Contra has had a long, merciless history on Nintendo platforms. The franchise’s earlier titles were among the best for the Big N’s first pair of home consoles, and recently Contra IV exploded onto the DS with fantastic results. It’s been almost two years since that release, and now Konami is giving Nintendo supporters another opportunity to have their confidence as gamers crushed into tiny pieces.

Much like their other downloadable homage to the past, Gradius ReBirth, Contra ReBirth seem like it came straight out of the SNES era. It’s somewhere in between Alien Wars and Contra IV as far as the sprite work goes, which could be called a lack of effort on the developer’s part, but there’s no doubt that they’re deliberately trying to invoke that old school vibe. The music also feels like it’s straight out of the 90s with all kinds of rock blaring in the background as you tear through the stages.

The core gameplay still hasn’t changed, as the primary goal remains to be getting to the end of the level and blowing apart anything in your way. This is a run-and-gun 2D title at its best, with swarms of enemies coming at your from every direction, brutal boss battles that give you no quarter, and even the occasional platforming that makes Metroid look tame.

Of course, anybody who has played Contra knows that the series’ hallmark is its insane difficulty. ReBirth doesn’t necessarily break the trend, but it does feel somewhat stuck in the middle between “Heartless” and “Forgiving”.

On one hand, the game has infinite continues, meaning that no matter how many times you die you’ll never have to start all over from the beginning. You can also set how many lives you want at once, your choices being 3, 5 or 7. Even with all this, though, it doesn’t mean that ReBirth is a walk in the park according to Contra principles. There’s no 1Ups in the game, so whatever lives total you choose is what you’re stuck with until you either beat the level or just get slaughtered yourself.

Once you play through the entire game, you may realize why Konami would have decided to make this title easier to jump into for newcomers or casual Contra fans; the stages are ridiculous. Even by the franchise’s standards the levels are outrageous, featuring some of the most thrilling set pieces ever found in the series. You’ll battle a giant centipede as you fall through a planet’s atmosphere. You’ll race across a stampede of robotic ‘llamas’? You’ll even attempt to avoid minefields floating in the air as you plummet through an underground cavern.

Yeah, get ready to see “Game Over” a lot.

And thankfully, that ludicrous difficulty is what adds any value to the game. At a mere 5 levels, ReBirth can, in theory, be beaten in half an hour. However, even longtime fans won’t be completing it on their first try. They probably won’t complete it on their second. Heck, they may not be able to do it on their tenth. More than likely, most people that try this out will need a few days before they finally defeat that last boss, as there’s only so much frustration a player can deal with before they have to turn the system off. Being killed over and over will do that to you.

Luckily there are reasons to come back for another go-around. There are three difficulty settings in all, the highest of which is unlocked after you beat the game once. If you enjoy the heart rate the way it is now, you may want to avoid that; just stick with Hard as the more advanced challenge. And like any Contra title, playing local co-op with a friend is a great time. Just make sure they understand what they’re getting themselves into.