head to head
Contra 4vsMega Man 2
Contra 4 leans Execution (Pure Mechanics); Mega Man 2 leans Execution (Practiced Mastery).
Contra 4Mega Man 2
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
Mega Man 2 leans harder on optimization: weapon-weakness ordering is the classic solve
Two games can score the same on an axis and still test it in very different ways - read each rationale, not just the number.

