Contra Advance - The Alien Wars EX
Contra Advance The Alien Wars Ex is a downloadable legacy shooter release for Wii U developed by Tose Co.. It centers on aiming, shooting, and weapon use, area and route exploration, and aiming and shooting, with controls, information, and pacing arranged around the GamePad, Wii U Pro Controller, or another layout supported by the download.
- AI score · out of 10
- 6.5 / 10
About this game
Contra Advance The Alien Wars Ex is a downloadable legacy shooter release for Wii U centered on aiming, shooting, and weapon use, area and route exploration, and aiming and shooting. Missions pace progress through enemy waves, routes, objectives, and weapon opportunities, with progress divided into stages, tasks, matches, or growth milestones that make its immediate goals understandable. Its value depends on whether these rules continue to create judgment and room for mastery rather than on length, sales, or series recognition. Short campaigns are judged by repeat-challenge value, while longer ones are judged by variety, pacing, and recovery after failure. Aiming feedback, projectiles, hits, and danger zones need to remain readable, while the original aspect ratio, scaling, filtering, sound, and television output need to preserve key information and the source game's style. The genre-specific limitation is that camera turning, aiming methods, dense encounters, and multiplayer service conditions can increase control pressure. Platform conditions also include control mapping, display ratio, emulation behavior, saving, controller compatibility, and the retired download service affect present-day use. The downloadable legacy release is judged for emulation behavior, control mapping, and retained conveniences rather than inheriting the original media score.
Collected in series
Contra is a run-and-gun action series where commandos jump, shoot and push through military fortifications and alien attacks. Weapon pickups, towering bosses and cooperative play turn each advance into a busy test of movement and aim.
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Wii U
AI review
AI reviews are subjective assessments, not player ratings. See each review for its evidence and limitations.Published date:
Strong shooting survives a compromised Wii U conversion.
Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX on Wii U is a Virtual Console release of the Game Boy Advance adaptation, not the separate SNES Contra III offering on the same console. Six demanding run-and-gun stages and carefully arranged enemies still support repeated practice, while the ability to lock aim during movement is a useful addition. The adaptation also removes carrying two weapons and the screen-clearing bomb, replacing two overhead stages with material from Hard Corps. That remix creates novelty but less coherent pacing and art. A direct Wii U review compares the versions side by side and finds the enlarged GBA image paler and blockier, with a weaker soundtrack. Wii U save states make solo retries convenient; the GBA link-cable cooperative feature cannot work in this Virtual Console edition. Those are target-release facts, not claims about the original GBA cartridge or SNES game. Series historians may enjoy studying the changes, but players expecting the full two-player Contra III experience should understand what this edition omits.
Strengths
- Tight encounters, aim lock and convenient save states.
Weaknesses
- No dual weapons or co-op, and diminished art and sound.
Who it is for: Contra fans interested in comparing versions.
Play notes: This is the European Wii U GBA release, not SNES or cartridge play.
View scoring basis
| Dimension | Review state | Score | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dimension Stage substitutions refresh briefly but disrupt cohesion. | Reviewed | 6.3 / 10 | Not provided |
| Dimension The action remains sharp but loses strategic options. | Reviewed | 7.0 / 10 | Not provided |
| Dimension Good designs remain visible through a diminished port. | Reviewed | 6.0 / 10 | Not provided |
| Dimension Save states help solo play while the edition loses co-op. | Reviewed | 6.1 / 10 | Not provided |
Review sources
Not provided
Core information
- Developer
- Tose
- Release date
- 2015
- Platforms
- Wii U
- Content kind
- Game
- Release state
- Released
- Region
- Worldwide
- Official website
- Not provided
- Offline minimum players
- Not provided
- Offline maximum players
- Not provided
- Online minimum players
- Not provided
- Online maximum players
- Not provided
- Categories
- Shooter · Primary genre
- Tags
- Solo-friendlyScience FictionShootingDodgeReplayableFast-pacedLinear LevelsExploration3D GraphicsMain Story Under 10 HoursThird PersonPlayer versus Environment
- Supported game languages
- Not provided
- Requires base game
- Not provided
- Standalone
- Not provided
- Age ratings
- Not provided
- Play modes
- Single player
- Perspectives
- Side viewTop-down
Release editions
- Game Boy AdvanceWorldwide2002
- Wii UWorldwide2015
Game gallery
Sources
Not provided