Video Game / Contra: Hard Corps

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Contra: Hard Corps is a video game in the Contra series developed by Konami and released in 1994. The game is notable for being the only canon Contra game to launch on a Sega console, specifically the Sega Genesis^note Legacy of War, declared non-canon, was released on Sega Saturn. Similar to previous entries, the game was rebranded as Probotector when localized to Europe.

The year is 2641. Humanity is still recovering from the aftermath of the Alien Wars five years prior, and the struggle to survive in the few areas of the planet that avoided devastation has led to a rise in organized crime. To combat this new threat, the government has set up a special team of elite soldiers known as the "Hard Corps". Following a breach of the government's security system by an unknown hacker, the Hard Corps are sent to deal with a giant robot wreaking havoc throughout the city, unaware that this is just the beginning of a conspiracy that threatens the future of the human race once again...

While the basic gameplay is similar to previous Contra games, Hard Corps introduces a number of new features. This is the first game in the series to offer a choice of multiple different characters to play as, and the four members of the Hard Corps each come with a different assortment of special weapons they can use. The game also features more emphasis on story than prior Contra installments, with dialogue sequences throughout the course of the adventure. This story also contains a few branches, as at a few key points, the player will be given the choice to take the story in two different directions, allowing access to different stages and scenarios.

Contra: Hard Corps contains examples of:

• Adaptational Heroism: In the Probotector version, Dr. Mandrake does not betray the Probotector, and was removed from other scenes he was supposed to be in after the first stage split.
• Adaptation Name Change: In addition to character designs, the Probotector version of the game changes the names of certain characters and items:
  • Deadeye Joe goes from a human cyborg to an unnamed Alien Commander.
  • While Browny is the only member of the main team whose design is unchanged, his name is changed to CX-4.
  • The Alien Cell is called the "X Drive"
• Adaptational Personality Change: Although the story is still the same between the English and Japanese version, the English version makes every playable characters only using a single aggressive personality prone to swearing "Damn!". The Japanese script actually makes the dialogue vary depending on who's the used character (and none of them came close to as aggressive as the English version). For instance, Browny in the Japanese script has a warmer semi-Cloud Cuckoo Lander personality befitting his Robot Buddy status.
• An Ass-Kicking Christmas: According to the manual, it's set on Christmas.
• Arm Cannon: Brad Fang has a vulcan cannon built into his arm. The gun can function as a machine gun, a vulcan cannon, or a flamethrower.
• Background Boss:
  • The giant robot in the first stage stands behind the rooftop you fight it on and attacks from the background.
  • The Wonderbird is a boss that chases the plane you catch a ride on if you choose to save the research lab in Stage 3 "Dog Fight". The game takes on a unique behind-the-plane camera angle for this fight, as the Wonderbird fires attacks at you as it chases from behind the plane.
• Balance, Power, Skill, Gimmick: The special weapons that the four main heroes can use allow them to specialize in the four categories:
  • Ray gets many of the weapons typical of the Contra series, allowing him to cover a variety of bases, making him the balance.
  • Fang's weapons suffer from poor attack range and fire rate, but are second to none when it comes to raw damage output, making him the power.
  • Sheena's weapons have some limitations, but can be very effective at dealing damage if she can effectively aim them, making her the skill.
  • Browny is the only character who can double jump and hover, and many of his weapons have unorthodox firing methods, making him the gimmick.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: If you choose to chase Deadeye Joe in Stage 2 "Highway", upon defeating him, he reveals that his attack was merely a diversion while his allies stole the Alien Cell from the research lab. He, then, self-destructs before the Hard Corps can capture him.
• Big Bad: Colonel Bahamut leads a conspiracy with the goal of taking control of the Alien Cell and using it to wreak havoc on the still-recovering world.
• Big Damn Heroes: In one ending, you blow up the entire missile that you were fighting on, sending your character falling into the wild blue yonder, but the Air Police show up just in the nick of time to rescue you.
