"Clock Tower: Rewind comes with a bunch of fun bonuses like old strategy guides and dev interviews"

The 1995 port includes new translations in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese, but other than that, it’s the same16-bit game from 1995. Rewind includes all the content from The First Fear along with the ability to rewind gameplay, create save states, some additional Scissorman hiding places (more on that later), and some quality of life enhancements like running up stairs. Some cool extra goodies also come packed with Rewind, ranging from motion comics, dev interviews, a soundtrack player, an animated intro, vocal songs, and a bit more. I particularly appreciate the inclusion of the original instruction manual and strategy guide, even with its Japanese-only text. Although Clock Tower Rewind clearly has a lot of love put into its quality of life and content, the game itself requires a lot of patience and appreciation for archaic point and click design. Let’s go over what makes Clock Tower tick and what keeps it stuck in the past.

Let’s start with an icebreaker: Clock Tower is a quintessential point and click hidden object adventure game and isn’t ashamed of it. If you don’t have the patience for old-school adventure games, Clock Tower’s horror goodness won’t compensate for that archaic style of gameplay.

"Running from the dreaded Scissorman can be a chore thanks to slow walking animations, but at least this version adds running to stairways."

Your primary objective in Clock Tower is avoiding the deadly Scissorman by hiding and ultimately looking for a way to escape the deadly Barrows family manor. Navigation is accomplished by holding left/right run buttons and clicking on interactable objects and doors. The Rewind version allows Jennifer to run up and down stairs instead of merely walk, which speeds up gameplay flow a bit from the original. That said, you still have to wait for laboriously slow walking animations to finish whenever you interact with something. This is compounded by Jennifer walking to a location and back to her previous spot again with no urgency whatsoever, making you wait twice as long for the lengthy animation to finish. Double clicking makes her run to the interactable, but only for some of them. Thankfully, the animations themselves are from the glory days of the Super Famicom and are a delight to look at, but that doesn’t take away from the monotony of all the waiting.

"Progression typically involves obtuse adventure game logic like using items on random parts of the environment in a specific order"

When you’re not waiting around for Jennifer to get to her destination, you are pixel-hunting environments for usable objects and clues. In typical adventure game fashion, the way forward (pun intended) often requires a tiny object and its corresponding interactable within the environment. You have no way to figure certain things out except the trial and error involved with using objects on random environments. The logic behind these applications is often very obscure, though Clock Tower could hardly be considered the worst offender of this kind of adventure game logic. Guidance is just something Clock Tower doesn’t do well, even in the Rewind version. Not that I want such an atmospherically rich game to spell everything out with objective markers and yellow paint, but subtle hints now and then could’ve helped massage the obtuseness of the original game.

"You can temporarily stun Scissorman by pressing the ‘panic’ button, but he’ll continue to chase you until you find a proper hiding spot"

Still, it wasn’t the obscure adventure game logic that finally made me cave in and use a walkthrough; no, it was the constant running away from Scissorman. Scissorman is your only consistent threat throughout the game, popping up in random areas like bathtubs and dressers. To the game’s credit, these chases can be exhilarating and terrifying. No punches are pulled with some of the deaths, and the sound effects and accompanying music stir up anxiety almost too well. But after your first couple deaths to Scissorman, the charm starts to wear off as you look for hiding places and ways to stop him. Such a large portion of my playtime was spent just running away from this threat, and it was rarely fun. For one, you are locked out of interacting with objects in rooms while Scissorman is in pursuit, mandating backtracking to retrieve such items. Once you figure out successful hiding places and ways to throw off the pursuer, the chase whittles down to formulaic backtracking to the hiding spot, something that takes too long due to Jennifer’s slow run speed and door-opening animations.

The quality-of-life features don’t quite do enough to get over the clunky and glacially slow pacing of the game either. For example, the rewind feature only goes back 10 seconds, which rarely gives you enough time to avoid a Scissorman attack or prevent a character death. Also, the more aggressive Scissorman AI present in this Rewind version only compounds the irritating issues bogging down the chases, making you backtrack into rooms for safety more frequently and padding the game further. Don’t get me wrong, the concept of these Scissorman chases is rich with potential, something more modern horror games have since capitalized on. But when done with the point and click control scheme and slow pacing, these chase sequences feel redundant and irritating.

