Castlevania Anniversary Collection
Castlevania Anniversary Collection
Game
Game2019
Contra Anniversary Collection
Developer KONAMI
The Contra Anniversary Collection brings this classic Run and Gun franchise back to modern platforms and a new generation of gamers. From the Steam store page
193 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Lemmy, Mastodon) · newest Nov 3, 2026 · last updated Nov 4, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
73
Fresh
129 positive · 48 negative
95% range 66–79%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 129 | 48 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 5 | 0 | 9 |
| Lemmy * | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 1 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Mostly Positive
479 of 644 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
72% recommend · 130 yes, 50 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 180 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Mostly Positive (1,140 of 1,504 positive).
Players praise the collection for its nostalgic value and comprehensive selection of classic Contra games. [1][2][3] Some reviewers criticize the emulation for bugs like audio static, slowdown, and display issues. [1][4][5] Many feel the price is too high for what is offered, recommending a sale purchase. [1][6][7]
Liked
Representative posts
- [4]
DO NOT PURCHASE THIS! These are great games and anyone on newer hardware will be met by 2 Unplayable bugs that are too complicated to fix to justify this being morally ok. 1. pure static and artifact-ing from the audio, not specific games, just the whole damn poorly made program! 2. unplayable FPS bug, you can't in fact fix it with graphic settings because the whole emulation is broken. DO NOT PURCHASE THIS!
- [1]
Overall a complete collection of contra during it's early days. A bit disapointed that some of the games still get slow downs on today's computers. I remember being able to run those game an an emulator all the way back in 2007. How this is not able to run smoothly today is a mistery really. Worth 5 dollars or less, but definitely not 20$. Overall still positif
- [2]
The Contra Anniversary Collection, developed and published by Konami, is a lovingly assembled tribute to one of gaming’s most enduring action franchises. It gathers together ten of the series’ most iconic entries spanning the late 1980s through the mid-1990s, offering players a comprehensive look at the evolution of the run-and-gun genre that Contra helped define. For long-time fans, this collection is both a …
- [6]
I want to preface this by saying that as much as I enjoyed the collection, it has no business being $20, at much is $15 but ideally you get it for less. You realistically get 7 games here: Contra Arcade, Contra (NES/Famicom), Super Contra, Super C, Contra 3, Operation C and Contra Hard Corps. If you're only buying this for one game like Contra, Contra 3 or Hard Corps, then there are "other" methods that won't cost …
- [3]
All the games in the collection are great. Each one takes a few hours to beat. The two best ones in my opinion are Alien Wars and Hard Corps. Pick this up on sale and enjoy your childhood again.
Summarised from 34 of the 197 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 12, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
72% of the 180 Steam reviewers we collected recommend Contra Anniversary Collection. The complaint that keeps coming up: emulation bugs like audio static and slowdown persist. Deal-breaker or nitpick?
Reactions
60 of 193 · most liked firstDO NOT PURCHASE THIS! These are great games and anyone on newer hardware will be met by 2 Unplayable bugs that are too complicated to fix to justify this being morally ok. 1. pure static and artifact-ing from the audio, not specific games, just the whole damn poorly made program! 2. unplayable FPS bug, you can't in fact fix it with graphic settings because the whole emulation is broken. DO NOT PURCHASE THIS!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It honestly pains me to have to leave this review here. Don't buy this, especially if you're a fan of the arcade original release of Contra. The emulation in this package contains a bug that has existed for a very long time in older revisions of MAME, where the rolled explosives in 3D stages roll to the right corner instead of straight. This bug was fixed in MAME back in 2021 thanks to Furrtek (https://github.com/mamedev/mame/pull/7951) but has never been fixed in the collection and probably…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Another lazy port missing basic features like keyboard support. Even when on sale it's not better than just emulating the roms.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I love every game on this compilation, and they are all emulated well with low lag. I don't think I really need to get into the pros and cons of each game as that's been done ad nausum before. Needless to say it's a collection of wonderful arcade, console and handheld console Contra games. All of the 8 and 16 bit ones AFAIK in fact. What's the issue then? The Steam version has broken display options. What most people will opt for, myself included, is to have the screen go as much as possible…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Overall a complete collection of contra during it's early days. A bit disapointed that some of the games still get slow downs on today's computers. I remember being able to run those game an an emulator all the way back in 2007. How this is not able to run smoothly today is a mistery really. Worth 5 dollars or less, but definitely not 20$. Overall still positif
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →While it's true they're selling you 10 games for the price of 1, many are actually versions of the same title (just changing the language, for example), so there are really only less than the half. And let's be honest, if you're buying this, it's only for Contra I and Contra III. It has serious latency issues stemming from trying to emulate so many games from different systems at once, the audio is strange, the remote play service is quite unusable, it has a system that locks and unlocks the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →There is no way to quit the game other than Alt-F4
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →windows 11 not working.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Contra Anniversary Collection Want some classic action? The Contra collection is 69% off! (Steam). 🔗 www.fanatical.com/en/game/cont...
