So, Contra: Rogue Corps hasn’t exactly garnered excitement with fans prior to its release. The familiar left-to-right gameplay has been dropped for an overhead shooter, much like Neo Contra for the PS2. Those longing for a return to the traditional way Contra has been played aren’t alone, however.
In an interview with DualShockers, Rogue Corps Executive Producer Nobuya Nakazato (who also directed Contra III: The Alien Wars and Rocket Knight Adventures) expressed his thoughts on the series returning to its 2D roots, but with a caveat.
“Yeah, I love the old 2D games as well and I’d love to make new ones, but just modernizing the graphics, upgrading the graphics, and creating something new in them would not be the right way to do it, in my opinion,” states Nakazato. “I’d have to come up with a new innovation and maybe change a bit of the genre and then I can start working on one of those.”
Nakazato brings up a good point. Returning to the original way Contra is played with 3D graphics isn’t the way to do it. Contra: Shattered Soldier for the PS2 took this route, but wasn’t exactly the best entry in the series. In contrast, the spin-off game Hard Corps: Uprising boasted some beautiful hand-drawn graphics meshed with 3D, along with classic Contra gameplay, but never received much fanfare.
The jury’s still out on what Rogue Corps will be like, but we’ll find out when the game hits for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch on September 24.