• Bittersweet Ending: Two endings, both of which are only achieved in the routes where you go after Deadeye Joe after the first encounter:
  • Alien Cell Ending (Stage 10 "Alien Lair"): You have finally destroyed the Alien Cell and single-handedly stopped the alien mutation before it spreads to humanity. However, Colonel Bahamut escaped. Still, you'll still stand to oppose him the next time he rises, and at the very least, you pretty much wrecked his current plans (using the Alien Cell) that he cannot rise again THAT quick.
  • Big Magnum Ending (Stage 12 "Space Station"): You destroyed Bahamut in his space station headquarters. However, it counts as a Heroic Sacrifice as you do not get out alive from space. Not to mention, the warning shot from Bahamut damages a portion of Earth, but you ensure that none of those will happen again, even if you die in process. The people of Earth reward you with a golden statue of yourself to remember your deeds and sacrifice.
• Boss Game: This game features many more bosses (including mini-bosses) than previous Contra games, with several per stage, with the normal side-scrolling sections being typically shorter and easier.
• Bowdlerise: The Probotector version, in addition to replacing human characters with robots, replaces some uses of the word "damn" from the English script with "blast".
• Brain in a Jar: The "Big Magnum", a superweapon which uses a live specimen to siphon its life force to power it up. It is the result of Mandrake successfully utilizing the Alien Cell as a WMD, which happens if you choose to surrender after chasing after Joe.
• Breakable Power-Up: In typical Contra fashion, losing a life will cost you whatever power-up weapon you currently had equipped. However, since you can hold up to four at a time, you won't lose the ones you weren't using when you died.
• Bullying a Dragon: In Stage 5 "Jungle", you end up walking on the neck to the head of a brontosaurus. It won't hurt you unless you purposely attack its snout (either by shooting it or sliding through it), in which case it will sneeze out an energy blast that kills you in one hit. Even if you're playing the Japanese version, where you can take three hits before dying, the sneeze will instantly deplete all of your life bars. Attack that brontosaurus at your own peril.
• Cardiac Boss: The Stage 10 boss is the Alien Cell itself taking over Colonel Bahamut's base. While it initially attacks you in the guise of a female (whose face turns ghastly upon taking enough damage), it will eventually fade away to reveal its heart, which must be killed to finally end the fight.
• Car Fu: The giant robot in stage 1 is so big that one of its attacks has it pick up an entire car off the ground and chuck it at you.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Things start off being Lighter and Softer than III: Alien Wars, with the main threat being a group of human terrorists wanting to conquer the world as opposed to the aliens, and the action often being more more over-the-top. Choose the path where it is set in "Alien Space" though and things go for a dark turn (with the tone resembling that of Alien Wars); enemy soldiers are injected with an alien embryo and they violently mutate into a bipedal alien (that eat each other on collision), the scenery slowly transition from an installation to alien-like (the walls start to feature alien faces) until it assimilates completely into an alien hive, enemies include grotesque-looking aliens, and having a menacing and creepy final boss.
• Charged Attack: Fang's weapon D is the Psychic Blaster, which can be charged up by holding down the fire button, then releasing for one massively powerful blast of psychic energy.
• Combining Mecha: Stage 8 "Overseas" has an aeroplane robot, a sea-urchin robot and a dolphin robot as the minibosses. After the three get their asses handed to them (and escape), they merge together to form a large running robot, a robot bird, and a robot-tank hybrid respectively before attempting to merge one last time and exploding spectacularly instead.
• Company Cross-References: The secret ending path has a boss fight against a character who is a mashup parody of Simon Belmont from Konami's Castlevania series and Japanese vocalist Masato Shimon (famous for Showa-era Kamen Rider theme songs). He attacks using a whip, tosses out tayakis in a similar manner to the cross sub-weapon, and is even accompanied by a remix of music from the first Castlevania game.
