In a post-apocalyptic world dominated by machines, mankind is on the verge of extinction and what few people remain hide away in underground bunkers. Upon receiving information about a critical energy central that powers the master A.I.'s army, a rebel group sends their best soldiers, Mavra and Doyle, to take it down after turning all who oppose them into scrap metal.
The game is proudly based on the extreme Nintendo Hard action traditions set by Konami's Contra series as well as SNK's Metal Slug and has players blitz through unrelenting crowds of machines and bio-monsters while packing heavy firepower.
It is available for PC, Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One. Also, an exA-Arcadia arcade port was released in 2021 with Zaku from Oniken as an exclusive playable character.
Compare Super Cyborg and Iron Meat, two other retraux games based on Contra.
Time to blaze some tropes:
- 1-Up: Icons of the player character grant extra lives.
- After the End: The game takes place in the year A.D. 21XX where machines rule the planet.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Machines led by an evil A.I. dominated mankind and turned the world into a wasteland.
- And the Adventure Continues: After the heroes destroy the energy central and escape, only a fraction of the A.I.'s army is deactivated and there is still much for them to do to restore mankind.
- Anti-Climax: The Core, the final boss, abruptly explodes after the second virtual world section which ends with a rather easy and brief fight against a image of the playable ninja character.
- Attack Drone: One of the support bots fires alongside the player character.
- Badass Boast: When Commander Zet is fought in Stage 4 as the first miniboss, he gives one to the player characters.Commander Zet: Muahahaha! I'll make it quick!
- Bandit Mook: One of the enemy types in Stage 1 is a small, weak bug-like creature that appears in groups. They're generally a minor threat, but they do have an irritating ability to carry away powerup crates they come across.
- Bears Are Bad News: One of the Mini Bosses in stage 5 is a robotic armored bear which you face while riding a hoverbike. It attacks with pouncing, firing shots from its face once its face armor is destroyed, and also "attacks" by having spiked obstacles appear on the path in front of you.
- Big Bad: Commander Zet is the leader of the enemy forces.
- Blood Is Squicker in Water: The Toxic Worm that serves as the Stage 5 boss is one of the few that doesn't explode spectacularly. Instead, its blood-like oil dyes the acid pool it was attacking from red.
- Boss-Only Level: The final stage only features bosses, though the final boss does involve platforming phases.
- Charged Attack: The laser weapon can be held down to charge it, allowing you to fire out a powerful constant laser stream.
- Difficult, but Awesome: The grenade launcher weapon fires in a rather unwieldy arc, but like the Crash Missiles from the Contra series it leaves behind a very powerful explosion on impact. Finding the right angle to fire it is key to dealing huge damage.
- Final Boss, New Dimension: At certain points of the final battle the heroes are dragged into the cyberworld to avoid obstacles and fight simulations of two of the playable characters.
- Flunky Boss:
- The second miniboss of Stage 2 has an Orbiting Particle Shield of Attack Drones that protect it and can fire shots at the player. It can replenish said shield if left alive long enough, making it a Shielded Core Boss.
- The Giant Spider miniboss of Stage 3 can summon spiked enemies that bounce all over the platform you're on.
- The first and second minibosses of Stage 5 are accompanied by enemies that constantly come in to aid them, the first one comes with flying bug robots while the second comes with napalm-dropping jetpackers.
- The fourth miniboss of Stage 5 is a laser cannon that constantly summons mooks from the side walls to attack you.
- The Toxic Worm has acid-shooting flies that will fly in from the sides every time it uses its bite attack.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: The introductory cut-scene depicts Marva meticulously loading an ammo cartridge with bullets, by hand. In gameplay, all characters have infinite ammo.
- Giant Spider: The mid boss of Stage 3 is a giant spider monster that attempts to destroy the elevator the heroes are on. You get one minute to shoot it down. At the end of the stage, another spider-esque biomechanical creature with 4 legs also stands in the protagonists' way.
- Guest Fighter: Zaku from Oniken is playable in the arcade port. While there are a number of nods to that game in Blazing Chrome, Zaku having no unique story or ending makes a proper connection between the two remain unconfirmed.
- Killer Robot: Almost all your enemies are these, with the exception of the few organic ones.
- Marathon Boss: The final battle has several phases with platforming sequences sandwiched between them.
- Mecha-Mooks: Most of your enemies are mechanical in nature, thanks to being part of the machine army that has dominated mankind.
- Mini-Boss: Each Stage has at least one miniboss fights in them.
- Mini-Mecha: You can pilot one in some stages, and each one has an unique weapon. Keeping it to the end is worth bonus points.
- Monowheel Mayhem: Electrified Monowheel-riding enemies are one of the enemy types you'll encounter when riding a hoverbike.
