This, my friends, is the ultimate bulletpoint in Old-School game design, like it or lump it, and it's the element that's going to keep you from rushing through to the end in your first night with the cartridge. If you lose all your lives and continues on Level Four, guess what? You're all the way back to Level One.
Lose your last life at an end boss? A continue will send you back to the start of that level and make you fight your way through it again. Other than high scores and unlockables, the cartridge doesn't save progress. Pixel art for sprites and backgrounds are a cool throwback to the pre-1996 style. Enemies never stop coming, but at the same time the danger is always in the same place - if you get taken out by a turret or soldier or alien, you can use that knowledge to stay ahead of the game the next time you have to start right back at the beginning of level one. It's one of the hardest games of this generation - the designers throw enemies at the player from all sides, making the player work for the goal at the end of every level. Tons of side-scrolling platforming with even more shooting - the thumb only ever leaves the fire button to press it faster. The action is classic Contra right from the start. It could easily make you believe that this could've been a worthy continuation of the series on 1990s gaming hardware, even though the action's taking place on a two-screen system that fits in your pocket. Contra 4 clings dearly to nostalgia and the old-school game design, sending the player on a flashback into the world of limited continue challenges and pixelated spritework. Believe it or not, it's an idea that works. It's a ballsy move, trusting that the Contra design has the right stuff to stand up to today's gaming standards. The developers, Way Forward Technology, essentially put themselves in the mindset of simply forgetting everything that was done after Contra III for the Super NES, wiping the slate clean and creating a game that would have followed up the SNES game had the designers been given the Contra 4 project in 1993. That's sort of the mentality in how Konami approached the series for a celebratory 20th anniversary sequel on the Nintendo DS.
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