Contra (video game)

Contra (魂斗羅), released as Gryzor in Europe and Oceania, is an arcade game released in 1987 by the Konami. The player controls a commando who battles waves of enemies including humanoids, machines, mutants and giant aliens to reach his ultimate goal. Much of the game's popularity came from its two-player simultaneous gameplay, which was an uncommon feature in video games at the time of Contra's release. While successful in the arcades, the game became and remained widely popular and remembered when it was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988. Contra was voted #1 by gaming website IGN.com as being the "Toughest Game to Beat".^[1]

The player takes control of an armed commando named Bill Rizer, or his partner Lance Bean, as they are sent to infiltrate the island headquarters of an alien army calling themselves Red Falcon and thwart their plot to invade the Earth. The backstory differs slightly between sources. The original Japanese promotional flyer for the arcade version places the game's setting specifically on the month of December 2633 A.D. and cites the movies First Blood, Predator and Alien in its blurb.^[2] The Famicom version released in Japan features an intro which fleshes out this plot. The aliens are revealed to have arrived in a meteor that fell into the fictional Galuga (or Galga) archipelago near New Zealand two years prior to the event of the game.^[3]

When the NES version of the game was released in North America, the opening intro was removed and the game's manual changes numerous details. The game's setting is moved from a fictional Oceanian island in the distant future to an unspecified region of Central America near the ruins of a Mayan civilization in the present day. The main characters retain their given names, but are now referred to by the codenames of "Mad Dog" and "Scorpion". The name "Red Falcon" also became the name of the alien entity Bill and Lance fought, rather than the name of the terrorist organization itself. The meteor is stated to have arrived fifty years earlier as well.^[4] This discrepancy with the game's setting between Japanese and American sources would cause the subsequent Contra games to follow a different continuity in each region. It wasn't until the English localization of Contra: Shattered Soldier that the series would follow the original Japanese continuity in North America.

When Contra was covered in the debut issue of Nintendo Power magazine, the original Japanese plot was used for the article. Probotector, the PAL version of the NES game, also follows the Japanese plot in its manual, but replaces all references of Bill and Lance with the Probotector robots RD008 and RC011 (see below for more info).^[5]

The player's character is equipped with a rifle with an unlimited amount of ammunition. The player can also jump, move and fire in eight directions. The protagonists can move and jump simultaneously while firing. A single hit from any enemy, bullet, or other hazard will instantly kill the player character, and also discard the current weapon from the player's disposal. There are a total of four weapons the player can retrieve from flying weapon capsules or pill-box sensors: a Machine Gun, a Laser Gun, a Fire Gun, and a Spread Gun. There also two additional supplemental power-ups: a Rapid Fire power-up which increases the player's firing speed, as well as a Barrier that will grant the player temporary invincibility for a few seconds. All the power-ups in the arcade version are represented by Eagle-shaped letter icons with the exception of the Machine Gun and Laser.

There are two types of stages in Contra. In addition to the standard side view stages, in which the player must move towards the right (or climb upward in at least one stage) to reach the end boss, Contra also features "3D view" stages in which the player character must move towards the background in order to proceed. Each of the 3D stages are set inside the corridor of an enemy base in which the player must fight through the base's defense system in order to reach the core of the base before the time limit. There are a total of ten stages in the arcade version of Contra.

Contra also features simultaneous two-player cooperative gameplay. Both players occupy the same screen and must coordinate their actions. One player lagging behind can cause problems for his partner, as the screen will not scroll onward, and a slow player can be fatal to his partner. The European release, Gryzor, does not feature a simultaneous multiplayer mode. Instead, the multiplayer alternates between one player or the other when either one loses a life.

Under license from Konami, Ocean Software produced ports of Contra under the title of Gryzor for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, and Amstrad CPC, which were released in Europe in Template:Vgy. Ocean's ports were patterned after the original arcade version of the game. The Commodore 64 version of Contra was also released in North America by Konami along with an original IBM PC port Konami produced for the American market.

Konami produced their own home version of Contra for the Nintendo Entertainment System, which was released on February Template:Vgy in Japan and North America. A version for the PAL region titled Probotector was released on December Template:Vgy.

The NES version of Contra differs from the arcade game in a few ways. All ten stages from the arcade version are present, although Stage 3 and 6 were merged into Stage 2 and 5 respectively, reducing the number of stages to eight. The stages themselves are also expanded, featuring longer levels and more enemies (including bosses). The final four stages (the Snowfield, Energy Zone, Hangar, and Alien Lair), which took place in one continuous level in the arcade version, were split in the NES version.

All six power-ups from the arcade version are present, with the Machine Gun and the Laser Rifle now represented by letter-based Falcon icons (an "M" and an "L" respectively) like the other four power-ups. A seventh power-up is also introduced called the "Special", which destroys all on-screen enemies once picked up. It is represented by a letter-less Falcon icon.

The NES version of Contra was one of the earliest games to use the Konami Code, which originated with the NES version of Gradius. Inputting the code on the title screen before starting the game will grant each player thirty lives when they begin.

