=============================================================================== Contra 3 FAQ/Walkthrough For the Nintendo SNES Version 1.02 Written by Pseudonym Email: shdwswrm@hotmail.com =============================================================================== : R jZ5 ,5j#5MMMKL9LZPMM#MMM KNMMMMMRZ2j595P72i;5i5HMMMM5 M@LXP2LPLX7LL59@PL;j7:::R5MP ; M@ZLPPP#MMMMKMMRL9Z27j;j:M ZinmMPLPLXMMi KMX9RL7;9M MMMX59HMM RMNMMMM MZPHMNj MLMRMPR XPMXKRKMjMR ZP9MM MMRN9KMZXHKMNKX9K#ZPi ;PMRMM XM 2@ MM9jMMMMj.M MMMiM M jM:K.MX2HX;M:XMLj MZMj M,7:, M7 ;K#2MMMM MM M M M #9MMM i2XMMM7 @MKN,:72Z9ji H,M M MNM MM MMHMH5R MM R m.M X M MM 2Z9RX ZM9P : :L. M,HQ# M K7,X HPM 9 2M7i MM9RX@MXZLM @.2M RM29,Z9# 9M7K i Mj#XM5#:M M .LPX7MK M M@MM :j MMMN#P9M9MM MRMM 5MMLMM7 NMMM7j M MMLZRMj9M 7,MM@;M ,MMMMMMMM :ijL, Z27 ,ZiZ PZN ,5PR 95LK ,55PM ; iMMMMMMMk: :@MZPHKMMMM NMNK9HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM5Z 9NMM9MMM#MMMMM5M5 j . @ KZP9@KMK#NM@KKKKKKKHZ MMjjL2P957ij2X9Pj225HZ ML99M MM59R9 MP99#. Mi55M PM25XN M555N; :MR##M RM@#MM MM##MN MRHHM 2MKHMM MMHHH# MXKKM RMRKHN MHKKM9 NMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM _______________________________________________________________________________ Table of Contents _______________________________________________________________________________ ................................Revision History............................... ...................................Copyright................................... ..................................Introduction................................. ...................................Storyline................................... ..................................Game Basics.................................. ..................................Walkthrough.................................. ................................Cameos/References.............................. ......................................FAQ...................................... ....................................Closing.................................... ...................................End of File................................. _______________________________________________________________________________ =============================================================================== Revision History =============================================================================== Version 1.02 October 5th 2004 Finally decided to get back to work in this guide. The rest of the guide should be complete now. =============================================================================== Copyright =============================================================================== This document is licensed for public use according to the GNU Free Documentation License. If you'll read the license, you'll see that it allows for inclusion within another work, provided that the other work in turn maintains the license. Some key parts of the license: This license applies to any manual or other work, in any medium, that contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it grants a world-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration, to use that work under the conditions stated herein. The "document", below, refers to any such manual or work. Any member of the public is a licensee, and is addressed as "you". You accept the license if you copy, modify or distribute the work in a way requiring permission under copyright law. A "modified version" of the document means any work containing the document or a portion of it, either copied verbatim, or with modifications and/or translated into another language. You may copy and distribute a modified version of the document under the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release the modified version under precisely this License, with the modified version filling the role of the document, thus licensing distribution and modification of the modified version to whoever possesses a copy of it. All original work included within this guide written by another person is copyright to the person who wrote it and supersedes this copyright notice, so you have to get their permission to use it, whatever that might be. To summarize, you may use my guide in part or whole, without any additional permission from myself, except for the noted examples above, provided that the resulting guide is similarly released under the GNU FDL. If this is a major problem for you, I’ll be happy to give you separate permission to use parts of the guide, provided that I am given credit and a link to my guide is provided. The latest version of this document can always be found at www.gamefaqs.com but isn’t exclusive to any one site. I just prefer to have my guides there. Any other site that has this guide or wants to use this guide (doubtful but there are a few, actually) can get the updated version at the site mentioned above. Don’t email me about this because the answer will be definitely no since I don’t want to be emailing this guide around to everyone who asks. All other questions are welcomed. Thanks. Copyright 2004 Tim Courchene aka Pseudonym. =============================================================================== Introduction =============================================================================== The story so far... In 1957 a large object from outer space crashed into Earth’s Amazon basin, near the ruins of a lost Mayan civilization. Scientists worldwide heralded the incident as a trivial cosmic occurrence, and thus the