Sentences written about this title, gathered by type from the Japanese and English Wikipedia articles (as of 2026-8-30).
Clare Edgeley of Computer and Video Games said "Lots of shooting and no time for a breather makes Gryzor one hell of a tiring game to play.
AllGame editor Skyler Miller praised Contra, touting that the game "became the standard by which future platform shooters would be judged".
The MS-DOS version of the game received a negative review in Dragon by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column in 1989; they criticized Konami's copy protection which prevented the game from booting up on their computer.
Contra was voted by gaming website IGN as being the "Toughest Game to Beat".
In 2017, Contra ranked 82nd in "The Scientifically Proven Best Video Games of All Time", a statistical meta-analysis compiled by Warp Zoned of 44 "top games" lists published between 1995 and 2016.
The European version was released in 1990 under the title Probotector, with the characters changed to machines.
Beginning with Contra: Legacy of War, Konami abandoned the Probotector title and localized most of the further games with minimal changes.
In the "Cross Review" feature of the magazine Famitsu,the four reviewers gave 6, 8, 7, and 6, for a total of 27 out of 40. In the "Game Report Card" reader poll run by Family Computer Magazine,it scored 21.55 out of 30, as shown below.
The game sold 2 million units.
AllGame editor Skyler Miller praised Contra, touting that the game "became the standard by which future platform shooters would be judged".
The MS-DOS version of the game received a negative review in Dragon by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column in 1989; they criticized Konami's copy protection which prevented the game from booting up on their computer.
It is the only Contra sequel for the arcades developed in-house by Konami.
While the Konami code was first introduced with the home versions of Gradius, larger awareness of the code's existence in Konami's games grew significantly with its inclusion in the home versions of Contra (where it gave the player 30 extra lives to help complete the difficult game).
The European version was released in 1990 under the title Probotector, with the characters changed to machines.
While the Konami code was first introduced with the home versions of Gradius, larger awareness of the code's existence in Konami's games grew significantly with its inclusion in the home versions of Contra (where it gave the player 30 extra lives to help complete the difficult game).
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