head to head

Contra 4 cover artvsMega Man 2 cover art

Contra 4vsMega Man 2

Contra 4 leans Execution (Pure Mechanics); Mega Man 2 leans Execution (Practiced Mastery).

EXECUTION9 /10READS0 /10VARIANCE1 /10OPTIMIZATION5 /10
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.

full breakdown

Contra 4

full breakdown

Mega Man 2