Contra: Hard Corps

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NTSC-U NTSC-J PAL
Contra: Hard Corps
System(s): Sega Mega Drive, Nintendo Switch Online
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Konami
Genre: Action
Series: Contra series
Number of players: 1-2
Official in-game languages: 日本語 English Français Deutsch
Release Date RRP Code JP 1994-09-15 ¥9,000 (9,270)9,000e T-95093 US 1994-09 T-95106 EU 1994-11 T-95106-50 DE 1994 DM 129.95129.95 UK 1994-11 £44.9944.99 T-95106-50 AU 1994 $109.95109.95 KR 199x GM94017JT JP ▼ 2021-10-25 US ▼ 2021-10-25 EU ▼ 2021-10-25

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Contra: Hard Corps, known in Japan as Contra: The Hard Corps (魂斗羅 ザ・ハードコア) and in Europe and Australia as Probotector, is a side-scroling run and gun-style shoot-em-up for the Sega Genesis by Konami. It is one of the only two Contra installments on any Sega console, the other being Contra: Legacy of War. The game is also notable for being one of the hardest games in the Contra franchise in the west, as the hit points system from the Japanese version was removed.

The game's story takes place after Contra III: The Alien Wars (which was never released on the Sega hardware) and revolves around the theft of an alien cell. The story unfolds in a nonlinear fashion due two two crossroad points in the game. Depending on the players selection, the following stages become different. A total of 5 endings exist, one is a spoof ending found by clearing the secret arena in stage 3 (climb up the wall before going to the boss)

Gameplay

Each player can shoot with (aiming and rapid-fire work the same as with any Contra title or other Konami titles like Sunset Riders), change weapons with (as unlike other Contra games, you accumulate weapons), and jump with . + slides, which also grants full body invincibility for the duration of the slide. Pushing and simulatneously switches shooting mode between "I" and "II". "I" allows to run and fire at the same time, while "II" forces the player to stop while firing.

The functions of , and can be remapped from the default key config via the options menu. With a 6 Button Arcade Pad, , or can be used to switch between shooting modes without the need to press two buttons.

A parody of Simon Belmont, from the Castlevania series (also by Konami) is featured as an optional boss. He also has his respective theme, Simon1994RD, a remixed version of Vampire Killer.

Characters

In the game you can control one of four characters.Each character has his or her own special weapons special to them. The only shared weapons are the standard gun and smartbombs. Also, a second player can join in at any time during the action.

• Ray Poward a male soldier
• Sheena Etranzi a female soldier
• Brad Fang a cyborg genetically-altered werewolf
• Browny a tiny robot.

Stages

Levels in Contra: Hard Corps are not played in a linear order - the player is given the opportunity to choose a path at several points in the game. While the level select suggests there are 13 stages in total (many of these actually being cutscenes or bosses), the manuals only allude to 6.

	Stage 1:
	Stage 2:
	Stage 3:
	Stage 4:
	Stage 5:
	Stage 6:

History

Development

The development team called themselves "TEAM機知GUY" (Team Kichi Guy). This is actualy pun and not present in the western staff roll. The Japanese "機知"(Kichi) alone translates to "wit", but together with "GUY" is sounds like "きちがい" (Kichigai), a slang word for crazy.

Legacy

Two levels from Contra: Hard Corps would be recycled for the Game Boy Advance release of Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX in 2002.

Versions

Like many Contra games released both before and after Hard Corps, the game differs significantly depending on region. In the Japanese version, a three point health bar exists for for each character, where getting hit removes one point and grants a short timeframe of invincibility. Continues are also unlimited, and there are also various cheat codes that were disabled in the other versions such as a stage select and a 70-lives code.

Conversely, the North American release removed the health bar system, meaning a single hit results in death (which is consistent with most games in the series). Continues here are limited to four retries.

In Europe the game was reskinned as Probotector (not to be confused with the original Probotector on the NES - a reskinned version of the first Contra game), replacing living humans and an anthropomorphic animal with robots or aliens, and consequently replacing Ray, Sheena, and Fang with CX-1, CX-2, and CX-3, respectively. Browny was simply renamed to CX-4. The story was rewritten to remove elements of human betrayal and the alien cell was replaced with the mechanical X-Drive. This version also lacks the health bar and the number of continues have been reduced to three retries.

Aside from the aforementioned changes and an added langauge select option (which was uncommon for the era), Probotector is the same game as the North American release of Hard Corps. This extends to the game's performance, with no optimisations put in place for PAL systems, resulting in a slower game that only runs at the correct speed on 60Hz systems.