collision was soon forgotten. Now thirty years later, rumors of an evil force have swept into the Pentagon’s front office and tales from frightened villagers of a hideous being with an army of alien henchmen are sending chills down the spines of top military brass. Unwilling to upset current political stability, an all-out assault on the region has been overruled and instead, two of America’s most cunning, courageous and ruthless soldiers from the Special Forces elite commando squad have been selected to seek out and destroy these alien intruders. Congratulations, pal, you’re one of the chosen. But before you take pride in being the best, be warned. Your about to come face to face against Red Falcon, the cruelest life-form in the galaxy. He arrived on Earth thirty years ago (that is six months time in an alien’s life) to establish a foothold from which he will attempt to conquer our world and then use it as a stepping stone toward his ultimate fiendish goal: domination of the universe. Needless to say, playing hero won’t be easy. But you have no choice - you must be a hero. Because if you fail, life as we know it will cease to exist, and the vile Red Falcon will rule forever. If you succeed, well…it doesn’t matter, because I doubt you will… Sipping cold lemonade with a couple of native lovelies. Mad Dog and Scorpion (Guerrilla Warriors Extraordinaire) relax on a Rio beach and boast how they destroyed the vile alien war monger, Red Falcon. Little did they know that Red Falcon didn’t flee with his pointed tail between his legs. Instead, he tactically retreated to round-up ruffians of the universe, friends from all walks of war, to mount a second assault on planet Earth. One of these new recruits is Jagger Froid, a demented alien from the Black Hole Galaxy, who dishes out punishment with a laser sharp tongue. Red Falcon has also shuttled in the Babalu Destructoid Mechanism, a giant alien attack tank, which was the primary weapon used to disintegrate the innocent solar system of Tralala. But the genius behind Red Falcon’s Earth conquering concept is his plan to have thousands of intergalactic warriors seep into the brains of the US Army. It’s a mind contamination trick which has taken command of the US forces at Fort Firestorm. How did we know that our soldiers have been brain trashed? You can see it in their eyes. Now, if Mad and Scorpion fail to recuperate from their months on the beach in time to destroy Red Falcon’s GI fortified hate nest, his sinister scheme will permeate the world’s mightiest power (nuclear missile silos included). And if that happens, we’ll all be pushing up daisies. February 14, 2636. You are about to learn what it takes to be a descendant of commando legends Scorpion and Mad Dog. That is, now that Red Falcon would like to use your family tree as a toothpick. You’re Jimbo and Sully, special forces comrades just like your fearsome forefathers were. Nowadays, your weapons are far more advanced than they were when your ancestors saved the world from being skewered on Red Falcon’s fangs. That brutal beast is still in his prime and has had plenty of time to plot his revenge. He had swamped Neo City with six stages of the most cruel and unusual punishers ever. So run, climb, ride, soar and start blasting your way to the alien main base. Before your family name and your planet are just dirt under Red Falcon’s claws. This guide will attempt to walk you through the game, with as little deaths as possible (hopefully). It was written for both beginners and veterans alike, so there's little confusion of the levels. Well, that's it, and I hope this guide's helpful. Also, I know that the guide isn't complete. I'll fix that as soon as possible. Anyway. Enjoy. The latest version of this guide can't be found anywhere because my old site was taken down by those bums at yahoo after they merged with Geocites. =P. If you want to use this guide, feel free to do so as long as you follow the copyright rules, which means reading it. This guide or whatever you chose to call it is filled with information that has major spoilers such as strategies, endings, etc... so it isn’t my fault that you read ahead and find out what happens. It was written for veterens and beginners alike so you'll have a much easier time (hopefully...) finishing this game. This has been a public service by Pseudonym. Have a nice day. =============================================================================== Game Basics =============================================================================== -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Player Options -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Single Player: Self-explanatory. You play through the game alone. Two Players A: This is a competitive split screen versus version of the two player mode you usually play on Contra. I find this mode fun when you want to find out who is better at this game by having them play on their own without any help. You have full freedom of movement and free choice of all the weapons throughout the game, but for people who have bad partners that don’t share or cooperate well in general, like my brother. Heh. Two Players B: Well, this mode is best played if your partner is both good at the game and a good partner because you share the screen and all the resources throughout your game. And you will need to play as a team properly or you’ll either die a lot more often then you usually would or lose and have to start from the beginning again. Options: Nothing much here, but crank the extra lives option to the max for an easier time through the game. You can turn this back down or keep it on it's original setting if you want more of a challenge. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Difficulty Levels -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'll give you the low down on all the differences between the difficulty levels and a short description of what you should expect at each level. Don't attempt hard until you've mastered normal, because it’s a MAJOR step up from the previous difficulty. I'm not kidding. On Easy: - All bullets, beams, flames and basically any projectile will move slowly. - All enemies and bosses are significantly easier to beat. - Most enemies will usually just move across the screen and rarely fire at you, except the ones that were on the screen to begin with. On Normal: - All bullets, beams, flames and any other projectile will move a little faster than they were on easy. - All enemies and bosses will fire more at you and are somewhat harder than they were on easy. On Hard: - All bullets, beams, flames and any other projectile I forgot to add here are much faster than they were on normal. - All enemies will fire a lot of bullets and/or try to run into you. - More enemies will appear on the screen and they'll reappear faster. - Some of the enemies and bosses have extra attacks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Controls -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Start Button: Press it to pause the game. Select Button: Press it to bring up a map (only on the overhead levels) A Button: Press it to use an Aura Bomb. B Button: Press it to jump. X Button: Press to change your current weapon to your second weapon. Y Button: Press and hold to continually fire your weapon. L Button: Press it and you’ll turn to the left. R Button: Press it and you’ll turn to the right. Redundant eh? L, R and Y Buttons: Press these three buttons and your character will start jumping and firing both weapons at the same time. When you do that on a map stage (stages two and five), your character spin around and fire both weapon at the same time. Directional Pad: Press any direction on the pad and you move in that direction. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Weapons -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Machine Gun (Initial weapon) Usefulness: Below average Appearance: Varies The initial weapon you start with and will have again whenever you die. It’s not a bad weapon, but not too good overall. You should try to get a different weapon as soon as possible. It’s good points are it has a fast attack and you can never lose it, but it also isn’t that strong and you can usually find a much better weapon instead of using this one. Crash Usefulness: High-Very high Appearance: Varies This weapon is the best overall weapon in the game. It has high damage but is somewhat slow speed wise. This is the weapon I usually pull out for attacking bosses if I don’t have the laser, but this weapon is better for some bosses. I like using it to kill stronger enemies but don’t use it exclusively for stages because of it’s slow attack and somewhat limited range. There are better weapons for stages so I usually only use this weapon on bosses or sub bosses. Homing Usefulness: Average Appearance: Varies The homing weapon is good for killing enemies in the air and is otherwise a good all-around basic weapon. It is specifically good against the twins at the end of stage three, so you can just fire and dodge when needed. The bad news about this weapon is that each missile is weak and isn’t a good choice to use on other bosses or when there are lots of enemies on the screen. Spread Usefulness: Above average Appearance: Varies In the first contra, this was the weapon to have. It was fast, had a large damage range and caused sufficient damage to enemies. In this game, it still has all of those pluses, but it is now overshadowed by the more powerful weapons in the game, namely the crash, laser and the flame-thrower. It is still good for mass killing enemies on whatever stage you're on, but I still prefer the other weapons. Laser Usefulness: High Appearance: Varies This weapon causes extreme damage to enemies and bosses, but has very small range. It is the best weapon to use on bosses and sub bosses if you can, because of the high damage it causes and it’s still effective because you only have to aim at a single target at a time. But usually it’s effectiveness ends at the bosses and most of the time I don’t use this weapon in many stages. That is about all I can say about this weapon, so I’ll end it here. Flamethrower Usefulness: High Appearance: Varies This weapon is the third strongest in the game, after the crash and laser. It is good at clearing out enemies in your way so you can go forward pretty easily. A really good example of this is most of stage six before you get to the first sub boss, which is the heart. Other then that, I don’t use this weapon as much as some of the others, except for close range crowd control and some bosses. Aura Bomb Usefulness: Very high Appearance: High One of the most important weapons in the game. They can easily kill weak enemies within the blast radius and is very useful in taking down bosses. They are invaluable at clearing large amounts of enemies from the screen when they are all attacking you at the same time, like in stage six. Also the closer you use it to the enemy or boss the more damage the