- Mutually Exclusive Power-Ups: You can only have one Bot powerup at a time.
- Mythology Gag: Several stages have clear call-backs to Oniken in either their scenery or enemy designs and the term "ONIKEN PROTOCOL"
is seen in the background at one point. While it's not confirmed, it could imply the game is a Stealth Sequel — and the arcade version outright makes Zaku, the protagonist from that game, a playable character. - One-Hit-Point Wonder: You can only get hit once per life unless you equip the Defense Bot or are riding a mech.
- Notice This: In the first section of Stage 5, you get warnings for the obstacles and pits you must jump-jump over.
- Power Up Letdown: The Attack and Speed bots are Mutually Exclusive Power-Ups with the extremely useful Defense Bot, making them a downgrade to survivability if collected when you still have a Defense Bot. Fortunately, collecting them will eject the previous Bot upgrade onto the ground, allowing you to pick it back up again.
- Quicksand Sucks: Quicksand is an environmental hazard in Stage 3.
- Rise to the Challenge: The third Stage 4 mini boss is set on an endless vertical shaft.
- Rolling Attack: The first midboss in Stage 6 is an armadillo bot who can Spin Dash at the player.
- Sand Worm: Two types of them in Stage 3's desert area. The first kind jumps out of the sand from under the player, the second is a large one that emerges from the sand, spits acid, and exposes its weakpoints every now and then.
- Shielded Core Boss:
- The Golden Giant, the boss of Stage 1, needs to be shot in the head enough times in order to expose its core, which has to be attacked. It'll retract the core after sustaining a bit of damage, forcing you to repeat the process.
- The second Mini-Boss of Stage 2 has an Orbiting Particle Shield of Attack Drones which block your shots. They can be destroyed when they're not spinning, but the boss will respawn them after a few attacks.
- Shock and Awe: The Mechanical Dragonfly, the boss of Stage 2, is a huge flying robot whose attacks are all electrical in nature, be they electric balls or lightning strikes.
- Shout-Out:
- The first stage contains flying bug-like enemies that try to "kidnap" the player character off the screen, similar to the Gigafly enemies in the Contra series.
- Brazilian cartoon character Tcheco is seen drawn in the background of the first stage, right before the second section.
- One enemy in Stage 3 and Stage 5 is a turret that behaves very similar to the Plasma Cannon enemies from Mega Man X4's Military Train stage, alternating between firing a Wave-Motion Gun and an arced missile attack.
- The mutated doglike enemies move in a similar manner to the mutants from Metal Slug 2, even climbing on ceilings and dropping down to attack.
- The Stage 3 boss takes cues from Contra's Jagger Froid/Emperor Devil Gyaba, being an organic monstrosity with snakelike appendages that attack the player. This time, though, they are a primary target rather than respawning parts.
- The desert arena from Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 was part of the developers' reference base for designing the desert stage in this game, so at the beginning we see an android sunk into the sand and struggling like Cyrax in that game.
- The two fights with Commander Zet are very similarly to battling Allen O'Niel from the Metal Slug series. Even the arena layout is almost identical from his boss battles.
- The first miniboss of Stage 5 seems to be designed off Hell Crusher, the miniboss of Tunnel Rhino's stage in Mega Man X3. Both are robots with stretchy limbs and spiked hands that ride a weaponized vehicle.
- The final stage is reminiscent of Mega Man X, with similar Boss Corridors, Boss Rooms and boss doors to the Sigma levels and the Core's mech body is very reminiscent of Wolf Sigma, even involving his disembodied head floating into it to control it.
- Single-Use Shield: The Defense Bot provides you with a shield that can take 2 hits before disappearing. One hit turns the colour from green to red, and a second removes it.
- Spread Shot: Surprisingly, considering its inspiration in Contra, your characters do not get one of these. Several enemies in the game however do use this as an attack.
- This Cannot Be!: Zet, when you defeat him for the first time.
- This Is a Drill: The rideable mech in Stage 3 has a drill-arm for close-range combat.
- Time-Limit Boss: The Giant Spider in Stage 3 has a strict 1-minute timer for you to shoot it down before it destroys the elevator you're on.
- Token Heroic Orc: Doyle is the only heroic robot in the game, justified because he was reprogrammed to fight for the humans.
- Traintop Battle: The latter thirds of Stage 2 are set atop a train.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: The final section of Stage 4 is a rail shooter akin to SoulStar and Star Fox.
- Vehicular Assault: The first Mini-Boss of Stage 2 is a robotic car with a laser-scope gun, a grenade launcher, and jet boosters that allow it to fly and attempt to crush the player character.
- Womb Level: Joymasher can't not have one of those, which is the visceral bio-monster lab seen in the third part of Stage 3 in this game.
