JoyMasher made a name for themselves with games like Oniken and Odallus, both based on 8-bit titles from developers like Natsume and Konami. Their third game, Blazing Chrome, not only shifts its inspiration to the 16-bit era, but also patterns itself very specifically after a single title: Contra: Hard Corps, the Genesis entry in Konami’s seminal run-and-gun series. It’s a fantastic source to draw from – not only is it one of the best looking games on Sega’s platform, with a distinctly gritty, comic book-style aesthetic, but it was one that Konami never followed up on, instead moving to 3D graphics with later entries.
As with Hard Corps, you have your pick of four commandos to take on a robotic menace. There’s a stage select with four available levels, each granted a difficulty rating. There’s no advantage to picking one stage over another, so you can play them how it suits you, before moving onto two final levels, with six in total.
Of the four characters, only two are available at the outset – Mavra, a female commando, and Doyle, a punk cyborg who looks like he stepped out of the anime / manga Appleseed. Both play identically, and are equipped with a rapid-fire machine gun. Additional weapons include a flame thrower, a charge laser, and explosive grenades. You die in a single hit and lose whatever weapon you have currently equipped, though even the default machine gun is pretty powerful.
One notable change from the Contra formula is that even standard enemies take a few hits to kill. These can be wiped out in less than a second of concentrated fire, but most foes also like to jump around and avoid your bullet streams. If anything gets too close, there’s a good chance your bullets won’t hold them off before they hit you, so to defend yourself, you have a close range attack a la Shinobi. You can’t just blindly hold down the fire button to mow down enemies, so you will need to occasionally tap it to execute melee strikes. There’s also a roll that grants temporary invincibility, executed by pressing Down and Jump, though due to the stage designs, this is hard to use effectively.
In addition to the weapons, there are also three kinds of Assist Bots. Attack will double your firepower, Defense will grant you a shield that lets you absorb two hits, and Speed will not only make you faster but also grant double jumps. You lose these if you get killed, of course. Many times when a power-up is dropped, it’ll cycle through all of the different weapon and assist bot types, allowing you to pick which item you’d like.
Even though Blazing Chrome looks, sounds, and even plays like Hard Corps, its attitude toward level design is a bit different. Hard Corps featured a “situation rush” style of game design where the player was pushed forwards through different style of gameplay, which typically meant plenty of mini-boss fights interspersed with brief run-and-gun or platforming challenges. It was exhilarating but it tossed so much at the player that it could often be overwhelming, constantly challenging them to change up their tactics, resulting in a game that was incredibly difficult. Blazing Chrome, on the other hand, focuses more on run-and-gun sections, similar to older Contra games, or other titles like Metal Slug. There are still vehicle sections and mini-boss fights, but there’s more room to breathe between them. There are also a few sections where you can get into a mecha and plow forward, smashing stuff while warding off enemy attacks, though it can only take so much damage before it explodes.
Blazing Chrome also isn’t quite as brutal overall as most Contra games. The game is pretty tough, but each level has a few checkpoints for when you run out of lives, and you don’t need to worry about running out of continues, at least on the regular difficulty levels. You can even save your progress.
Still, it doesn’t quite feel like JoyMasher got either the pacing or the encounter design down. Hard Corps (and later Contra games) were so compelling because they were always surprising you with whatever over-the-top scenario you’d find yourself in. Outside of the final boss fight, where the last boss bends with the rules of 2D to send your character through a virtual reality landscape, Blazing Chrome doesn’t have much in the way of memorable boss designs or encounters, at least not to the level of Konami’s games. The vehicle sections also all feel like they last slightly too long – one section shifts perspective to a behind-the-shoulder viewpoint, utilizing some cool 3D effects that are way beyond what the 16-bit consoles could do, but even this scene loses its appeal because it drags on.
The weaponry could’ve used some adjusting too. The Assist Bots are cool but the secondary weapons are difficult to use, especially since only one of them is a rapid-fire weapon. As a result, the default machine gun ends up being preferable in most circumstances. The weapon selection is also slim compared to Hard Corps, where each of the four characters had completely different weapons. Some weapons like the classic Spread gun or Laser would’ve been nice.
There is an unlockable second set of characters, Raijin and Suhaila. These are melee focused characters with quicker movements but shorter range. They can equip the Assist Bots but otherwise can’t use any of the subweapons. They’re fun to use – they make the game play a little more like Strider – but neither the levels nor the bosses seem designed to take their skillset into account, which is why they feel more like bonuses rather than a core part of the game.
The aesthetics are surely on point, though. The graphics are brilliant, in a way that’s both accurate to the limited Genesis palette and maintains the grittiness that made its games so distinct. Its FM synth music is solid even if the style is a bit different from other Contra games. The end credits theme is an 80s style track complete with vocals, which begins with sound effects mimicking CD loading, as if the game was a lost 16-bit CD-ROM title. There are a few extra modes too, including a Halloween mode that swaps in some holiday-themed sprites, and a “reverse” mode that provides mirror layouts for all of the levels.
Even though it could’ve used a bigger creative spark, Blazing Chrome is still satisfying as hell. Conversely, while it may lack the unique style and flourish as Cuphead, another indie hit in the same genre, it feels tighter, with more responsive controls and better balance, and may be preferable for those looking for a more classic-styled run-and-gun.