Localised names

Also known as

Language	Localised Name	English Translation
English	Probotector	Probotector
English (US)	Contra: Hard Corps	Contra: Hard Corps
Japanese	魂斗羅 ザ・ハードコア	Contra: The Hard Corps

Production credits

• Director, Scenario Writer, Graphic Supervisor: N.Nakazato
• Programmers:
  • Main Program: Miyaoka♪Kenji
  • Enemy Program: Takeda☆Takashi, Hamada Hidemi, K.Karasawa
  • Help Man: Kenichiro Horio
• Design Works:
  • Nice Guy: S.Shimamura
  • Bike Man: K.Suzuki
• Sound Works: H.Devi Kobayashi, Akiropito, Miyaoka♪Kenji, Chiru2 Yamane, Gajokai, Nitachigu
• Package Design: S.Kumasaka
• Special Thanks: Yutaka Haruki and all Konami staff
• Producer: Tomikazu Kirita

Source:

In-game credits (English)

Uncredited

• Translation, voice direction: Jeremy Blaustein

Digital manuals

• ContraHardCorps MD US digital manual.pdf

  Mega Drive Mini US manual

• Probotector MD EU digital manual.pdf

  Mega Drive Mini EU manual

• Contra MD JP digital manual.pdf

  Mega Drive Mini JP manual

Magazine articles

Main article: Contra: Hard Corps/Magazine articles.

Promotional material

Print advert in Beep! MegaDrive (JP) #1994-08: "August 1994" (1994-07-08)

Print advert in Beep! MegaDrive (JP) #1994-10: "October 1994" (1994-09-08)

Print advert in GamePro (US) #64: "November 1994" (1994-xx-xx)
also published in:

• GamePro (US) #66: "January 1995" (199x-xx-xx)

Print advert in Joypad (FR) #36: "Novembre 1994" (1994-1x-xx)

Print advert in GamePro (DE) #1994-12: "Dezember 1994" (1994-11-25)
also published in:

• MAN!AC (DE) #1995-02: "02/95" (1995-01-11)

Print advert in Velikiy Drakon (RU) #60: "xxxx xxxx" (2002-09-05)
also published in:

• Velikiy Drakon (RU) #61: "xxxx xxxx" (2003-02-07)

Physical scans

Sega Retro Average
Publication Score Source

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Based on 0 review

Sega Retro Average

Publication Version Score 1700 igr dlya Sega (RU) NTSC-U 80 1700 igr dlya Sega (RU) PAL 50 Beep! MegaDrive (JP) NTSC-J 78 CD Consoles (FR) PAL 60 Cool Gamer (RU) 80 Computer & Video Games (UK) PAL 92 Electronic Games (1992-1995) (US) NTSC-U 75 Electronic Gaming Monthly (US) NTSC-U 73 Entsiklopediya luchshikh igr Sega. Vypusk 1 (RU) 80 Entsiklopediya luchshikh igr Sega. Vypusk 3 (RU) 60 Famitsu (JP) NTSC-J 60 Game Players (US) NTSC-U 92 Game Players (US) 92 GamePro (US) NTSC-U 90 GamePro (DE) PAL 80 GamesMaster (UK) PAL 93 Games World: The Magazine (UK) PAL 89 Game Informer (US) NTSC-U 81 Hobby Consolas (ES) PAL 90 Joypad (FR) PAL 88 Mega (UK) PAL 88 Mega Fun (DE) PAL 87 Mean Machines Sega (UK) PAL 94 Next Generation (US) NTSC-U 50 Player One (FR) 89 Play Time (DE) PAL 87 Sega Power (UK) PAL 74 Sega Pro (UK) PAL 74 Sega Mega Drive Review (RU) 90 Sega Saturn Magazine (JP) NTSC-J 84 Todo Sega (ES) 89 Tricks 16 bit (RU) NTSC-U 78 Tricks 16 bit (RU) PAL 74 Video Games (DE) PAL 82 VideoGames (US) NTSC-U 90

	80
Based on 35 reviews

Contra: Hard Corps

Mega Drive, JP
Cover
Cart Manual

Mega Drive, US
Cover
Cart Manual PCB

Mega Drive, US (alt)
Cover
Cart PCB

Mega Drive, US (cardboard)
Cover
Cart PCB PCB back

Mega Drive, EU
Cover
Cart Manual

Mega Drive, PT

Mega Drive, AU
Cover

Mega Drive, KR
Cover
Cart

Technical information

ROM dump status

System	Hash	Size	Build Date	Source	Comments
✔	CRC32 c579f45e MD5 2bd30479556da5c310d8f2a1fe66e8fa SHA-1 68ea84146105bda91f6056932ff4fb42aa3eb4a7	2MB	1994-09	Cartridge (US)
✔	CRC32 bc597d48 MD5 22289fe42b00a5fe5df3299747480fc0 SHA-1 69d905751ffa6a921586767263e45ddeb73333c2	2MB	1994-10	Cartridge (EU)
✔	CRC32 2ab26380 MD5 3d94f57af4258416e65197a9da854219 SHA-1 0a9d263490497c85d7010979765c48f98d9927bd	2MB	1994-09	Cartridge (JP)

References

Contra games for Sega systems
	Contra: Hard Corps (1994)
	Contra: Legacy of War (1997)