I wanted Gaiares so bad when I saw it in magazines back in the day. Renovation knew exactly how to market that one. I remember there being a "gaming" segment on the weekend news back then and they featured Gaiares there, they had a stern warning for parents about the difficulty, not to let the great graphics trick them into thinking it was a push over.
Watching the game in action I believe I was in a stupor of sorts for a period. Lol.
Contra: Hard Corps was definitely named right. I grabbed that one and Castlevania Bloodlines from a local EB store as a package deal (they were literally the last two used Genesis games they had (and they were not taking them in anymore). They just wanted the shelf space at that point, I think I got them for about $20 each in todays money (not sure if that was a deal or not - I have not priced games in years).
I remember playing it and absolutely hating it, I kept going back to Castlevania when Contra inevitably made me mad. 😂 Graphically stupidly impressive game but man, not many of us got to see those later levels and the graphical power they held.
I'm pretty sure that's about how much I paid for my copies back in the day. I haven't priced them in a while, but I'd guess that was a good deal. The retro gaming market is utterly insane at this point.
I view them as good deals because I did have fun with them and those memories playing these when they were still closer to the cutting edge will always be worth the price of admission.
Seeing that one giant multi sprite monstrosity chasing me down the road in Contra or the tower twisting and flailing left and right as I ascended in Castlevania, those are wonderful memories to me. Gamers today are upset if the game is not fully HD, 60+ frames per second, and heaven forbid if a bit of screen tearing happens across 5 frames. 😂