neutral · AI labelView post →Pixel Worlds sale on GOG. GOG is having a "Pixel Worlds" sale, with deals on games (DRM-free as usual, of course) that use pixel graphics. It will continue for two more days and change. https://www.gog.com/en/promo/2023_pixel_worlds My personal highlights include the following three metroidvania titles:\ Chasm -75%\ Phoenotopia Awakening -60%\ Timespinner -50% There are several pages of games on sale; others famous ones include Stardew Valley, the Contra Anniversary Collection, two of the…
neutral · AI labelView post →The games are classic, but the ports is terrible. Audio files are corrupted which I'm assuming Konami will never fix. Missing control remapping. Very lazy company. Shouldn't be surprised after their long run of messing up ports. No quality control apparently.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →When I was your age, we had to blow on the video games to make them work.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →this one of the worst collections i played its like they did not even try to make it good, looks awful on steam deck .. if you put on fill screen its stretched out even proportion correctly it looks like a blurred mess.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →REALLY should NOT be Steam Deck Verified. They need to change it to Yellow/Playable status and add the following points: 1. Game does not exit cleanly and (“may”) require(s) manually exiting. 2. Game supports Deck’s native resolution but requires manual configuration to run optimally. Proton Experimental neither helped nor hurt this prospect. The game’s included display settings are limited to the point of being nonexistent, and have to be manually configured per game… pretty annoying. The CRT…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Its insane I cannot play this game anymore. Its way to hard. I used to tear it up all day when I was 9. Cant even get past area one!. Highly recommended!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Unfortunately this collection has the same issue with the screen filters that the Castlevania collection has. You have a 4:3 filter, but it's exclusively tied to a scanline option. I just want to play the games in 4:3 without the scanlines since scanlines makes the image darker. But the game won't let me. This makes it annoying to play on devices with smaller screens like a Steam Deck. There's also a weird audio crackling bug in the game. Konami needs to go back and redo this and the original…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Don't grow up It's a trap !!!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Contra (Arcade) - Beat it on easy after 1h18m without savestates. In normal I can get to the final stage, but don't feel like constantly replaying the early stages. 4/5. Super Contra (Arcade) - Beat it on easy after about an hour with savestates. The controls suck ass and it's not a good game. 2/5. Contra (NES) - This one only took me less than half an hour, of course with the 30 lives code. 4/5. Contra (JP) (NES) - It's pretty much the same thing, but with a (Japanese) story that I skipped.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →yep, no rewind feature sux, im like almost 50 now, as much as i cherish these games from my youth, i don't have the reflexes i once did, but at least i can save it whenever, otherwise it is great to have such a thorough collection,reaaly fun especially playing the o.g. arcade game on my big screen lol
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Dont waste your time.... Cant play 2 players and every forum post I find, everyone says KONAMI still hasnt fixed this issue..... single player sure. Still have to deal with the ♥♥♥♥ audio quality.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Nice collection of the retro Contra games from the arcade originals to the 16-Bit era. Each game takes about 30-45 minutes to complete (even more if you go for all of Hard Corps' endings). I mostly enjoyed myself even with how ball bustingly hard these run n gun classics are. My personal favorite is Super C but only because I've beaten it so many times prior to this one. I recommend this to any fan of throwback games that are looking for a challenge in both platforming and bullet hell. BE…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The Contra Anniversary Collection, developed and published by Konami, is a lovingly assembled tribute to one of gaming’s most enduring action franchises. It gathers together ten of the series’ most iconic entries spanning the late 1980s through the mid-1990s, offering players a comprehensive look at the evolution of the run-and-gun genre that Contra helped define. For long-time fans, this collection is both a nostalgia trip and a celebration of the series’ high points, while for newcomers it…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This and the Castlevania Anniversary Collection had a similar layout in terms of lazy design, they didn't even put exit button. Why can't they put it in the ESC or cancel button in the title screen. I had to play Rogue Corps from the start because Konami didn't put multiple save state unlike the Dominus Collection. Guess they were smart enough to figure it out before, I feel like a madman playing it multiple times. Another typical Konami decision making. Great job Konami.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →this is peace of ♥♥♥♥! You even cannot play together! both controllers works only on one character. There are lots of bags... Thank you very much for ruined nostalgia!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's definitely a nostalgia trip considering I loved the original Contra from the NES era. Biggest problem that I hate about this version is that I can't spam my bullets without turning on turbo mode; compared to the original NES version you could spam the bullets by mashing the B button but now you can only shoot 3 bullets at a time. Not bad, just the small change really makes it less appealing nowadays.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Swarchenegger and Stallone killing Xenomorphs
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game does not work as it is supposed to, only a few keys work, & no controller buttons work for it at all.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Good collection of old game. Got it on sale, can't complain. I use to be able to beat these with no deaths on nes and gameboy when I was younger, now i can't even make it past 3 levels with 30 lives...
