Super Contra (Arcade)

Super Contra
Also known as: Super Contra: Alien no Gyakushu (JP) Developer: Konami Publisher: Konami Platform: Arcade (Custom) Released in JP: January 28, 1988 Released in US: March 1988[1] Released in EU: 1988 This game has unused graphics. This game has unused music. This game has regional differences. This game has revisional differences.

Thanks to a bigger development team and more capable hardware, Super Contra is bigger, flashier, and more cinematic than its predecessor.

Bugger Spawner

By setting the value 03 at the RAM address 40D6, the game is able to spawn the Bugger enemies in the same way as Greeders and Orians. However, given that this enemy is notably tricky to deal with, it's unknown if this is intentional. This same value spawns the alien type from Stage 5 during the overhead view stages. Bugger seems to check the ground collision only when it jumps, meaning that the flat ground is required for them to work properly.

Unused Graphics

Unused frames of the alien that is seen near the end of Stage 3. It seems they were meant to charge forward once the player breaks the egg, but in the actual game, they're never seen outside them and get destroyed along with the eggs.

Animations of an explosion, a gunfire effect, and a missile (which has only a single horizontal frame). It seems that the variant of the Ledder enemy sitting behind sandbags in Stages 1 and 3 was originally supposed to fire missiles instead of regular bullets.

A set of letters that can form the word "prologue" is hidden within the attract mode's game story tileset. These sprites are separate from the letters of the game's font.

This game's 8x8 font is displayed with only 2 colors, with a pattern covered with 7 identical colors of grey. However, the red palettes for the scrolling text in the intro and the Continue countdown fit with the font, seemingly indicating that at one point the regular font was meant to appear like that as well.

Stored right after the used font, there's a similar one and fully shaded, recycled from A-Jax. There's no correct palette to display the font in full colors.

Entirely unused symbols of the game's 16x16 font, these include a Japanese font of Katakana characters (note that these are not characters used for the text in the intro, those are stored in separate tiles). There are also Roman numbers and gender symbols, possibly hinting that the high score screen may have been planned to be similar to ones in the Gradius games. The 魂斗羅 (Contra) symbols may have been meant for the staff roll, which was kept in English on all versions.

Unused	Used

There are 2 versions of the helicopter seen at the beginning of Stage 1. The unused one has graphics with and without the rope, and the frames for the propeller are also part of the background, while the propeller in the used version is represented as a sprite.

Unused Music

To do: Can these tracks be found inside the game itself? If not, put them on a Prerelease page instead.

These tracks were published in the album Music from Super Contra & A-Jax (catalog number K30X-7702).

Title	Track	Notes
M-1		Appears to possibly be an alternate track for the high score entry screen.
M-2		Appears to possibly be an unused stage track.
M-3		Possibly another unused stage track. This was later used in the NES version as the background music for Area 5, and then later on given the title "MASSACRE MOUNTAIN" on the album Contra Chronicle Vol.2 The Beginning of the Legends (EMCA-0025-1~3).
M-4		Possibly an alternative Game Over track due to its short length.

Music Interruption

In-game	Without interruptions

The intro's music cannot be heard without the voice clips and other samples obscuring the drums and orchestra hits as those share the same sound channel (the alien sound is actually part of the track). It's most noticeable in the part where Bill fires his gun.

Regional Differences

Two versions of the game were produced: the international version uses program code E, whereas the Japanese version uses program code F. This seems to suggest that the Japanese version was a slightly later build of the game.

Title Screen

Japan	International

The Japanese version is subtitled エイリアンの逆襲 (Eirian no Gyakushū, "The Alien's Counterattack").

Intro

Japan	JP Translation	International
西暦2634年12月、 謎のエイリアン軍との戦いから 1年、地球はその魔の手から 逃れたかに思われていたが‥‥。	December 2634 A.D. One year after the battle with the mysterious alien army the earth seems to be free from their clutches. However...	One year after the battle with the mysterious Red Falcon Organization, the earth seems to be free. However....

The text in the Japanese version gives the date in which the game is set, which was omitted in the international version, as was the case with the first Contra (which kept the game's futuristic setting ambiguous in its international promotional materials). The Japanese text also doesn't mention the Red Falcon Organization (the antagonists in the first game) by name, something that the Japanese flyer and instruction sheets for the first game also curiously did.

Japan	JP Translation	International
いま、あの魂斗羅が再び起つ！！	Now, Contra rises to action once again!!	THE QUEST FOR FREEDOM CONTINUES...

The red scrolling text after the first image differs between the two versions, the text in the international version is the same tagline used on the American promotional flyer.

Second Loop

The international version ends the game after the fifth and last stage is completed. However, the Japanese version continues into a harder second loop following the end credits, which sets the difficulty level into its highest setting (regardless of the actual DIP Switch settings being used) and has Continues (including 2nd player join-ins) disabled. It is only after completing this second loop that the game truly ends in the Japanese version.

Revisional Differences

In Contra Anniversary Collection, the voice lines spoken by Bill and Lance during the intro, along with the announcer's "Please Continue" quote, were removed.

Oddity

Magnus, the Stage 2 boss, contains two electrodes that periodically come forward and generate an electric field. While it looks deadly to touch, it doesn't actually hurt the player at any point. Super C would fix this oversight.