Why does Contra Force on the NES slow down so often?
It seems to me that Konami developed this game for a superior mapper chip like the VRC6, planned to release it as “Arc Hound” in Japan in 1991, missed their intended release date, decided to shift most development to the Super Famicom, and basically shoehorned the game into an NES cartridge with an MMC3 Mapper.
They slapped “Contra (Force)” on it so they could make back some money in North America. Some assumptions here on my part, but what do you think?
This video examines the performance of Contra Force using some emulator tools and talks about early Mapper history on the NES and the direction Konami took with their custom chips.
We’ll touch upon how Konami changed the original NES Contra’s cartridge hardware so they could export it from Japan, and also showcase how games such as Tiny Toon Adventures and Castlevania III used Konami mappers for Japan but Nintendo MMC-based mappers outside of Japan.
Enjoy the journey!