"Environments have brilliant lighting and detailed spritework, emphasizing the dark atmosphere of Barrows Manor perfectly"

By contrast, I have nothing but compliments to give to Clock Tower’s atmosphere and story. The game starts off more or less how you’d expect; a group of orphans visiting their new home for the first time when the smart one of the group, Jennifer, senses something off. There’s a surprising amount of lore and history behind the spooky Barrows manor and its demented owners.

Better yet, the story is unraveled through subtle gameplay discoveries as you explore the mansion, with several details being entirely missable depending on the decisions you make and ending you get. While some of the nine endings are similar to each other, others take a drastically different turn resulting in Jennifer’s demise or even worse. The backstory and reveal surrounding the Barrows family is really well done and worth experiencing, with brilliant ‘show, don’t tell’ exposition and striking visual storytelling utilizing all of the resources a 16-bit console could dish out. There’s a phenomenal sequence in the cave section that rivals some of the best visual moments in the genre.

Complimenting the visual storytelling is the exquisite spritework. There’s some good attention to detail with the room layouts and animations. Putting a bow on everything is the atmospheric soundtrack, clearly influenced by John Carpenter with its shrill strings and dissonant stabs. The minimalistic way the music and sound effects accompany the journey through the manor has inspired many future horror classics like Silent Hill and Resident Evil, and it’s easy to see why with this remaster.

"Shock scare moments occur when exploring, some of which are wonderfully animated"

Clock Tower is a game stuck in the past despite the handful of new conveniences. There’s only so much that can done to improve a point and click game without altering the mechanics entirely. When played using a walkthrough, Clock Tower supplies an atmospherically rich experience with some irritating, but doable gameplay. For hardcore horror fans or old-school point and click adventure game players, Clock Tower Rewind comes as a strongly recommended title. Just know what you’re getting into beforehand because the archaic puzzle solutions and lack of direction serve as a roadblock to enjoying this classic horror experience.

This game was reviewed on PC.

NOTE: This interview was conducted prior to the game’s launch.

"In the case of Clock Tower: Rewind, we offer both a standard “Original” version of the game (with only the language adjusted) as well as the “Rewind” version, which adds missing content back into the title and makes minor quality-of-life changes. This way, players can enjoy the game as it was originally, or a slightly updated version of the game, without having only one of the two options."

What prompted the decision to bring Clock Tower back so long after its release? 

After the success we had porting Shin Nekketsu Kōha: Kunio-tachi no Banka to modern consoles (as River City Girls Zero) we discussed what other titles could be brought over in the same fashion. We look for games that are well-known in the USA and EUR, but have not had an official release. The original Super Famicom version of Clock Tower was never released here, in spite of being such an influential series of horror games, so that seemed like a perfect candidate.

With this being Clock Tower’s first official release outside of Japan, can you talk us through the writing and localization process? What kind of work went into ensuring the remaster retains the original’s spirit?

WayForward extracted the original game text and translated it into English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish. Our Japanese-to-English translation was tackled by a WayForward staffer who was raised in Japan, and speaks Japanese natively. Once that was done, we made minor adjustments to phrasing to be as natural-sounding as possible for English-speaking gamers, then re-implemented the translated text back into the game.

Given the survival horror genre’s resurgence, was there ever a discussion to enhance Clock Tower in more comprehensive ways, or was it always the goal to remaster the original and modernize it without changing things too significantly?

With these “port plus” releases, it’s the first time USA and EUR gamers are ever officially playing these titles. So with both the games mentioned, as well as potential future titles we are planning, we want to be careful not to change too much. In the case of Clock Tower: Rewind, we offer both a standard “Original” version of the game (with only the language adjusted) as well as the “Rewind” version, which adds missing content back into the title and makes minor quality-of-life changes. This way, players can enjoy the game as it was originally, or a slightly updated version of the game, without having only one of the two options.

"The team really loved diving into this world, especially with the new elements like the animated intro and songs, which were all produced brand new."

Clock Tower: Rewind will feature some new cutscenes, a new theme song, and a new opening. What was it like working on new creative content for a game that originally released so long ago?

