Konami is not the video game juggernaut it once was. The company used to pump out tons of games from the 80s to the 00s, but now production has slowed. Fans of giant franchises like Metal Gear and Silent Hill are understandably frustrated with the lack of sequels over the years but those two examples do have games coming soon apparently.
Will they actually come out or will they stay in limbo? Perhaps Konami and its many properties will eventually be bought out by bigger companies like Sony or Nintendo. It’s hard to say, but for now, it's interesting to look back at the legacy of this cherished Japanese studio. There are plenty of collections fans can enjoy to relive the good old days.
6 Castlevania Advance Collection
There are two collections in this series for vampire-hungry fans out there. Castlevania Anniversary Collection, as the name implies, collects the more traditional action platformers from mostly the NES and Game Boy eras. They are classics indeed with some of the best music in video games ever made like “Bloody Tears” and “Vampire Killer.” They are also a bit clunky by today’s standards.
Castlevania Advance Collection is the better of the two because it contains three amazing Metroidvanias from the Game Boy Advance with pixel-perfect gameplay. The collection includes Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance, Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. Of the three, Aria of Sorrow is the best one, which went on to get a direct sequel on DS called Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow.
5 Contra Anniversary Collection
The Contra Anniversary Collection includes Contra, Super Contra, Contra 3: The Alien Wars, Contra: Hard Corps, and Operation C. All five of those games are some fine examples in the run-and-gun genre from the 80s and 90s. Plus, most of them allow for couch co-op, which is always fun to see in a retro bundle.
Co-op is kind of necessary too because these games are brutal even with cheat codes. One of the coolest things about the collection is that there are regional differences between releases. For example, in Europe, this series was known as Probotector. The human characters were replaced by robots but the gameplay remained the same. The reason why is a long story, but it’s just cool that this history got preserved in the bundle.
4 Metal Gear Solid HD Collection
Metal Gear Solid HD Collection is some of the finest preservation work in gaming history. Because the collection includes special editions of the second and third games, there are five games in the collection. They include Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.
Of those games, it was cool for console players to get into Peace Walker, which was originally a PSP game. It was good on the portable, but the problem was that not a lot of people bought the PSP compared to the consoles. Playing it was kind of necessary to understand what was going on in the fifth game too, which might be one reason why the game was included. History on that specific entry aside, these five games should satiate the stealth fanatics out there.
3 Silent Hill HD Collection
Silent Hill HD Collection was another early attempt at bringing some PS2 classics forward into the HD era. The bundle included the second and third games and it received mixed reviews. Some fans were not pleased with how the fog looked in the games, some censorship changes, and how the voice acting got re-recorded.
It was a controversial re-release at the time but since launch, things didn’t get patched for the better. The collection could have also offered more games. It was good enough for what it was trying to do at the time and it is a fine collection of some truly messed up horror games.
2 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection
Konami made a lot of good brawlers in the 80s and 90s. They also did some excellent licensed-based work like with everyone’s favorite fighting turtle team. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection is the most recent collection that Konami helped put out as of 2022.
The collection includes Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Arcade), TMNT: Turtles in Time, TMNT: Tournament Fighters, TMNT: The Manhattan Project, TMNT: Fall of the Foot Clan, TMNT: Back from the Sewers, and TMNT: Radical Rescue. That is a staggering amount of titles to choose from. Like Contra Anniversary Collection, this TMNT bundle also includes alternate versions of some of these games. For example, Tournament Fighters had a SNES, NES, and Sega Genesis release in the 90s and each version contained alternate fighters and stages. Plus, there are tons of extras in the collection like comic book covers for fans to drool over.
1 Zone Of The Enders HD Collection
Metal Gear Solid HD Collection is not the only Hideo Kojima-based work that is worth highlighting in Konami’s annals of history. He also worked on Zone of the Enders, which was a mech-based shooter series. The first entry was notable because it included a demo of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.
It was enough to get a sequel, which is the better of the two. Zone Of The Enders HD Collection then bundles both of those games together for hungry mech fans out there. They are extremely short and can each be beaten in a couple of hours. However, a lot of the other classic games on here are even shorter, so it’s all relative. Short or not, these games are great.