enemy will sustain. I put that in there cause some people just use there nukes like mad until they run out. And they use them when the boss is far away and does hardly any damage at all! So use them when whatever your trying to kill is close. Ahem. To sum up what I’ve been saying, use them when your hurting and need crowd control and also use them frequently on bosses for a easy time. That’s about it. Shield Usefulness: Average Appearance: Extremely Rare You only get this item twice. At the beginning on stage one and about halfway through stage three when those missiles come at you after you kill the attack ship. Just run and kill stuff without worrying about getting killed yourself and if there are two of you playing, make sure the guy with the shield is in front so he can absorb the hits. It will last about 30 seconds and turns red before it disappears so watch out. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Enemies -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Red Soldiers Blue Soldiers Grenadiers Red Snipers Blue Snipers Man-faced Mutts (Dogs) Fortresses Speedy Aliens Rolling Aliens Red Centipedes Small Red Centipedes Green Centipedes Flea-thingies Fireball Prominence ======================================================================= Walkthrough ======================================================================= ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stage 1: The Streets of Neo City ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Move along and get the powerups at the beginning. Kill everything you can, watching out for enemies that come from behind you and the dogs at the garbage cans. Jump in the tank and cause havoc, destroying everything until you get to the flames rising out of the ground. Jump over them and get the powerups here if you need them. A little further ahead, the wall will crumble, move to the right side of the screen and hit the tank thing that comes out of the wall. Destroy it and move on to the two ledges. Jump on one of the ledges when the bomber comes and blasts the ground. Jump over the flame balls and pillars of fire, making your way forward, this part is just like an obstacle course, so I don’t really don’t have to go into detail here. As you reach a seemingly dead end with the flames still there, jump onto the ground, the flames will disappear. Keep going, get the powerups around here and the boss is just ahead. SUB BOSS: Riot Tank Pull out a strong weapon and let it rip, it will be destroyed in no time at all. If it manages to get close to the left side of the screen, just stick as close to the left side of the screen as possible and it shouldn’t be able to kill you. Something else you can try is to quickly move to the right before the tank comes out of the wall and blast the tank up; you should destroy it far before it is able to come back to the right. BOSS: Beast Kimkoh Gather the nukes on the ledges and start firing at the flashing lump on it’s chest. If you have the spread weapon, use it to kill the flying things that come out of the shell, go down and fire at the lump. Jump to the high ledge when the turtle is about to fire the beam from it’s mouth, you can tell it’s about to use the beam when it’s mouth starts flashing. Dodge the bullets that come out of the turtle, go back down and hit the lump until it blows up. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stage 2: Maria Calderon Highway ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The object of this mission is to destroy all the enemy “bases” in the area. Choose an area of the map to start and destroy each base, which are symbolized by the little flashing circles on the map. Wait for them to open up then duck and fire at it until it’s destroyed. As your moving around the map, watch out for the cracked pavement that will give way when you step on it. The only way through this part is to step in the center of the road, across the narrow path that’s remaining. After you destroy all of the bases, you’ll face the boss. BOSS: Metallican An easy boss. First thing to do is destroy the legs while dodging the spread they fire at you. As your doing that, the boss will start the spin crazily around the ground. When you destroy the tail and flame-thrower thing, it will fly off the ground and then land really fast. This is annoying, especially on hard, where it's dropping so fast it's hard to hit it. Just keep moving around and don’t let it land or touch you. Destroy the rest of the parts on the thing and it will blow up. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stage 3: The Old Cyber Steel Mill ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SUB BOSS: Chrome Dome SUB BOSS: Tri-Transforming Wall Walker The wall drill will appear soon after you start climbing up the wall. It will trap you underneath it and start firing missiles at you, move along with it and destroy the missiles. Eventually you’ll reach a section of the wall that will push inwards to reveal spikes all along the top and bottom. The wall drill will switch strategies and now try to bash you into the spikes. This thing is still pretty easy if you keep moving at all times and watch out for it’s fake thrusts which the drill follows with a quick bash into the wall, basically resulting in a needless loss of a life. So, keep hitting it with strong weapons and be mindful of what I just said and this battle should be a piece of cake. SUB BOSS: Attack Ship This sub boss is truly pathetic and should be destroyed in no time