The team really loved diving into this world, especially with the new elements like the animated intro and songs, which were all produced brand new. For the motion comics, we scanned old mangas produced around the classic game’s release — one for a strategy guide, one for a PlayStation special edition of the game — and translated, voiced, and animated those. We also added a jukebox player for all the music tracks (new and old), an art gallery viewer, a new interview with Kono-san (the game’s original director), and a Japanese store kiosk demo version of the game as well. It’s a pretty robust package.

Can you talk us through some of the key gameplay and quality-of-life enhancements that players can expect in Clock Tower: Rewind?

Some of the encounters, rooms, and moments planned for the original game either didn’t make it in, or were added to the later PlayStation port. We were able to fold all that content back in for the Rewind version of the game. We also fixed various bugs, made improvements to Jennifer’s stamina, and made Scissorman even more relentless and threatening.

Somewhere down the line, would you like to develop a ground up remake of Clock Tower?

We would love to work with this brand and with Sunsoft again! Whether that might be a remake or a brand-new game is to be determined. But if this version of the game sells well, I think it’s likely we would collaborate further in some way with this brand.

"Some of the encounters, rooms, and moments planned for the original game either didn’t make it in, or were added to the later PlayStation port. We were able to fold all that content back in for the Rewind version of the game."

As a developer, what are your thoughts on the PS5 Pro? How does boost in GPU help in developing your game compared to the base PS5?

As a developer, we are always trying to push the amount of content and visual polish in our games, which is always a battle against system resources. We’re very excited at how the PS5 Pro might make WayForward’s upcoming titles even more impressive than what’s come before.

What are your thoughts on PSSR? What kind of opportunities will this open for the game?

We’re very curious how this might positively impact our games on the system. I don’t imagine there will be any difference in a low-resolution pixel game such as Clock Tower, but the positive implications for our other 3D titles look promising.

Yars Rising drew me into its world as soon as I saw its strikingly colorful art style. And the sharp colors aren’t just for show either, serving as a thematic evolution of the binary, yet strong color usage of the original Yars Revenge on the Atari 2600. The bold use of neon blues and pinks carries over into the menus and UI, oozing with stylish animations and cool little details. Speaking of animation, Emi and the supporting cast display a good amount of emotion and nuance considering how mid-budget this game is. Every new ability you get has a unique animation paired with it, and it all looks fluid and sleek in motion. Everywhere you look in Yars Rising will be pleasant for the eyes, but it’s also a feast for the ears.

Whether it’s the sea shanties of Shantae or the energetic beats of River City Girls, WayForward is known for their quality music. Yars Rising continues this trend with a disco-laced soundscape featuring a surprising amount of vocal tracks. I can’t express how absolutely ingrained a few of these tracks got in my head; they’ve been repeating since I started playing this for review and haven’t left since. The groovy music accompanies the high tech atmosphere of Qotech’s hallways well, and there’s even some in-game earbuds that tell you the track name and musician as the particular song plays.

"The map in Yars Rising tells you everything you need to know at a glance."

You’ll be soaking in the rich sights and sounds of Yars Rising as you traverse a traditional platforming structure. Emi slowly adds more ‘Yar abilities’ to her arsenal, gaining her entry into previously closed off areas of the map. The map in Yars Rising is about as good as you can ask for. Everything you need to know is indicated at-a-glance. The floors of Qotech are easy to discern, with crystal clear color coding. Red areas indicate that you don’t have the abilities to enter that location yet, while white areas inform that you can go there. It’s a testament to the map and the area design that I never once got lost while navigating Qotech’s halls.

Though, there are some gripes that I have with the level design itself. For one, there’s not as many shortcuts or looping design elements as I’d expect from a platformer. If you want a shortcut, the only option is using the elevators, sparsely placed at the end of particular hallways. To compound the lack of interconnectivity is the complete omission of fast travel. I don’t need a fast travel in every platformer, but the rooms in Yars Rising are often separated by lengthy loading screens, making a fast travel option that much more necessary.

