YMMV / Contra: Hard Corps

• Breather Boss: There's a breather Mini-Boss in the Route B ending of the game. After defeating Colonel Bahamut (provided that you rejected his invitation), the player will face off against Deadeye Joe who doesn't care much about Bahamut's death. He cannot kill the player via Collision Damage and only has one attack: an easily avoidable horizontal shot. After Joe is a somewhat-annoying miniboss, and then the Final Boss.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Brad Fang with his Psychic Blaster (fully charged) takes down bosses in two or three blasts. Considering that there are lots of bosses in Hard Corps, Brad is designed to break the game. His other arsenals include a short range explosive punch which hits a lot for short range, and his upgraded first weapon is a much more rapid Spray Burst which decimates enemies real quick, and his other weapon is a mid-range flame thrower that moves to wherever Brad changes his aiming. Most of them will make up for how his charged Psychic Blaster can't be used against anything that doesn't come in a horizontal line against him.
  • Browny is half the size of the other characters, lowering the chance of getting hit tremendously; has a double jump; and is in possession of the Electro-Yo-Yo: a homing, long-range electric spike-ball-tipped beam that pierces through every single obstacle and defenses in the game and deals insane, continuous damage. You hardly need to aim with the thing, allowing you to concentrate on just dodging.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The Japanese version of the game had a life meter that could allow the player to take three hits before dying. Also, at the end of the game, Colonel Bahamut offers the two heroes a choice: either accept the "We Can Rule Together" offer and get a bad ending, or reject the offer and fight him. Cuphead would soon borrow the health meter formula from the game's Japanese version, as well as the Devil's similar "We Can Rule Together" offer toward the end. Oh, and Noiman Cascade's Virtual Zone forms including the constellations Taurus, Sagittarius, and Gemini? Cuphead borrows that formula, too.
• Ho Yay: There is a Joke Ending, where the player character is transported to prehistoric Earth, and becomes a monarch of proto-humans, with one of the females being the player character's queen. This happens even if you play as Sheena. Of course, it also happens if you play as Browny.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Contra: Hard Corps is already quite difficult, but the US version removes the Life Meter system, reducing the player to a One-Hit-Point Wonder, effectively punishing players for owning the "wrong" region-version of the game.
• That One Boss: The Spider Mutant moves erratically fast, making webs to travel around the air randomly, all while firing orbs that either home in or multiple orbs at once. Its small size and speed also make even Brad's Psychic Blaster less than effective.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Hard Corps pushed the Genesis to its absolute limits. From its impressively rich synth music to the very large bosses, to the convincing explosion effects, it rivals Sonic 3 & Knuckles in sheer pushing of the boundaries of the Genesis' hardware.