at all. The first thing it will do is drop grenades around the middle, so stick to the edge until it stops. Once that is over, it will start dropping troops out the sides of the ship, so now you should pull out your strongest weapons and blast it up until it’s destroyed. SUB BOSS: The Twins These two robots are a pain in the ass for someone trying for a solo run through this game. You need to definitely destroy the red twin first cause it is the only one that is a real threat, he will jump around and hang from the ceiling and fire bullets at you; the blue twin will only fire it’s weapon at the ground and act stupid. Immediately jump to the wall at the junction between the wall and the ceiling and start firing at the red twin. It will start moving towards you, so pull out your heavy stuff and blast it up until it is close to you, then move across the ceiling to the other wall and repeat. If the red twin traps you on a wall, move to the ceiling and time how long it takes the robot to jump and across the ceiling to the other wall and keep firing at it. If it start firing bullets at you, just dodge them and try to cross to the other wall. Once the red twin’s legs give out, this battle is MUCH easier, just move to the ceiling and fire at the blue twin and now disabled red twin until their both destroyed. BOSS: Robo-Corpse This guy is the boss of this stage and a real badass; one of my favorite bosses in this game. It will start ripping a hole in the wall with one hand then the other hand and open what is now a hangar door. For awhile it will do nothing but move it’s head from side to side…then it will either use the laser or everyone’s favorite attack…the flamethrower. To avoid the laser attack, run to one of the corners, jump and climb to the high point on the wall, not the ceiling, that is important. Wait for the laser to get close and jump off the wall and run to the other wall and repeat until it disappears. If it appears high, move along the ceiling or jump off the wall and run to the other wall and repeat. Once it uses the flamethrower, you have to be prepared because it’s a real bitch, especially if the laser is still lingering around. It will move in a clockwise direction and on easy, it moves so slow you can actually keep firing at the head while you running away from the flamethrower. On hard it moves extremely fast and you’ll literally be running for your life the whole time. After that, the boss will set bombs at a random corner in the room, so…move to the opposite side and keep hitting this mofo. It will repeat all his attacks from the beginning now, so just follow the directions again and keep hitting it and it should die after... um, three or four or five rounds, I think. It really depends on how good you are at this game. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stage 4: Battle of the Blazing Sky ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SUB BOSS: Battle Tank An easy boss. Just sit near the back of the screen and fire away. You may have to jump once in awhile, but you can destroy the shells the tank fires at you. It won't take long to destroy it. SUB BOSS: Walker Another easy boss. Stay near the back of the screen and fire at it. It will occasionally jump, so take advantage of it, just try not to get stuck on the edge of the screen when the Walker is coming at you. SUB BOSS: The Assassin He'll appear after the helicopter picks you up. He'll attach his arm (or whatever it is) to the bottom of the helicopter and swing around. This is the time you should be hitting him. After awhile, he'll retract his arm to the bottom of the helicopter, then fire a ninja star at you. Jump over it, and fire some more. He'll should be dead before he's able to climb to the helicopter again. If he isn't, rinse, lather, repeat. BOSS: Mother Ship The ship is back for more punishment, so oblige one last time. To counter the missiles that come from the left, the ship will send missiles of it’s own to destroy them, so jump away when they get too close to the ship. If there are two of you, one destroy the top thingy and the better player take out the bottom one because it’s harder. A nice way to destroy both of them and the ship itself is to just use nukes like crazy to deactivate the barrier then use the laser to destroy the eye at the center for an easy win. That’s about it, but this boss is pretty easy in the first place so there isn’t that much to write. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stage 5: Mucho Grande Badlands ------------------------------------------------------------------------ BOSS: The Round Ball of DEATH This is probably one of the hardest bosses in the game but certainly the most annoying. If you have the laser, you can save yourself some trouble and use this to finish it off quicker then it would take with any of the other weapons. The first thing you’ll need to know is the center section of the area will rotate clockwise or counterclockwise like a carousal and will spin you around like a rag doll if your not ready for it. It will also make you an easy target for the boss’s two attacks, the tentacle arm and the flamethrower, which appear randomly out of the boss’s numerous openings. As soon as you able to move, get near the boss and start hitting the eye with a strong weapon but preferably the laser as I said above. When the center area starts moving, press the L or the R button to stabilize yourself so you can continue to hit the eye and avoid any attack. If you start spinning out of control, obviously try to stabilize yourself again or move off the center area to the sandy edge for a second then get back in there. Well, you might die a few times but you’ll eventually destroy it and move on to the next stage, hopefully with most of your lives (and continues) intact. Heh. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stage 6: Red Falcon’s Lair ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Move right and kill the alien hanging from the wall. Throughout this stage, you have to watch out for fast little aliens that appear from either side of the screen then try to hit you. They usually appear at awkward times, like when your jumping from one area to the next so watch out. If you're in a jam, use an Aura Bomb to clear out the enemies and advance quickly. SUB BOSS: Red Falcon’s Heart Well, well, look who’s back. It is the final boss from the original Contra and it is even easier this time around. The first thing you should do is destroy the two sac-thingies at the bottom then if you want the take out the two at the top. After that, concentrate all your fire upon the heart itself but watch out for the aliens that come from the sacs and it should be dead in no time at all. Run to the right and soon after another sub boss will appear. SUB BOSS: The Crawler This weird looking alien is the final boss from Super C, if you didn’t know and this time it is marginally tougher then before. After it comes out of the ground, it will probably charge at you, then jump backwards. When it lands, jump on it’s little legs and use your weapon on it’s face as much as you can. It’s face will then close up and it will shoot brown globs of whatever in the air and it will all come raining down on you a few seconds later. A nice little tip at this point of the battle comes from the game Super Ghosts N Ghouls because it has an similar situation. When the globs start falling, immediately pause the game and see where the opening between the globs is, then move there right away. Now the boss will repeat his attacks from the beginning but you shouldn’t have too much trouble from here on in. Continue right and jump across the two chasms then to the wall and head up to fight the third and final sub boss. As a side note, doesn’t this music sound very similar to the music from the movie Predator. SUB BOSS: Vicious Slave Hawk Ho hum, another sub boss. It appears near the top of the wall and attacks much like the Wall Drill, that is it tries to run into you, so dodge accordingly. Pull out a whichever weapon you have, preferably a strong weapon cause you’ll definitely need it both for this guy and the head honcho who is running the whole show here, but try not to lose any good weapon you have. After a good while of dodging and hitting the mofo, it will switch attacks. Now it will try to both bump and whip you, along with being able to teleport anywhere on the screen. It will frequently appear right next to you and try to whip you off the wall, so watch out, keep moving all the time and keep hitting it and you should finish it in no time. I know I say that a lot but this boss isn’t that hard, so trust me. Now on to the final boss of the game. Continue up the wall and at the top a powerup capsule should appear, get it if you want, otherwise head right and you’ll do battle with the first form of Red Falcon. BOSS: Red Falcon’s Body Now this is a real final boss, unlike the pathetically easy final bosses for Contra and Super C. Konami finally got it right this time around with pretty good timing too, as this is the best Contra game ever, if Contra: Shattered Soldier doesn’t hold up. Err, anyways, the body will come down from the top of the screen. If you don’t have a partner with you here, you need to destroy one of the arms as soon as possible or your deaths will start racking up. The laser will do nicely for the arms but definitely switch to a more versatile weapon, like the spread to deal with all the little aliens that will appear out of Red Falcon’s arm sockets. Now start aiming for the head and killing all the little aliens around you. One by one each of Red Falcon’s eyes will black out and after awhile of blasting up the head, it will disappear and the brain will come into view. BOSS: Red Falcon’s Brain This is the only battle in the game that can be either very hard as in you almost always die when you choose the wrong ball or pathetically easy as in you choose the good balls and almost always stay alive. It’s that simple. You can also cheat by using a controller that has a slow down switch so you can hit the right balls every time and breeze past this part. As I said before, the brain doesn’t really attack itself, but instead uses a group of eight balls that move clockwise or counter-clockwise around the brain as you start. The brain is invincible at this point, so you have to shoot one of the balls to get started. If you know anything about this game or more specifically this boss, you’ll know to try and hit a good ball or at least an average ball as much as possible or this boss will be a real bitch to kill. It isn’t that hard to hit a good or average ball but don’t let someone who is new to the game pick the ball as I've personally had some bad experiences with that. I guess that’s enough to go on for the beginning, now a rundown on all the balls. Noose Ball [Gray ball with purple marks] I call this one the noose ball because that is almost literally what happens. About five or six gray balls will surround you and slowly tighten