Updated post with a few more hours clocked. Hard Spirits isn't awful, and has something of a unique angle, but it's distinctly flawed and definitely more of a curiosity than anything essential.
BrianC wrote:The funny thing is that the US Blaster Master actually adds an extra cutscene that isn't in the JP version. The JP story is only in the manual.
I know, just how I like it.
To be fair, the FC backstory also occasioned some decently characterful boxart. I like the cute staff roll chibi portraits of Pilot Bloke and Engineer Lassie, too, and the wyvern-festooned crimson crest of METAL ATTACKER R&D (or whatever it was) is a neat bit of detail. I prefer the blood red sky of the FC opening too, as MA01 blasts out of its all-business hangar... but then I just prefer the anonymous, innocuous anime space fantasy of Metafight to the NES's almost "TMNT via Lewis Carroll" hijinks. The latter undoubtedly made more business sense, I must concede. >_>
BTW they forgot to recolour Jason's hair brown in the NES ending - it's still blue! :O They did add Fred the Frog though! Haha, that dumbass unlicensed "Worlds of Power" book acted like HE DEAD - those scrubs obviously never made it to the SECOND mutant frog boss!
It's odd how the GB b/w port of Contra Spirits has some things missing from Contra Hard Spirits GBA. That port has problems of its own, though.
Although I actually love the SFC's topdown seek/destroys, I think Hard Spirits did pretty well with its MD train stage. Those footsoldiers can legit kill you with the lack of breathing room, and the bikers are no longer mere fireworks waiting for a match. On MD I love letting 'em stack three deep, then
BOOM! Bodies, fire and debris flying everywhere! One of the few times the game will slow down, however briefly! On GBA, the miserly firepower and lack of clearance make even one an issue. The bouncy bouncy drill thing is more threatening sans HC slide, as is Yokozuna, however slightly in both cases.
The fifth stage's use of HC's Super Bahamut showdown kinda blows, though. Unless there's a Hard difficulty packing some big surprises, they just chopped out Spheroid Joe and
DR FUCKIN CRAB's best moves, instead of rebalancing them for the lack of slide. SB's about the same as on MD, but was never nearly as good anyway. Should've picked another HC stage, I'd say the Alien Lair. Yeah, there'd be two lairs in one game, but none of the HC stuff makes sense anyway.
I've been a bit of a fanboy with Factor 5's GB version of Spirits. If it'd been handled in-house I'd have checked it out by now, with my fondness for heroic conversions to the platform. Meanwhile, GB Dracula III was KCE Nagoya and it's lame, and AFAIK SFC Ninja Gaiden comp was handled in Japan and it's
horrid. 
I did my good deed for the year by trying out Bits Studio (SFC Gunforce
)'s GB Ninja Spirit though! It's okay and kinda cute, but not really worth bothering with!
I actually remember playing the "Super Probotector" PAL GB version while visiting family as a kid, haha. I'd be down with that tbh.
Hyperaggressive downshotting ala SFC, anyone?
I love his similarly "peekaboo mittens" army crawl, too.
