Review by: Brian Rowe

Hard Corps: Uprising is the spiritual successor to Contra. Arc System Works has traded in muscle-bound bravado for anime flair, but the inspiration behind this action-platformer is worn like a badge of honor. Even the victory music after completing a stage is too familiar to be a happy accident. As Hard Corps proves though, stepping into the shoes of a legend is not an easy task.

Like Super Meat Boy, Shank, and BIT.TRIP Runner, Hard Corps embraces the tough-as-nails style of the old-school. There are no bombs or regenerating health bars. It's just you, a wimpy rifle, and whatever weapon you can collect along the way. With only three lives and four continues, all but the most skilled players will struggle to surpass all eight stages of ballistic chaos. There is hardly room to breathe as groups of henchmen charge from the sides, snipers take aim from the treetops, and salvos of missiles scream through the air. Hard Corps demands precision measured in pixels and repetition that borders on insanity.

A game that requires perfection has to have the craftsmanship to match, and Hard Corps falters frequently. There are numerous areas in which the floating power-ups and their precious weapons fall immediately off-screen or atop unreachable platforms, which begs the question of why those platforms exist in the first place. There are other areas in which single mistakes cause unavoidable chains of deaths, and flashbacks to the jetbikes of Battletoads. Then there are the inexcusable problems, like respawning above pits and dying during cutscenes.

Hard Corps has no shortage of boss-battles – four in the first stage alone – and while half of them are hyper-kinetic tests of skill, the rest are downright boring. The battles against the mechanical contraptions are at their best in confined quarters where reflexes and coordination have no room for error. In the larger battles that encompass two or more screens of space, finding the bosses can be more difficult than the combat.

The game offers two flavors of play. Arcade is the traditional mode with a set number of lives and continues. You can grab up to two weapons from floating power-ups, including the familiar spreadshot and machinegun, and abilities such as the dash-tackle and bullet-reflect can save your life in a pinch. Taking a cue from shmups like Omega Five, score multipliers are temporary; stop killing for a few seconds and you lose your multiplier.