Regrettably, the pacing suffers significantly from these frequent loading screens. Backtracking isn’t as smooth or fun as it should be because every couple rooms or so greets you with another dreadful loading screen. Skipping levels by using the elevator can only alleviate so much, since that too is accompanied by a loading screen. At least you’re not backtracking too much in the game, as the path of the main story mostly tackles new rooms and environments. Aside from persistent loading times and a desire for more shortcuts, Yars Rising has a strong platforming structure that will satisfy most fans of the genre.

A platformer is nothing without solid controls, and Yars Rising satisfies on this front. Jumping is non-committal and precise, allowing for correction when your arc is leading to a laser or other obstacle. Your basic Zorlon Shot cannot be held down for automatic shooting though, requiring manual inputs to fire bullets. I didn’t mind manually tapping the shoot button, but other players may find the lack of an auto shoot irritating. I found the stealth to be rather fun. You can slowly tilt the control stick to slow walk, or press a trigger button to do so in a binary fashion. Enemy patrol units all outline predictable routes, making your sneaky infiltrations as irritant-free as possible. And if you miss a ledge above you, Emi will hang and mount up it if you’re close enough, so that’s another convenience.

"Death pits are indicated by purple mist. Yars Rising does a good job with its visual distinction."

I also appreciate how conveniently color coded deadly pits are. I still encounter modern platformers that don’t distinguish between a death pit and an explorable area below; Yars Rising does this with its purple haze swirling around the deadly ones. The game exhibits great visual distinction across the board, with every missile and ledge boldly outlined for you to easily discern.

Emi does more than just run and jump though. Her augmented abilities open up new areas and bolster her offensive weaponry against the Qotile forces. Abilities are divided between Biohacks, which are small passive buffs, and new powers like wall jumping, which are Augments. You obtain both upgrade types by hacking a terminal and playing a creatively arranged stage from the classic Yar’s Revenge Atari game. The primary goal of these classic arcade minigames is to shoot the missile (usually located behind your Yar) at the opposing Qotile. This basic concept gets arranged in some really neat ways, always surprising and keeping me on my toes throughout the span of the main game. Oh, also, the UI for these minigames is staggeringly cool. The amount of info presented on the arcade UI while moving the little Yar around is insane, and the portrait of Emi reacting to her gameplay is wonderful. I simply loved playing these classic arcade games and found the gameplay variety between them and the normal platforming to be refreshing.

"The hacking minigames comprise fun variations on the classic Yar’s Revenge Atari game."

If you want to just play the classic Yars game without all the modern platforming, there’s a mode in the main menu made just for that. Emi’s Hacklist compiles every Yars minigame found in Yars Rising and saves your high scores, making for good old fashioned retro fun. That said, if you’re not keen to play these classic Yars minigames at all, you can turn on minigame invincibility in the menu settings and get through them pretty quickly without much fuss. The Biohacks you earn from playing these minigames can be equipped by placing Tetris-like blocks on a Yar-shaped grid. The buffs allow you to customize your playstyle in flexible ways, granting you health increase, faster hacking minigame speed, or even a three-way Zorlon Shot.

Most of the footage for this review was taken during the early stages before acquiring the air dash or super missile Augments, so don’t let the basic run and gun moments fool you. By the second half of the game, you’ll be wall jumping, air dashing, and breaking through locked doors like nobody’s business. The game has some fun boss battles that require you to use your full arsenal of augmented abilities. These boss battles remind me of Mega Man robot masters in a way, but there’s only a total of 5 throughout the game, so they’re few and far between. But these augmented abilities do more than serve a combat role, they’re a core part of the game’s story.

"Emi is constantly quipping with voiced narration throughout the adventure"

As you could have guessed from the cover art, Emi’s bond with the ‘Yar’ species and her subsequent augmentations play a key role in the game’s story. What I didn’t expect was the sheer frequency of dialogue throughout the adventure, and all of it is voiced. Emi is constantly quipping about her circumstances, and plot beats never slow down throughout the game’s runtime. Thankfully, the voice acting is engaging and solid, but players may find Emi’s persistent sarcasm to be annoying after a while. Still, I can appreciate the fun and upbeat characters in this game; the voice direction helps liven up the experience even more, adding to the rich colors and popping soundtrack.