• Creepy Centipedes: A giant centipede appears as an enemy in stage 1. Its legs are so big that you can't bypass it without killing it, and it's so big that it can only be damaged by shooting its head.
• Crosshair Aware: Inverted. One of the bosses places a crosshair on the ground before firing a lot of explosives into the air... seconds later, the explosives land, and blow up the entire place except the crosshair.
• Cutscene Incompetence: Actually optional At the start of Stage 6 "Trap". The Doctor tells you that the situation is hopeless and you must surrender, what with the thirteen regular soldiers with their guns trained on you. You may choose to surrender or fight it out (granted, if you do fight it out, you end up fighting completely different enemies).
• Death Throws: Browny falls off the screen when killed, unlike the other characters who fall dead on the ground like in other games.
• Deranged Animation: The larger bosses are made up of multiple sprites put together to create the illusion of more fluid movement. Sometimes this works, like with Big Blue Bucket O' Bolts. But sometimes this means they have absolutely bizarre movements, like the Wrecker or the Combining Mecha.
• Difficulty by Region: The Japanese version has a life meter with allowed three hits before dying, as well as unlimited continues. In other regions, you only have one hit point per life, and a finite number of continues, with no other modifications to the difficulty, leading many to regard this as the hardest game in the series.
• Double Jump: Browny has the unique ability to hover after jumping, launching him upward a second time. The trade-off is that his individual jumps are weaker than the other characters.
• Down in the Dumps: Noiman Cascade's base is secretly buried underneath a huge garbage dump, so Stage 4 "Junkyard" has the Hard Corps venture through all the garbage in order to confront him.
• Dragon Their Feet: Stage 9 "Missile" has the player fighting against Colonel Bahamut during the mid-stage. The subsequent scene has Deadeye Joe, catch up with the heroes for one last tussle, seemingly without a care that his boss is dead.
• Dub-Induced Plot Hole: Owing to European censorship, Hard Corps was drastically changed story-wise when it became Probotector. There were small changes that ultimately altered basically nothing (such as the main characters being robots), but the villains got greatly overhauled.
  • Deadeye Joe is a cyborg working for Colonel Bahamut. While this remains consistent, he is now the Alien Commander (as Colonel Bahamut is now an alien). Following his appearance in stage 1, the Alien Commander completely drops out of the game and never reappears. Even though all of Deadeye Joe's boss fights are still in the game; the Alien Commander is apparently gone. He's even replaced in the train cutscene where he saves the main characters just to duel them later, except this time the Sky Police inexplicably show up and break the main character(s) out.
  • Doctor Geo Mandrake also unceremoniously drops out of the game. Originally he appears in the end of Stage 1, and warns that the Research Center is being attacked. He also appears in Stage 3 "Dog Fight" stating he's glad you arrived. While this remains true, all of his subsequent appearances are removed. He is never revealed to be working with Colonel Bahamut, and the fight with the Monster Genesis Machine happens without him present. The fights against Doctor Spider and the Mach 777 still happen, but Doctor Spider's existence is never explained (you enter a room and he's there whereas before Dr Mandrake transformed into him), and the Mach 777 is an unmanned robot attacker.
  • Colonel Bahamut is still the Big Bad and main Antagonist, but rather than being a former war hero turned militant dictator, in Probotector he's an invading alien general. Most of his dialogue was entirely removed, and the Non-Standard Game Over where you can join him has been removed from the game.
• Epic Fail: Stage 2 "Highway" features an airship in the distance launching a bunch of airborne mooks at you for a little bit. It's destroyed when it abruptly crashes into a sky rise building.
• Fallen Hero: Colonel Bahamut is a former war hero of the Alien Wars who tried to overthrow the government two years prior to the events of the game, and in the present, he is the leader of the conspiracy trying to take control of the Alien Cell.
• Former Teen Rebel: According to the character backstories in the manual, Ray used to be the leader of a group of delinquent youths sometime before joining the Hard Corps.
