The game's enormous bosses are composed of numerous small sprites whose movements relative to one another convey complex gestures and transformations normally thought impossible with 2D graphics then, when defeated, they burst into hundreds of apocalyptic explosions that twist around themselves in intricate patterns while white and photonegative flashes threaten seizures. And when that fails, the artists step in by actually drawing a new sprite for every angle they want an object to turn. Rotation - something ostensibly impossible on the system without a Sega CD or, failing that, the help of Treasure - is employed to some rudimentary extent. Given the famously expressive nature of the Contra ? series, Hard Corps is actually the perfect example to showcase Konami's underdog accomplishments on the Genesis. Even on the Sega Genesis, with specs generally a step or two behind those of Nintendo's machine, they pushed the available technology to its limits with games like Castlevania Bloodlines ?, Rocket Knight Adventures. And for evidence that developers didn't just fall slack once they had suckered in enough early adopters, Konami themselves kept this same new-generation enthusiasm stoked constantly throughout the 16-bit era. Coming from your average snarky gaming pundit, this implies that style was given preference over substance, or that this technical finesse was only used so extensively because the technology itself was new and novel.īut as anyone who has played either title will tell you, they're solid games beneath all that gloss. When looking back at the first generation of SNES games, Konami titles like Super Castlevania IV ? and Contra III: The Alien Wars ? are the ones most frequently upheld as the titles that took conspicuous advantage of at-the-time esoteric visual effects like layers, semitransparency, rotation, and scaling - to the point that terms like "tech demo" often find themselves thrown about.
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