Yars Rising does a great job recontextualizing the Atari 2600 classic to a new generation. It provides a fun mix of old Yars gameplay with newer platforming concepts, all told through a narrative within a colorful world. There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking about the platforming aspects, and the game itself is over pretty quick, taking about 6 or so hours to complete for me. I’ve been enjoying my time collecting all the stuff I missed with my fully augmented character, but lament the persistent loading screens and lack of fast travel between save points. The loading really hampers traversal, making it cumbersome to backtrack and explore previously closed off areas. This cumbersome traversal is the fatal flaw in Yars Rising, which is a shame considering all of the other aspects it executes so well. Still, Yars Rising is a class act in its ability to fuse old with new, and its presentation quality shimmers with delight.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

While Clock Tower first arrived in the West in 1996 on the PlayStation One, it was technically the second game in the series. The first game launched for Super Famicom in 1995 exclusively for Japan. Rewind features full English localization, with Japanese, French, Spanish, Korean, German, and other language options.

The original experience is available, but players can opt for an Enhanced mode featuring additional content. There are also save states, a music player, an animated intro, a behind-the-scenes interview with the creators, and more.

Clock Tower: Rewind will be available to play for Tokyo Game Show 2024 attendees from September 26th to 29th. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

Announced during the developer’s Anime Expo 2024 panel, the modern Sigma Star Saga runs on Limited Run Games’ Carbon Engine. While noting it wasn’t a sequel, the development team said there might be one “down the road.” As with Risky Revolution, the title will be available on a Game Boy Advance cartridge.

First available for the Game Boy Advance in August 2005, Sigma Star Saga is a combination of side-scrolling shoot ’em ups and top-down role-playing gameplay. Players control Allied Earth Federation pilot Ian Recker, working as a double agent in the Krill Empire. There are six planets to explore and over 70 items to customize one’s ship. Stay tuned for more details on the re-release’s changes in the coming months.

The trailer showcases the classic point-and-click adventure game-styled gameplay of the classic Clock Tower, complete with its original 16-bit visuals. The remaster also features animated cutscenes that still maintain the general horror aesthetics of the original.

The remaster of the original Clock Tower was first announced back in July 2023, with distributor Limited Run Games making the announcement. It is also worth noting that this remaster will be the first time that the original Clock Tower will see a release outside of Japan.

Originally released back in 1995 on the SNES, Clock Tower plays like more of a point-and-click adventure game than other horror franchises like Resident Evil or Silent Hill. The game was notable for being one of the first major horror titles out there, pre-dating games like Resident Evil.

In a departure from its predecessors, Yars Rising is a 2D side-scrolling action-adventure title starring hacker Emi Kimura, who investigates QoTech corporation at the behest of a mysterious party. The gameplay involves platforming, run-and-gun action and stealth as players venture from offices to underground labs and space.

For those craving some old-school Yars’ Revenge-style action, some of the hacking mini-games pay homage to the same. Though not showcased in the trailer, there are also several different cars to control, including muscle and sports cars, with customizable colors and decals. Stay tuned for more details on Yars Rising, including a release date, in the coming months.

All of which is to say, the bar was very low for Operation Galuga. The Contra franchise has frankly been outputting poor games for far longer than it ever did great ones, at least as far as consistency is concerned. We’ve had some bright spots – such as 2007’s great Contra 4 – but even those were so long ago that there was no real expectation from this new release.

Operation Galuga clears the lowered bar with ease. But it is a legitimately good game. It would probably never be able to stand side by side with the greats of the franchise and the genre’s heyday, but it is better than almost anything the series has managed to put out in decades, and manages to be a legitimately good, but not great, game on its own merits.

Ostensibly the game is supposed to be a remake of the very first game in the series, but functionally, Galuga is perhaps better described as a very loose reimagining. The “star” of the show is the story mode – yes, there’s a story mode, and you can almost argue that its very presence might indicate that the point has been missed thoroughly yet again, but hang on. While the story here is fairly poor, with trite writing and bland voice acting that seems to riff on every single action movie trope possible, it is mostly in keeping with the spirit of the franchise.