• From a Single Cell: The game's plot is centered around the Alien Cell, a single cell harvested from the Red Falcon attack five years prior. Just this one cell is enough to cause devastation on a planetary scale, as depending on the path you take, it can turn back into a hive monstrosity, be repurposed into a biological bomb, or be used to fuel a giant doomsday weapon.
• Helicopter Blender: The boss in the jungle base in Stage 5 "Jungle" has a phase where your character must climb up a vertical shaft while avoiding the propeller attached to the boss, which flies upward along with them. The propeller can be tricky to avoid, thanks to how erratic the machine's movements are, but you can push it away from you by shooting it.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In one of the story branches, Colonel Bahamut uses the Alien Cell to power an orbital cannon on a Space Elevator, and your head after him in Stage 12 "Space Station". Destroying the cannon causes the entire top of the elevator to explode, and you perish along with it. The ending screen shows a memorial statue for your character.
• High-Altitude Battle:
  • If you choose to save the research lab, Stage 3 "Dog Fight" your character catches a ride with the Air Police, starting off hanging from the underside of one of their planes before being lifted high into the air. Two different mini-bosses attack during the flight that you have to shoot down, before the plane gets damaged before reaching the lab, forcing the pilot to perform a crash landing.
  • The ending of Stage 9 "Missile" has a missile being fired with the Alien Cell on board, forcing you to ride a series of smaller rockets to chase it into the sky and destroy it before it detonates. Once you reach the missile, you have to climb up the side while alien mutants break free from the hull, before you reach the top and do battle with the Alien Cell itself. Destroying the creature causes the entire missile to explode and sends you falling to your doom, but the Air Police show up to save you just in the nick of time.
• High-Speed Battle: Choosing to chase after Deadeye Joe in Stage 2 "Highway" will place you on a "Motoroid" speeding down the highway while firing away at enemies and mid-bosses along the way. Midway through the battle, the Motoroid will change into a walker, and the end boss of the stage has your character running toward the screen down a road while being chased by Deadeye Joe's robotic armor.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Dr. Geo's combining machine eventually malfunctions and creates a creature that eats him alive before it starts attacking you.
• Homing Lasers: Sheena's Ax Laser fires out a spread of lasers that subsequently change direction to fire at any targets onscreen.
• Homing Projectile:
  • Ray's Weapon D fires out bullets that home in on enemies and boss weak spots.
  • Browny's Shield Chaser creates six orbs that circle around him as long as he holds the fire button down, before they fly in the direction of the target all at once once he releases the trigger. If there's no target onscreen, the orbs simply fly in all directions away from him.
• Humongous Mecha: Powered Ninja Yokozuna, a giant blue robot boss with that ran faster than a train and stopped the train with its bare hands.
• Jungle Japes: The aptly-named Stage 5 "Jungle" sees the Hard Corps seeking out the enemy's hidden base, which is located out in the jungle. Along the way, they are attacked by strange mutated plant life.
• Karma Houdini: Subverted in Stage 10 "Alien Lair". Although Colonel Bahamut manages to escape the facility while the Hard Corps are distracted with destroying the Alien Cell, his plan hinges primarily through the use of said Cell. With the cell destroyed, his chances of world domination is completely diminished.
• Killer Yo-Yo: Browny's weapon C is the Elecromagnetic Yo-Yo, a spinning projectile that chases after targets while remaining attached to an electric tether coming from Browny's gun. It remains active as long as Browny holds the fire button, and disappears once he takes his finger off the trigger.
• Life Meter: Exclusive to the Japanese version, each player can take three hits before dying, and has a bar showing how many hits they have left.