The Japanese Family Computer version of Contra makes use of a custom-made Multi-Memory Controller that Konami produced called the VRC2 instead of a standard chip, allowing for additional graphical effects that were cut out from the American NES version. The Famicom version features cut-scenes shown before each stage, along with a map of the Galuga archipelago displaying the player's current position, as well as addition background animations such as moving palm trees in the first stage and snowfalls in stage 5. The Famicom version also feature additional cheat codes such as a stage select code and a sound test, as well as a hidden post-credits scene by holding select and start before and during the entire end credits.

In Europe and Oceania, the NES version of Contra was retitled Probotector, where the original main characters , as well as some of the enemies, were replaced with robotic counterparts. This was done to circumvent the BPjM's censorship laws in Germany, which prohibits the sales of violent video games to minors. Subsequent Contra games for the NES, Game Boy, Super NES, and Mega Drive followed suit, which were all released in the PAL region under the Probotector title as well and featured similar modifications. The Contra games would began retaining the Contra title and characters in Europe beginning with Contra: Legacy of War and later Contra: Shattered Soldier.

An MSX2 version of Contra was released by Konami exclusively in Japan on May 26, Template:Vgy. The MSX2 version of Contra greatly differs from the arcade and NES versions. Due to hardware limitations of the MSX2, the game doesn't scroll but instead uses flip-screens like Konami's other MSX2 games such as the original Metal Gear and Vampire Killer. The player is given a life gauge, allowing their character sustain more than one shot before losing a life. There are two main power-ups in the MSX2 version, a Falcon-shaped power-up that increases the player's walking and shooting speed, as well as a gun-shaped power-up which allows the player to change their current weapon. After picking up the weapon power-up, the player can choose between the default Normal Gun or four other weapons. The Spread Gun is not featured in this version, replaced by Rear Gun similar to the tailgun in certain Gradius games, which fires at two directions at the same time. The MSX2 Contra is composed of 19 stages. The first nine stages are based on the arcade version (which excludes the Hangar stage), while the final ten stages are new to this version. Unlike the arcade and NES versions, the MSX2 version does not feature a multiplayer mode.

A PlayStation 2 port of the arcade version of Contra was released in Japan on May 25, Template:Vgy as part of a series of retro game ports by Hamster.^[6] A second rerelease was made for the Xbox Live Arcade on November 6 of the same year, with Digital Eclipse handling the conversion.^[7] The arcade version was also included in Konami's retro game compilation Konami Classics Series: Arcade Hits for the Nintendo DS.

The NES version of Contra was also included in the Template:Vgy video game compilation Konami Collector's Series: Castlevania & Contra for Microsoft Windows in North America, which also included Super C and the three Castlevania games released for the NES. Both, Contra and Super C, are included in the Nintendo DS game Contra 4 as hidden bonuses.

The arcade version was followed by a single sequel titled Super Contra in 1988. An NES version of Super Contra was released in the 1990, under the shortened title of Super C in North America. The NES versions of Contra and Super C were the first in a series of Contra games for home platforms. Konami would follow their releases with Operation C for the Game Boy in Template:Vgy, Contra III: The Alien Wars for the Super NES and Contra Force for the NES both in Template:Vgy, and Contra: Hard Corps for the Sega Genesis in Template:Vgy. During the late 1990's, Konami externally contracted Appaloosa Interactive for the development of two sequels for the PlayStation: Contra: Legacy of War (also released for the Sega Saturn) in Template:Vgy, and C: The Contra Adventure in Template:Vgy. In the early 2000's, Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo developed two Contra games for the PlayStation 2, Contra: Shattered Soldier in Template:Vgy and Neo Contra in Template:Vgy. In Template:Vgy, Contra 4 was released for the Nintendo DS, a co-production between Konami of America and WayForward Technologies. Contra ReBirth, developed by M2, was released for the Wii as a Wiiware title in Template:Vgy.

The first level theme in Contra titled "Battle in the Dense Forest" (密林の戦い, Mitsurin no Tatakai) remains one of the most recognizable pieces of video game music ever created. In the early 2000s, several bands started performing live and studio renditions of the song. The Minibosses as The Advantage too, covers the song along with several other classic tunes such as the theme from Metroid. Perhaps the most notable modern remix of the song was created by Chris Kline (vertexguy) in July 2005. His rendition caught the attention of millions across the world, including the NES version's composer, Hidenori Maezawa. In an interview with Hidenori Maezawa, after listening to vertexguy's version, he stated that it sounded exactly like what he was invisioning in his mind when he first composed the masterpiece.^[8]

A band has recently formed and started touring called Contraband; two of the members of the band play the NES version of Contra in a speed run fashion, while the other members of the band perform a live rendition of the song. A projector screen showing the gameplay action is superimposed on stage. Also, the main theme played at the title screen is used in the beat for the Madlib-produced track "2 Brothers from the Gutter" by Percee P featuring Diamond D.

There is a limited-edition of the soundtrack of the game released by Alpha Records, at Konami Game Music Vol.4 - 28XA-201 on May 10, 1988.

• Contra at the Killer List of Videogames
• Gryzor at SpectrumComputing.co.uk