabbled with retro gaming at large, a couple of primary considerations are liable to influence any desire to pick up an older game.
Was it historically important?
And…
Was it good?
That second one is naturally more important, and by a significant margin. A game could be a real oddball, a genuine loser of a game, unpopular and in no way inventive or interesting.
But if it’s good? People will still want to play it.
But …
That first point matters too. It just does.
Why should I spend my time going back and playing games that didn’t have any sort of lasting impact on the industry? Games that, for lack of better phrasing, didn’t matter?
Sure, you can have fun doing that. I’m all for fun. But given time constraints and the sheer unending volume of games to play, there has to be a cut-off somewhere. And it seems to me trying to understand the history of the medium is part of the point in going back and playing some of the older stuff.
Contra, as you may have learned by now, was both historically relevant AND absolutely great.
You owe it to yourself to play this game.
Just remember:
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start.
Dave’s Score: 10/10
Check out the whole Retro Gaming Essentials list here!
How to play
- Original hardware (NES)
- Konami Collector’s Series: Castlevania and Contra (Windows)
- Contra 4 unlockable (Nintendo DS)
- Contra Anniversary Collection (Switch, Steam, Xbox, Playstation)