This Is the Run: Contra: Hard Corps - Part 15

Famous last words: "Don't stand ALL the way to the right."

I'm going to point out that not only is the "stand in the crosshairs" rule complete bullshit from a GENERAL video-game perspective, it's extra bullshit because this game is breaking its own rules it established in earlier levels.

Kick Contra's ass, Dan and Vinny! The world is counting on you!

Dan I caught what you caught yourself about to say during the start there. lol

I don't get why Dan likes C. Seems to me it's too erratic and doesn't hit very regularly.

And I still don't understand the Shot I and II stuff.

Browny's C weapon is really powerful and homes in on enemies. It also hit multiple times in a relatively short period of time in many cases. As such, even if you just hold the button down and let it wander around on its own, you're bound to do a lot of damage with it in most cases, and it lets you focus on dodging enemy attacks.

As for Shot I and Shot II...

Shot I - Allows you to move while firing. It's best used when you're firing straight up or directly to the left or right. It's also okay to use when hanging from a wall or ceiling, as I don't believe it's any better than Shot II in terms of mobility in those cases. If you're on a wall or ceiling, then you're not moving while shooting in general.

Shot II - Allows you to shoot in any of eight directions without moving. You can't move while firing. Certain characters benefit from Shot II more than others, with Sheena probably benefiting most. Sheena's grenade weapon becomes much more useful with Shot II, because it allows you to attack enemies and bosses with weak heads from much further away than Shot II with most other weapons do. Shot II allows you to shoot downward through raised platforms very intuitively, as well. The best use of Shot II is using it to hit enemies or weak points on bosses that're high off of the ground with high accuracy without jumping. The more you jump in this game, the more likely you are to die, and proper use of Shot II can effectively save you from continually putting yourself at risk by jumping while also allowing you to maximize damage output on something that's high off the ground without running around unnecessarily and having to readjust your position.

Wish they were playing the Japanese version so they had health bars instead of the American version where they die in one hit.

I disagree. I wouldn't mind this feature going on forever, honestly, but I do think that this game is quite doable with one-hit deaths, and it's pretty clear that they're getting to be good enough that they have two or three continues to burn on new challenges. This game's almost sweet revenge for what happened with Castlevania: Bloodlines. Vinny didn't continue to get better at Castlevania: Bloodlines. He used passwords that gave him more lives than he would've had so late in the game, and he didn't repeat the past challenges enough for them to properly teach him how to tackle later challenges.

"Your D is....."
"My C is better but I don't want to deny your spread"

I completely agree that the health bar makes Contra: Hard Corps a more balanced game, but I do think that this version is so much more entertaining for a feature like this. Contra: Hard Corps does deal plenty of cheap shots, but many of those have been some of the funniest parts of this series for me. I know that a lot of people have no interest in Contra: Hard Corps compared to other installments in the series, but I think it's refreshing to see such an overlooked game get a lot of attention. As someone who's so much more into Sega consoles than Nintendo consoles, I'm used to having the games that I enjoyed not getting any attention. I was kind of bummed that Vinny came out of Castlevania: Bloodlines hating it so much, as I don't think it's a bad game. It's refreshing to see both Dan and Vinny enjoying Contra: Hard Corps, despite its bullshit, because it's a game that I really enjoyed when I was in high school. I think the difficulty is key in enjoying this game on some level, because it forces you to become so much more familiar with how things work along the way. This game plays like no other Contra game.

Stand IN the crosshair?! Really? What the hell kind of devil game is this?