• Long Song, Short Scene: The sound test includes a BGM titled "Jurassic Dope." This tune is played in only two areas of the game. One is nothing but a very brief dialogue sequence. The other instance is a second dialogue sequence, this one with a whopping one dialogue box. The tune itself is a minute and a half in length. Unless you're an extremely slow reader, you won't be hearing the whole thing in-game.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Most of the playable characters control mostly the same, with the special weapons being their main distinguishing features. The one exception is Browny, who is the only one with the ability to double jump or hover, and he also has a smaller hitbox than his comrades.
• Mighty Glacier: Fang's special weapons have some of the best damage output in the game, but a lot of them suffer from poor range or long charge time, and Fang himself is the largest character in the game, making him more susceptible to getting hit by enemy attacks.
• Mission Control: Certain levels begin at the Hard Corps headquarters, where Commander Doyle briefs you on your upcoming mission. Like other characters, he was redesigned in the Probotector version to be a robot.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: The boss fight against Dr. Geo Mandrake (if they choose to fight) in Stage 6 "Trap" has him use a machine to combine enemies from previous stages into new, larger creatures. One of them turns out to be a harmless walking flower that drops some powerups, then leaves.
• Multiple Endings: The final stage and ending cutscene change completely depending on what story choices you make throughout the game. There are a total of four normal endings, plus one Non-Standard Game Over ending and one secret "joke" ending that can be found earlier.
• Non-Standard Game Over: Stage 9 "Missile" leads to a situation where Bahamut offers to let your character rule the world with him. If you accept his offer, you get an ending scene where your character becomes his lackey, followed by an instant Game Over. As there are no mid-stage checkpoints prior to this^note the only mid-stage checkpoint takes place after Colonel Bahamut boss battle, you have to restart Stage 9 if you decided to continue, assuming you had any credits remaining.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: In the international versions of the game, normal Contra rules apply: get hit by anything once, and you lose a life. Averted in the Japanese version, as that one has a Life Meter and allows you to take three hits.
• Pun-Based Title: Hard Corps is a play on the word "hardcore".
• Racing the Train: One of the robotic bosses in Stage 7 "Military Train" makes his entrance by outrunning the train you're on, pushes it to a stop, lifts the end of it, then climbs on top. This turns out to be a bad idea in the end- upon defeat, he falls backwards off the front of the train, and gets hit by it!
• Robot Soldier: In addition to all the playable characters of the Probotector version, which are robots, as usual, all versions of the game feature Browny, an armed robot who is a playable character who fights alongside the rest of the heroes.
• Route Boss: After clearing the first stage, you're presented with a choice to either pursue Deadeye Joe or ignore him to provide backup to the research station under attack attacked, both of which have their own boss fight. Later outcomes greatly influence the later stages.
  • Save Research Station (Stage 3) + Fight Back (Stages 8 + 9): The team takes an overseas route to Colonel Bahamut's base, and his defeat in battle causes him to launch a missile containing the Alien Cell he stole. This prompts the team to destroy the missile before it can detonate. The Final Boss is a mutated Alien Cell.
  • Save Research Station (Stage 3) + Surrender (Stages 7 + 11): The team is detained aboard one of Bahamut's trains, but Deadeye Joe (the boss from Stage 1) busts you out, wanting a proper fight. The team infiltrates the base, prompting Bahamut to inject himself with the Alien Cell as the final boss (and it doesn't end well for him).
  • Pursue Deadeye Joe (Stage 2) + Fight Back (Stage 10): The Alien Cell goes out of control and engulfs Bahamut's base, prompting a Mêlée à Trois between them as they move to kill the Alien Cell. Bahamut manages to escape in the commotion.
  • Pursue Deadeye Joe (Stage 2) + Surrender (Stage 12): Bahamut uses the Alien Cell to create Big Magnum, a powerful superweapon positioned high above the Earth. The team destroys the weapon, which also takes their lives when the weapon detonates. The team is awarded post-humous medals of bravery for their deeds.
• Schrödinger's Gun:
  • Colonel Bahamut's plan for the Alien Cell depends on which path you take through the game. Either he wants to use it to power a Kill Sat, turn it into a bio-weapon, merge with it, or load it on a missile and launch it into civilization.
