Contra III: The Alien Wars is one of those SNES games that makes you question how you ever beat it as a kid. Right from the start, you're dodging bullets, climbing walls, and blasting aliens with that classic spread gun—until you inevitably pick up the laser and realize it's way cooler. The first level throws exploding cyborg dogs at you while the screen scrolls upward, and honestly, it never lets up from there.

You get two playstyles—top-down and side-scrolling—and both feel ridiculously fast for a 16-bit game. The bosses are massive, the explosions are chaotic, and yeah, you'll probably burn through a few continues. But that’s half the fun. The soundtrack slaps, too—those synth beats still hold up.

If you’ve got nostalgia for run-and-gun chaos, this is the one.