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Here it is! The Space Marine shooter 80s-90s supreme! The only one missing here for me is Contra:Force which was a 1992 NES release that added 4 different characters with different sets of weapons and styles. The original arcade versions are here, which is a plus. I can remember playing "Ikari Warriors," "Operation: Wolf," and "Operation: Razorback," in the arcade as a child, but I never played the arcade version of Contra. Contra for the NES, however, is truly a force of nature in my life.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a review purely on the topic of Contra, not the port or other unrelated things. The idea is great, but the execution is needlessly focussed on the hardcore audience, ruining the experience. Even though all the games have an easy setting, it hardly seems to matter. The general formula is that you die in one hit. Die three times and you have to start the entire game over, which is ludicrous, and it's very telling that the gaming industry has moved far away from such egregious…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Oh my God!! Stay away from this disaster masterpiece. Three of the games are just the first Contra and I don't know who would be interested in the gameboy version from 30 years ago. It was fun for a bit reminiscing about the old days but you get over it fast. Nothing has been updated or added. If you absolutely have to have this package, be sure to pick it up on extreme discount.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Imagine Stallone and Schwarznegger doing a double punch to your balls. This is my review of Contra Anniversary Collection.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I want to preface this by saying that as much as I enjoyed the collection, it has no business being $20, at much is $15 but ideally you get it for less. You realistically get 7 games here: Contra Arcade, Contra (NES/Famicom), Super Contra, Super C, Contra 3, Operation C and Contra Hard Corps. If you're only buying this for one game like Contra, Contra 3 or Hard Corps, then there are "other" methods that won't cost you $20. Menu and Controls I played exclusively with an Xbox One controller.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Do not buy. Just get emulator and roms and play.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →1. This is nothing but a collection of Roms. THere's a save state menu and crap... they didn't bother actually redoing NES and w/e games for pc. Also it took me 10 minutes to figure out you have to hit the "Share" / select button on the xbox controller THEN start to start a game. 2. you can't put it in fullscreen. There's no video options that i saw.... It's just in windowed mode (you can move around and minimize/maximize). 3. I'm on a 3050Ti gaming laptop and it's DROPPING FRAMES in the FIRST…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →All the games in the collection are great. Each one takes a few hours to beat. The two best ones in my opinion are Alien Wars and Hard Corps. Pick this up on sale and enjoy your childhood again.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Same as Castlevania: minimal effort put into the collection Do you want to play the original JP Contra Hard Corps before it was localized and removed the HP system? well you better learn some japanese because this collection won't bother offering you some additional settings credit where is due, at least they reduced a lot of the intensity on the strobing lights when you hit a boss, so if that matters to you, play these games through this collection Otherwise, maybe get it on a big discount.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game for Collection only. And: F**K KONAMI!!! Points: 7/10 and 70/100
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I didnt even know its possible to fumble remote play together support (its enabled but it doesnt work), impressive
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →just use retro arch and roms
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →the sound quality sucks but here is a fix. The sound glitch fix, version 1 As there are new new people playing the game I had to create this guide in order to help people with a very specific issue that can possibly create worst jumpscare you have ever experienced. Contra Anniversary Collection is a great port with many great features but some optimisation still has problems. The sound glitch mentioned here happens when you first launch the game and you either hear static ot a very loud…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Controller only works in some of the versions. No obvious full screen. Not sure what this product is trying to do. Seems like a cash grab with no real work into getting these games running smoothly.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I try this off and on. Contra ... lag. Whole game slows to a crawl at first level's end stage. Lags in other areas too. Go along fine, then a crawl, everything is in slow motion. Contra 2 ... aiming issues. Sometimes fires where you aim, sometimes doesn't. Jump, try to aim diagonal, sometimes fires in that direction. Sometimes not. It's like there's a firing delay. Aim, wait a sec or so, then fire. Very difficult in many scenarios. So often, get lag or aim delays and it's not fun. Difficult…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The SOUND is TERRIBLE!!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →20 hours on record If you’re looking to relive the 90s when games were hard and "bullets" were just giant orange circles, this is it. It’s handled by M2, so the emulation is buttery smooth. No weird audio glitches or input lag here.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →20 bucks for old games is a lot in my opinion, especially since some of them are just different reinditions of the same game (instead of 10 games you actually have 6), but if you have played Contra as a kid and are here for the nostalgia, then feel free to get it for a discount. Do keep in mind though - I wanted to initially play this with my friend through remote play together, but we could not get it to work. (Other remote play together games work just fine)
