Contra ReBirth

Contra ReBirth is an action platformer from 2009 that Konami released on WiiWare as a modern tribute to the classic run-and-gun series from the turn of the 1980s and 1990s. Alone or with a second player, the hero once again fights through waves of soldiers, alien creatures, and giant bosses using weapons like the spread gun or laser, with the game deliberately following the visual style and pace of the early Contra entries rather than their later 3D offshoots, including the notoriously high difficulty in which a single hit means death.

The level design combines classic side-scrolling platforming sections with segments where the view rotates into a different perspective, and the game doesn't hide its inspiration from specific moments in the original Contra and Super C, whether it's flying through an enemy base or fighting a giant mechanical boss. The graphics combine pixel art with subtle lighting effects that the WiiWare hardware of the time handled without trouble, and the soundtrack builds on the old series' electronic tracks in rearranged form, full of energy and the fast pace typical of the whole series and of Konami's composers from the 1990s, when the studio was famous precisely for the quality of the music accompanying its arcade games.

Alongside Mega Man 9, Contra ReBirth was one of the titles that showed WiiWare could also serve as a fully-fledged platform for new entries of old classics, and reviews particularly praised its faithfulness to the spirit of the original as well as its properly high difficulty, which discourages less patient players. Together with other entries in the Rebirth line, such as Gradius ReBirth and Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth, it created a small wave of digital retro sequels on Wii. Today Contra ReBirth is valued as one of the last truly tough old-school run-and-gun actions, one players gladly return to for its pure, uncompromising challenge and the feeling that it's really the good old Contra in new audiovisual form.