  • Bahamut's base is either right next to your current location, a train ride away in the jungle, or a boat ride away on an island.
• Sequential Boss: The battle with Noiman Cascade at the end of Stage 4 "Junkyard" has six phases in a row. The first three have him summon holograms of three different constellations, Taurus, Saggitarius, and Gemini, each coming with their own unique attacks. The latter three phases have him create a bunch of panels that merge together to form a larger creation, including a tank and a helicopter.
• Slide Attack: By holding down and pressing the jump button, your character will slide across the ground, granting them a burst of speed and allowing them to charge through weaker enemies.
• Smart Bomb: Bombs return from The Alien Wars. When they are collected, they are added to the fifth slot on your weapons display, and pressing the fire button while they are selected will create a huge explosion that destroys all regular enemies onscreen, or does massive damage to any bosses. Also, it doesn't get removed from your inventory when you die; a skilled player knowing that a life loss is inevitable can opt to switch to the bomb and die while preventing weapon loss.
• The Smurfette Principle: Sheena Etranzi is the only female member of the Hard Corps team.
• Spread Shot:
  • Ray's weapon C is the classic Contra spread gun and fires in five directions at once, lessening the need to aim at weaker targets.
  • Sheena's weapon D fires out lasers in multiple directions that then home in on targets.
• Story Branching: At the end of the first stage you have the choice of either going after Deadeye Joe or saving the alien cell. At this point, the only impact it has on the game is the second stage (which depends on the choice you make) and whether or not Deadeye Joe appears at the end of the fourth stage. Upon clearing the fourth stage, you get ambushed in the enemy base, and have the choice of surrendering or fighting to the end. This choice, combined with the choice at the beginning of the game, determines how the plot unfolds for the rest of the game, with four different possible ending paths. Also, there's a secret ending level Stage 13 "Battle Colosseum" that doesn't regard the first decision, hidden in the Stage 4 "Junkyard".
• Traintop Battle: The aptly-named Stage 7 "Military Train" takes place on a military train, featuring two mid-boss battles and culminating in a fight with Powered Ninja Yokozuna, all on its roof.
• The Unfought: The "Alien Space" route, consisting only of Stage 10 "Alien Lair", is the only path and end stage that doesn't end with the Hard Corps facing against Bahamut, as the latter have already made a getaway while the former are facing the Mother Alien from inside the alien-infested base. They already saw him on an aircraft by the time they reached him.
• Unusual Chapter Numbers: According to the Japanese version's hidden level selection, the levels are numbered differently in spite of English manuals. For example, the third stage is actually Stage 4 "Junkyard", fourth stage being Stage 5 "Jungle" and Stage 6 "Trap" as the fifth stage. This also applies to branched and ending-stages; Stage 9 "Missile" is where you raid Bahamut's base to stop the missile, and Stage 12 "Space Station" is where you enter the space station to earn Bittersweet Ending. Stage 13 "Battle Colosseum" is actually the "joke" ending stage.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Stage 10 "Alien Lair" ends with Colonel Bahamut escaping on a helicopter during the commotion. While the Hard Corps fail to defeat him, his plan hinged on the Alien Cell, meaning he'll have a hard time becoming a threat again.
• We Can Rule Together: Stage 9 "Missile" has Colonel Bahamut ask you to join him. Choose "Yes" will net you a Non-Standard Game Over ending where your character becomes his top enforcer. Choosing "No" will start a Boss Battle instead. This exchange doesn't happen in the Probotector version of the game, however.
• Wolf Man: One of the main heroes is Brad Fang, a sunglass-wearing humanoid wolf created by a combination of genetic engineering and cyborg technology.
• Worthy Opponent: Deadeye Joe considers the player this, to the point that in Stage 7 "Military Train", he breaks the player out of their cell and gives them back your/their weapons so that he can be the one to defeat you.