Contra only ever had one arcade sequel, and it arrived quickly. In July 1988 ACE noticed that the follow-up to Konami’s Gryzor had been “showing up in West End arcades over the last few weeks”, and that “even here, the machines are called Super Contra”. Super Contra kept the two commandos and the alien invasion, and added stages seen from overhead. Two years later its NES version, shortened to Super C, gave American players the same mix with new level layouts. Nintendo Power warned that it “will challenge even the top Power Players”. For extra lives it had a code of its own, not the famous Konami Code.
Fast facts
- Developer and publisher: Konami.
- Arcade: Super Contra, 1988.
- NES: Super C, North America, spring 1990; in Europe, Probotector II: Return of the Evil Forces.
- Other versions: IBM PC and Amiga.
- Players: one or two at once.
- Extra lives: right, left, down, up, A, B, Start on the title screen gives ten lives.
The arcade game
Retro Gamer describes Super Contra as “both the first and last arcade sequel in the series”. It leaned harder on the films that had shaped the first game. An introduction featured “bad impressions” of Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the last stage borrowed from Alien: bipedal creatures in the style of the film’s xenomorph, hatching eggs and “Facehugger-style enemies”. It was the first Contra game with overhead sections. It also introduced Jagger Froid, the snake-armed final boss who came back in Contra III: The Alien Wars, Contra 4 and Contra ReBirth.
The overhead stages brought the series’ first smart bombs, called “shells”. In Stuart Campbell’s account for Retro Gamer, players started with none, and could find and use them only in the overhead stages. Retro Gamer thought the sequel had “better visuals and more varied enemies” than Contra, but less interesting level design, because the sloping ground it introduced was overused and made the side-on stages feel like “straight left-to-right processions”.
Super C on the NES
Nintendo Power announced the NES version in its January/February 1990 issue, under the headline “a look into the future of NES Game Paks”. “Contrary to speculation, there will be a NES sequel to everyone’s favorite combat action game from Konami,” it wrote, promising “the two player simultaneous play control that made its predecessor so popular”. The next issue listed Super C among the games due in March, and previewed its stages and weapons. The Laser gave “both high powered and continuous shooting”, a “new and improved Rapid Fire” helped players reach the later stages, the Spread made shots “fan out”, and a “protective capsule” kept the player alive for a time.
The full review followed in May/June 1990. Its advice kept coming back to the Spread gun, called the Spreader: “using Spreader is almost always the key to defeating the toughest enemies.” The final stage, it warned, began with “heat-seeking alien mines, explosive bubbles and swift monsters”, and “Konami has spared no expense to challenge even the hottest Power Player”. The same issue explained that Super C had arrived too late for the magazine’s awards for 1989 and would have to wait a year.
As with the first game, the NES version used the arcade’s settings but not its maps. Retro Gamer notes that its levels have “mostly different actual level layouts”, and that the smart bomb was left out.
Ten lives, not thirty
On the NES, the Konami Code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start) gave Contra players 30 lives. Super C had its own sequence, which Nintendo Power printed in July/August 1990: on the title screen, press right, left, down, up, A, B and Start, and “your game will begin with ten fighters in reserve”. For a two-player game, players selected the two-player option first and then entered the code. The same page gave a second secret: hold A and B and press Start on the title screen for a “Sound Mode” that played the game’s music and effects. In January 1993 the magazine’s Classified Information section set the two codes side by side: for Super C, “a new code was created which allows for ten fighters in reserve”. The Konami Code entry follows the older code’s history.
Probotector II and other versions
As with the first game, European NES owners got Super C with robots in place of the human soldiers, as Probotector II: Return of the Evil Forces. Total! reviewed it in February 1993, at £45 and “out now”, with jokes about the hero’s “titanium torso” hitting the ground. It found the game hard but fair: “The controls are easy to learn and really responsive, the collision-detection is spot-on and there are no unavoidable deaths.” Its verdict was “Probotector II is a classy game”.
Home computers were part of the plan too. In October 1989 Commodore Magazine reported that Super Contra was “slated for release (on both the 64 and Amiga) during the first quarter of 1990”. The Amiga version appeared in American mail-order price lists through 1990, and Retro Gamer lists conversions for the NES, PC and Amiga.
The Game Boy’s Operation C (1991) was, in Retro Gamer’s words, “loosely based on Super Contra”: the same settings again, with layouts even further from the NES game’s. Later re-releases kept Super C in circulation. Contra 4 on the Nintendo DS (2007) included the NES versions of Contra and Super C as bonus content, and by 2009 Retro Gamer could point readers to Super Contra on Xbox Live Arcade.
Sources
- ACE issue 10, July 1988, p. 130, “The Blitter End”: Super Contra in West End arcades.
- “Bullet Heaven: The History of Contra”, Retro Gamer issue 109, December 2012, pp. 55 and 57: Super Contra as the only arcade sequel, released in 1988; the actors and the Alien references; the first overhead sections; Jagger Froid; the visuals and level design; the NES, PC and Amiga conversions; Operation C; Contra 4 and its NES bonus games.
- “The Definitive: Contra”, Stuart Campbell, Retro Gamer issue 35 (2007), reprinted in Retro Gamer Collection volume 3 (2009), p. 218: the “shells” in the overhead stages; the NES version’s different layouts and missing smart bomb; Probotector 2; Operation C; the Xbox Live Arcade release.
- Nintendo Power issue 10, January/February 1990, p. 92: the NES sequel announced.
- Nintendo Power issue 11, March/April 1990, pp. 48–50: Super C preview (the stages; the Laser, Rapid Fire, Spread and protective capsule); p. 93, NES Planner (Super C among the March releases).
- Nintendo Power issue 12, May/June 1990, pp. 16–21: Super C review (the Spreader; the final stage); p. 29: too late for the 1989 awards.
- Nintendo Power issue 14, July/August 1990, p. 37, Classified Information: the ten-lives code and the sound mode.
- Nintendo Power issue 44, January 1993, Super Power Club insert, Classified Information, p. 26: the separate Super C code.
- Total! issue 14, February 1993, pp. 48–49: Probotector II review (the robot hero; £45).
- Commodore Magazine, October 1989, p. 8: Super Contra planned for the Commodore 64 and Amiga.
- AmigaWorld, May–December 1990: Super Contra in mail-order price lists.