And realistically, you can ignore the story mode. There’s a full arcade mode that you can play which has none of the cutscenes and briefings, and just has you jumping into the maps and running through them. You do need to play through the story mode to unlock characters to be able to use in the arcade mode beyond the default two, however, but even then, you can skip every single cutscene and get right into the action.

"Operation Galuga is better than almost anything the series has managed to put out in decades, and manages to be a legitimately good, but not great, game on its own merits."

And that’s the area where the game is good. While it’s a reimagining of the first game (meaning the same general level themes and sometimes, general progression), it brings in elements from other games in the series too, while also adding some of its own in the mix. There are some great reinterpretations of classic set pieces as well, and the camera is a lot more dynamic, and frames the action in a lot more interesting ways as well. 

These levels involve a lot of running and gunning. They, for good or for bad, mostly limit themselves to the palette and enemy roster of the first game. What this means is that the areas you progress through and the enemies you fight can feel fairly generic (because the first game in the series was, obviously, the most vanilla – it was the later games in the series that went a bit insane, and went in hard with their setting, aesthetic, and enemy design). Nonetheless, the game still manages to put up a lot of interesting enemies in frenetic and frantically paced shootouts, which can feel satisfying to conquer.

Operation Galuga also, wisely, makes concessions to the fact that it’s a different day and age than the one that the original games came out in. The original Contra games were infamous for being nail bitingly tough – so much so that the existence of the Konami Code was specifically to make the first game easier. Obviously, the kind of difficulty those games used to have wouldn’t fly today, and concessions to modern expectations have been made.

You can still play Operation Galuga like the classics – that is, play it on a high difficulty and set it so that taking even one hit kills you – but if you are not inclined towards that any more, you can set it up so that you have an HP bar (that you lose a life for depleting), and you can set it up on a lower “Normal” and even lower “Easy” difficulty. These alone should allow pretty much anyone to jump in and make their way through to the end, especially since even if you do lose all your lives, you get the chance to continue from the last checkpoint in the level with all your lives and no other penalty.

I do not mean any of this as a criticism. I view these as great changes, because they allow new players (or simply ones who don’ find themselves up to the challenge the traditional difficulties provide) to be able to still meet the game on their own terms. As I mentioned, you can set it up so that you can still play it as a traditional Contra game, and that’s good. It means everyone gets catered to.

Galuga also allows other ways to tweak the experience, including a system of perks, unlocked with credits you gain for playing and replaying levels. These perks can range from always starting levels with certain weapons equipped (rather than having to find them from weapon drops in the level) to tweaking  your health bar, the number of lives you have, the range of your mobility, and so on. You can also use these credits to unlock new characters.

"It won’t ever top anyone’s list of favorite Contra or run and gun game, and it will certainly not convert anyone who was not already a fan of the IP or the genre, but to those already in the know? It’s a good enough title to be worth checking out."

Again, if you want, you can ignore most of the things that make the game easier and just play it like a regular Contra game. On my part, while I used to play Contra endlessly, I can no longer keep up with the level of dexterity and skill that the games demand, so I was glad to see concessions and cushioning available.

Once you do get down to the actual run and gunning, as mentioned, you find a game that is pretty good. It never hits the highs of the original few games – limiting itself just to the first game for enemy and setting being the primary reason for that – but it ends up being a fun enough time, particularly when played with someone in co-op, or just when you get into the zone and start running the levels repeatedly to master them and optimize your runs through them. It’s just good enough to compel you to keep playing it, while never transcending its limitations.

A run and gun limiting itself on the level design and enemy variety is unfortunate, but I do like what we have here a lot, and it’s not lacking in absolute terms, just conspicuous by its absence when compared to some of the other games in the series. 

There are other problems with Operation Galuga – for example, the graphics are- well, they’re not – okay let’s stop beating around the bush, they’re pretty bad. It’s an ugly looking game. It’s not just lacking in terms of the tech, but also the art style which is a very noticeable downgrade from the great spritework and 2D aesthetics of some of the best games in the series, including WayForward’s own Contra 4 on the DS. The good thing I can say about them is that they hold a steady framerate at all times, no matter how hectic the action on screen may get.

"In the end, however, a lot of what the game does poorly can be ignored, at least by those looking for a good run and gun or Contra experience."

