'
Shattered Soldier returns to the classic game system employed by the series prior to
Contra: Legacy of War. The game is played entirely in 2D from a side-view perspective, but with fully polygonal graphics, although some segments in which the player rides a snowboard or a motorcycle are viewed from a front or rear-view perspective. The controls and abilities are similar to the ones featured in
Contra III: The Alien Wars. In addition to being able to keep the character's mobility still while aiming and shooting, the player can also keep their character's aim still while moving as well (a feature that was introduced in
C: The Contra Adventure and retroactively ported over to the Game Boy Advance version of
Alien Wars).
The major departure in
Shattered Soldier is the omission of power-up items. Instead, the player is equipped with one of three permanent weapons that can be switched at any point. Each weapon has a standard automatic shot and an alternate charge shot for a total of six types of shots. The standard shots are: a rapid-fire automatic machine gun (Heavy Machine Gun), a flamethrower (Flame Whip) and a grenade launcher (Diver Mines). The charged versions of the same weapons are: the Round Sweeper, which launches out a "gun pod" that sprays bullets in multiple directions; the Energy Shot, a large gunshot which delivers great damage; and a barrage of Homing Missiles that traces the nearest target.
Like
Contra: Hard Corps,
Shattered Soldier has multiple endings. However, the ending received now depends on player performance, rather than the path taken during the course of a game. The game introduces a "hit rate" system which gauges the number of enemies destroyed as a form of performance metric. Every unique target in each stage, whether it be an actual enemy or an object in the area, that is destroyed increases this ratio. A high hit-ratio, along with the minimization of lives lost and continues used, is essential to receive the better endings, and consequently unlock the additional extra features. The player can replay previously completed stages to achieve better grades before proceeding to the fifth stage (after that point, the player must play through the remaining set of stages continuously).'
Tesseract
I take back what I said. Started playing with a dualshock 4 and control type C and... this game is pretty awesome. I like the aesthetic, I’m digging it way more with my current setup, and it’s a worthy successor to Alien Wars and Hard Corps, unlike Rogue Corps.
