Building comparison
head to head
Contra III: The Alien WarsvsMega Man 2
Neither is meaningfully harder - they pose close to the same test. The widest gap is execution, and it is a single point.
Contra III: The Alien Wars
Execution · Pure Mechanics
Peak 16-bit run-and-gun of set-piece bosses and razor-thin dodges.
Mega Man 2
Execution · Practiced Mastery
NES platformer that codified boss-weakness ordering and tight jump-and-shoot play.
Contra III: The Alien Wars leans Execution (Pure Mechanics); Mega Man 2 leans Execution (Practiced Mastery).
Contra III: The Alien WarsMega Man 2
Axis by axis
Execution9 vs 8
Contra III: The Alien Wars leans a little harder on execution, though the gap is small.
Contra III: The Alien Wars
Relentless bosses and bullet dodging
Mega Man 2
precise jumps and boss dodges under pressure
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
Mega Man 2
robot masters follow strict patterns
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
Mega Man 2
deterministic once stage layouts known
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
Mega Man 2
weapon-weakness ordering is the classic solve
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.