Contra: Legacy of War Play Online 🪙 PlayStation Games

Summary

Contra: Legacy of War marked the series’ first plunge into true 3‑D, arriving on the PlayStation with a pair of red‑cyan anaglyph glasses tucked into the box. The glasses let you peek at the isometric stages in stereoscopic depth, a gimmick that drew both curiosity and criticism when Konami demoed it at E3 ’96. While the 3‑D effect never convinced most reviewers, the game itself kept the classic Contra feel: four characters each wielding a machine gun, a flamethrower, and a unique weapon set, with movement speed varying by pick. New mechanics like ducking, strafing and auto‑aim helped tame enemies that now swarmed from every angle, and the ability to save progress to a memory card was a welcome nod to the 32‑bit era.

European and Australian releases are notable for retaining the Contra name and human protagonists—a break from the long‑standing Probotector branding in those regions. A planned Japanese launch was ultimately cancelled, leaving the title as a regional oddity. Critics gave it a middling 64% aggregate, praising its weapon variety and fast‑blasting action while lamenting imprecise jumps, slowdown, and an over‑bright visual palette that even Konami’s own Randy Severin flagged during development.

Despite the mixed reception, the game’s texture‑mapped polygons and familiar power‑ups offered a solid, if imperfect, bridge between the series’ 2‑D roots and the emerging 3‑D generation.

Storyline

In Contra: Legacy of War, the villainous Colonel Bassad, a dictator of a small nation, begins amassing an army of soldiers, robots and alien mutants. He has also forged an alliance with an unknown alien entity to pursue world domination.

Ray Poward, returning from the events of Hard Corps, is sent in to stop Bassad’s scheme alongside three of the newest Hard Corps recruits: Tasha, a female mercenary; CD‑288, a combat robot; and Bubba, an alien ally. The squad battles their way to Bassad’s mountain stronghold, defeats him inside his armored pod, and is then pulled into his mind for a final confrontation.

With Bassad finally vanquished, the heroes are teleported to the alien entity, revealed to be a small living planet. After destroying the planet, the team drifts out into space, while a lone alien bug is seen hiding nearby.

Edited by Maya Carter