CONTRA!

No, seriously, I've given this alot of thought. It's the only one. Let me tell you here, see:

1. Contra, NES (1988)



The original masterpiece. It's just you and your friend red guy against a horde of nefarious enemies that's hellbent on taking over the world by charging straight into you and exploding. It's got everything! Platforming, a cop-op mode, weird over-headish levels and a brilliant screen bug which makes the game way harder on co-op than on single player mode (it's like the feature in Rush'n'Attack which forces you to climb on any ladder that you wish to jump past)! But somehow Konami managed to make a sequel that was just a little bit better...

2. Super C, NES (1990)



Hello, so what's this then? A similar game but with better bossbattles, better weaponry, better overhead levels and without the aforementioned co-op screen bug (the only downside). It's pretty much just what a sequel should be like. Surely there's no way to improve on this though... right?

WRONG!

3. Contra III - The Alien Wars, SNES (1992)



When I first played Contra III I was like OH MAMA. Stuff exploding, crazy dog NPCs attacking you on normal and hard mode, the laser not being there just to annoy you, jumping between rockets, exploiting tons of bugs when fighting the last boss etc etc. If there's a better game out there for the SNES I have yet to play it, let me tell you. It's also packed with clever one-liners like the infamous one in the intro and, uh... there were lots of more in the Contra III promotional comic which totally counts.

At this point improving the series seemed hopeless. Konami released a bunch of spin-off titles, some great and some pretty bad ones. Little did we know that is was all just a ruse (presumably) so we wouldn't expect the greatness of...

4. Contra 4, NDS (2007)



Fine, so instead of releasing this two years after Contra III, keeping in line with the schedule, it took Konami 15 years to produce this masterpiece (they worked on it non-stop... I presume). But, maaaan, was it worth it. They bypassed the sillyness of the DS by introducing a grappling hook, and more gigantic bosses and they finally got the difficulty setting spot on (they made it harder than the previous games, yesh). Also, Konami introduced these challenges that are mega awesome. You, like, have play a stage or a part of a stage in pacifist mode, or beat a certain time, or not kill hostages, or kill all dogs, or beat a level with a SUPER SPECIAL AWESOME WEAPON and things like that. And when you beat the game on hard the game dubs you the king of 2D gaming EH HE HE.

So, yeah, convinced yet? I don't think anyone would argue that the Final Fantasies have gotten better and better. GTA IV was sort of a disappointment. Suikoden's out of the picture, despite easily being the series with the best and most thought-out universe/timeline etc, because of Suikoden IV (besides, SIII's gameplay is so inferior to that of SII that it's difficult to make a case there despite the brilliant storyline and non-broken English). Zelda II isn't bad but it certainly ain't no Zelda I. Clayfighter II is crap. Megaman peaked at the third game. Mario might make the cut if you only count the four NES games, but that's stretching it a bit much for several reasons. Days of ruin's a brilliant game, but still sort of the black sheep in the Advance Wars family. Fire Emblem VII rocks the sock off Fire Emblem VIII. Front Mission III was much better than the fourth instalment (SERIOUSLY? YOU'RE FORCING ME TO HIDE IN A CORNER FOR SIX TURNS HEALING MYSELF!?). The Streetfighter series can't compete with the second game. Donkey Kong Country 64 ruined the franchise. Simon's Quest just ain't a proper Castlevania game. Ninja Gaiden... hm, the original trilogy actually makes the test but I consider the new games part of the main series, so hmph! Games like Dynasty Warriors and FIFA get disqualified because older instalments have been much greater improvements than the newer ones, despite the most recent ones sorta being the best (sorta), if that makes any sense (it does, if I fix my grammar and stuff, but I won't, so hmph!). So there, those are all the games I know.