head to head
vs
Contra 4vsDonkey Kong
Contra 4 leans Execution (Pure Mechanics); Donkey Kong leans Execution (Practiced Mastery).
Contra 4Donkey Kong
Axis by axis
Execution9 vs 8
Contra 4 leans harder on execution: One-hit deaths under dense bullet patterns demand near-perfect inputs
Reads0 vs 0
Even - both lean on reads about the same.
Variance1 vs 1
Even - both lean on variance about the same.
Optimization5 vs 6
Donkey Kong leans harder on optimization: Stage patterns and score routes fully learnable
Two games can score the same on an axis and still test it in very different ways - read each rationale, not just the number.