Building comparison
head to head
Contra III: The Alien WarsvsGhostrunner
Neither is harder. They score identically on all four axes, so the difference between them is in kind, not degree.
Contra III: The Alien Wars
Execution · Pure Mechanics
Peak 16-bit run-and-gun of set-piece bosses and razor-thin dodges.
Ghostrunner
Execution · Pure Mechanics
A first-person cyberpunk slasher where everything dies in one hit, including you.
Contra III: The Alien Wars leans Execution (Pure Mechanics); Ghostrunner leans Execution (Pure Mechanics).
Contra III: The Alien WarsGhostrunner
Axis by axis
Execution9 vs 9
Same score on execution - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Contra III: The Alien Wars
Relentless bosses and bullet dodging
Ghostrunner
One-hit-death parkour and slashing demand near-perfect inputs
Reads0 vs 0
Same score on reads - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Contra III: The Alien Wars
Set-piece bosses are pure scripts
Ghostrunner
Enemy placements are fixed
Variance1 vs 1
Same score on variance - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Contra III: The Alien Wars
Everything is fixed and learnable
Ghostrunner
Deterministic levels
Optimization6 vs 6
Same score on optimization - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Contra III: The Alien Wars
Weapon management and pattern memorization
Ghostrunner
Route planning and enemy-order solutions define fast clears
A matching score does not mean a matching test. Two games can both sit at 10 on execution and demand completely different things of you - which is why the reasoning above matters more than the number beside it.