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →it very fun having all of the old contra games in one place but lets be real..I bought this to play the NES contra! and yes the contra code still works.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →changing my review cause after few hours of enjoying this it became so annoying, at this point it is better your run an emulator cause it kept slowing down at some points and glitching some other times and can't change controls for all games and you have to do it through steam controller settings which means u have to change every time you launch another game, tried to go for all the achievements but after finishing all the games and getting all individual achievements for each game last one…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Relive the magic of the '90's with the game that stole our hearts known as Contra. This blast from the past brings a tidal wave of nostalgia.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Nice ports of all classic contras and their regional versions that allows you to save replays, also with bonus material like an interview with the director and designer of contra 3 and onwards, and design documents and sketches. Though having a single save-state, not being able to rebind keyboard controls, and having an ear-piercing bug when you launch the game sometimes sucks.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Some of my favorite 80's 8-bit and 16-bit games of all time. Unfortunately, all you get are a few roms in a terrible emulator that runs a crawl speed compared to MAME. Also, have figuring out which buttons inserts coins in the arcade games as very few instructions appear on the selection menus. Classic games wrapped in a terrible shell. Seriously just get the MAME versions unless you get it for 50 ct like I did in the Galuga bundle.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A travel back in time. Nostalgia pure. All Contras are pretty fun to play, the firrst 2 on NES are a bit clumpsy. Contra III is a true classic. Hard Cops is the banger. Enjoyed to play them.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The included games are great, but this game has had a bug where the audio is completely blown out and screeching as soon as you get to the main title screen. There's suggestions in the forum to fix it, but none of them work for me. This bug has been in the game for years, and neither Konami nor M2 seem interested in fixing it. So, leaving a neg. Sucks because the quality of the collection is about 8/10 otherwise.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →An excellent way to play some of the best side scrolling shooters ever made! Up Up, Down Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start! the ancient ritual of the Contra player! 30 lives and plenty of practice to get through a tough but exhilarating game! Contra absolutely raised the bar for home console arcade ports back in the NES days, a home port that is superior to its arcade original, with fantastic gameplay, colourful graphics and a fantastic soundtrack! Now you can enjoy these classics…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A poorly cobbled together bare minimum product with no real settings or arcade dip switch options.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →One Of My Favorite Games, I'm Happy To Be Playing These Titles Again
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Could have used just a little bit more polish, like starting the game with full screen and a quit game option. Depending on which game you're playing and using the xbox controller, jump and shoot can be in so many different places. Honestly, they could have made it so much better by setting Jump as A and shoot as X, standardize it from the get go because I had to reconfigure all the controls. So every time you want to play this on say a big TV screen, you need to hit Alt+Enter and to hit the X…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Classic Contra titles through the mid 1990's, including the Arcade and Japanese versions. This is a killer collection and a must-have for anyone who enjoys these old run-n-gun titles. Note: The Arcade titles suffer from slowdown and glitches, unfortunately. Each of the times I played through them, at some point the sound cut out partially or completely and did not return until I restarted the game from scratch. This includes losing my audio for my entire progress if I used the Save & Load…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →AMAZING collection!!! definitely recommend this to both newcomers of Contra series or the OGs like me. "let's attack aggressively!!"
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great game but start with contra for nes its a good start
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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