That matters more than anything else when it comes to Contra, but the unfortunately and obviously low budget nature of the visuals does intrude on the experience fairly often – particularly in the story mode where, let’s face it, the game does not have the budget or production values necessary to back up its storytelling aspirations. Speaking of those aspirations, if you do care about the story (which you shouldn’t, at least not in a Contra game), then you will find it to be extremely poor, tapping on almost every single trope in the book, and, seemingly, playing it straight.

In the end, however, a lot of what the game does poorly can be ignored, at least by those looking for a good run and gun or Contra experience. This game isn’t as good as the classics that it is inspired from, or not even as good as the peak of the modern era, which was Contra 4. But it is a good, well playing, fun entry into the canon, one that retains all the strengths of the franchise, and executes on them well enough to invite plays and replays by those that like this style of game.

It won’t ever top anyone’s list of favorite Contra or run and gun game, and it will certainly not convert anyone who was not already a fan of the IP or the genre, but to those already in the know? It’s a good enough title to be worth checking out, even with all the flaws and caveats that come bundled with the recommendation. 

This game was reviewed on PlayStation 5.

"We decided to reboot the original Contra because we believe that now is the time to bring back the true Contra that Contra fans would want."

What was behind the decision to go back to the original Contra and bring it back in reimagined form?

Akiyoshi Chosokabe (director, Konami): The Contra series has been running for more than 35 years, and each title has produced many variations in gameplay. Though each has its own charm, the most representative image of Contra that is still burned into the minds of fans is that of two soldiers, Bill Rizer and Lance Bean, fighting in a burning jungle. We decided to reboot the original Contra because we believe that now is the time to bring back the true Contra that Contra fans would want.

How significantly does Contra: Operation Galuga reimagine the original game? What kind of a balance does it strike between being true to the original and introducing its own new elements?

Tomm Hulett (director, WayForward): This game starts with the same premise as the original. But from there, the story is expanded somewhat (similar to how the MCU films might use years of comic continuity in a single movie), and the gameplay itself is completely unique. It’s a 2D Contra so it plays as you would expect, but level designs, boss encounters, etc. are not beholden to the classic title. For a stage like the Jungle, this means the layout is all new, but you are fighting familiar enemies and it ends with a Wall boss. With later stages, such as the Snowfield, Operation Galuga’s version has nothing in common with the original besides its setting.

Essentially, we are inspired by, but not beholden to, the original Contra.

Chosokabe: This game is based on earlier Contra games, such as the original NES Contra, but the level design and characters have changed significantly. In that sense, it can be considered as a new game.

We aimed to create a “Contra game that is faithful to the original” and is faithful to the core fun of a run-’n’-gun game. The game is about dodging the enemy’s heavy attacks, and just advancing forward. With Contra OG, we believe we have brought back the simple yet tense gameplay, building on this foundation and adding new elements to it such as Overload.

Given how thoroughly Contra: Operation Galuga is reimagining the original game, was there ever a discussion to do something even more drastic- perhaps developing a top-down twin-stick shooter, or something along those lines?

Chosokabe: We discussed and studied various possibilities of what the future of Contra should be like within Konami. Of course, styles like twin-stick shooters were among the options that were considered. Ultimately, we decided to concentrate on pursuing the basic fun of the run-’n’-gun genre in Contra OG. This is because we want to return to the fun of our origins, while aiming for a new evolution.

Hulett: From the very start, Konami was clear the goal of this project was to define “classic 2D Contra action” for the modern console generation. Since they wanted 2D run-‘n’-gun gameplay, and that’s something WayForward excels at, we were happy to remain in that playground.

"We are inspired by, but not beholden to, the original Contra."

Contra: Operation Galuga is promising new stages, bosses, and enemies. What has been your core driving philosophy for developing that new content and ensuring that it feels cohesive with the original game and the series’ own identity?

Chosokabe: When adding new content, we tried to identify elements that capture the essence of Contra and those that don’t. For the game, we considered “simple horizontal-scrolling controls,” “intense concentration in avoiding attacks,” “exhilaration in defeating enemies,” and “easy cooperative play” to be important for Contra, and we used these as guiding principles in our decision-making process. We have also made changes to elements that are not essential, such as the traditional 8-way aim, to modernize the game. (You still have the option to choose 8-way aim.) Also, just as the developers of the original Contra aimed for, a main guiding principle for this game was to make it feel like a major Hollywood action movie.

Hulett: As I touched on earlier, we use the original game’s premise as our overall setting, but then we examined the entire “classic canon” of Contra for gameplay inspiration. The Flame Weapon is a good example — the short range, constant DPS flamethrower design debuted in Contra III: The Alien Wars. However, we determined this was the best design for our game so we used that in OG. I tried to imagine this was just the next mainline Contra, following from the 8- and 16-bit games to Shattered Soldier, Contra 4, and Hard Corps — now Operation Galuga. How do we encapsulate that legacy into a new title?

What can you tell us about the game’s challenge options and how they will add to the experience?

Hulett: There are a lot of subtle things at work that allow players to fine-tune the challenge. At the basic level, we have three difficulty levels. You can see the full game on any of them, so there’s no pressure to reach beyond your comfort zone at first. From here, you can choose Life Meter or 1-hit Kill. We’re balanced for the Life Meter at default, so going retro on this option increases the difficulty quite a bit. Then, if you play on Arcade Mode (as opposed to Story) each boss has an additional tweak or pattern for additional challenge.

The player can also unlock Perks that will make life easier or provide additional strategic options, and then once you master the basics and want to push yourself, we have 30 Challenge stages, which are snippets from the main game but altered to test some specific aspect of the gameplay system.

Players who want even more… may find some additional difficulty modes. But these aren’t for the faint of heart!

"When adding new content, we tried to identify elements that capture the essence of Contra and those that don’t."

What can you tell us about Operation Galuga’s improvements and updates to the weapons and their upgrades, and how they will differ from the original game?

Hulett: The original NES Contra established a core set of weapons that is hard to top – and then Contra III added Homing and Crush. It’s a canon set of weapons that really hits all the key needs of a run-‘n’-gun arsenal. So that’s our starting point.

We brought back the weapon stacking from Contra 4 (doubling up a weapon powers it up). In some cases this is just more bullets or faster rate of fire, but in many it actually adds a new function. For example, Lv2 Laser ricochets between targets, and Lv2 Crush makes a vortex that swallows enemy bullets.

Then, our new mechanic is the Overload. You can scrap one of your weapons in exchange for a huge Overload effect — sometimes a screen-clearing smart bomb attack, other times a strategic effect such as slowing time or creating a shield.

The philosophy here is that every weapon drop offers a wealth of strategic options, rather than just “Do I want to shoot a fireball or not?”

How many new weapons should players expect to see in the game?

Hulett: Well, beyond the default gun, there are the six core weapons, and then an alternate set of six more, so that’s 12. And then each one of those has a Lv2 when it’s powered up, and a unique Overload.

Roughly how long will an average playthrough of the game be?

Hulett: Our stages are considerably larger than their counterparts in the original Contra. I think at one point we estimated one of our stages is two stage-lengths from Contra 4? For players who most recently tried Spidersaurs, our mid-game stages in Operation Galuga are about the size of the endgame stages in that title. So as far as run-‘n’-gun stages go, we’re on the lengthy side. And once players have completed the main game, there are still 30 Challenges and plenty of bonuses to unlock, so it’s a substantial experience.

Then there’s Minecraft Legends, which debuts in second place. It sold the best on Nintendo Switch, with 76% of its sales coming on the platform, while 19% came on PlayStation and 5% on Xbox. It is worth noting, however, that like all first party Microsoft releases, it is also available on Game Pass, which will have impacted sales on Xbox and PC in particular. 

Another new release occupies No. 3 as well, with Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp not far behind the game above it, though apparently, it hasn’t sold massive numbers out the game (not that one would necessarily have expected it to). Meanwhile, the likes of FIFA 23, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Hogwarts Legacy, Resident Evil 4 Remake, and Super Mario Odyssey are still in the top 10 as well, just as they were last week (and tend to be most weeks). 

You can check out the full top 10 for the week ending April 22 below.