until they kill you. I would avoid this ball only if you don’t have any aura bombs, otherwise you probably won’t be able to destroy them all before they kill you. Easy Ball [Red ball] The easiest non-bonus ball you can get, besides the leg ball. A group of red balls will surround the brain doing nothing at all. So, use a few aura bombs to destroy the red balls then pull out a strong weapon and blast it up until the brain switches it’s attack again. Snake Ball [Green ball with red marks] Avoid this one like you would the plague or a root canal. If you do manage to get this one, you better have excellent timing and dexterity, plus it never hurts to say a prayer =P. It creates a snake made of balls that wander around the screen for 30 seconds or so, which will probably result in a at least one death. Rolling Ball [Gray ball] One of the tougher balls you can get, but definitely not the hardest one in the game. The brain will move to the lower right side of the screen and two or three (depending on the difficulty level) balls will start rolling towards you. The trick here is to time your jumps so you can get over the first ball well enough, but with time to spare so you get over the next one the same way. Use your weapons so you can hit the brain while your doing this. Leg Ball [Blue ball with marks] This ball is simple to avoid and lets you get free hits on the brain, so milk it for everything it is worth. Stand at the edge of either side of the screen and hit the brain as much as you can. Bonus Ball [Gray spike ball] The best ball you can get, period, but there is a slight chance you can die. The brain will move to the center of the screen and every possible powerup in the game will rain down on you. It goes without saying that this is very good and you should aim for this ball as much as possible. Rain Ball [blue ball] NOT GOOD. Avoid this ball at all costs because just like the snake ball, this one is very hard to survive. The brain will drop balls that you can’t destroy and you’ll just have to dodge them as best as you can. There is no concrete strategy here as far as I know, just do try your best to avoid the balls. Easier Rain Ball [looks like an eye-ball] This is almost the same as the previous ball, except you can destroy the ball this time, which makes it much easier. Use a strong weapon and blast up the balls bouncing around the screen... or be lazy and use a Aura Bomb. FOR THOSE WHO BEAT THE BRAIN ON EASY OR NORMAL: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ending 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The brain turns purple as it falls to the ground and when the eye closes, the lair will start blowing up. A helicopter lands inside the lair and takes off from the island much the same way as the original Contra, but in 16-bit goodness. Well, you destroyed Red Falcon and his hordes of alien henchmen again and you should be rewarded with an ending, right? Wrong. You need to finish the game on hard to see the real ending. It should say something about trying the game on the next difficulty, but I wouldn’t try that until you can breeze through normal. And I’m not going to tell you what happens either so, hah hah. *Sticks tongue out at you*. FOR THOSE WHO BEAT THE BRAIN ON HARD: BOSS: Red Falcon's Brain (Round 2) What the fuck? It’s still alive and is now encased inside a metal armor and has magically grown arms. It will try to hit you with it's newly acquired arms in a left to right pattern then bash the undercarriage of the helicopter, trying to knock you off. Despite all of that, this battle is pretty easy, but there are a few pitfalls. First off, you should always be jumping and firing at the brain, and using whatever Aura Bombs you have left. Secondly, when you're jumping around and firing at the brain, DON'T press down while you're hanging onto the helicopter. The brain will also wave it's newly acquired arms in a left to right pattern, or in a opposite direction. The other thing the brain does is bash itself into the helicopter. If you're hanging on when it does that, you'll lose a life. Anyways, lather, rinse, repeat and it will finally die and you’ve finished the game. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ending 2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The brain is destroyed for good this time. The helicopter will continue out of the lair and leave the island behind, just like the original Contra. The credits will scroll along and awhile later the chopper will land in Neo City where a bunch of people are waiting. The army will give you a metal for your bravery and the game will end. Besides that weak ending, you should get a sincere congratulations from me. You've finished the game on hard and that’s no easy task for anyone. =). If you found it easy, you can make the game harder by changing the number of lives you get in the option screen. Anyways, after awhile, the game will restart on hard, with all your current weapons and lives. Good luck! ======================================================================= Cameos ======================================================================= Now you may be wondering why I created a cameo section. The answer is simple. Konami itself isn't above shameless promotion. If you've ever played the NES game Blades of Steel, you can see various advertisements of other Konami games (Contra and Gradius, I think) on the scoreboard. The idea here is to see how many stuff they have in the game that is simular to something else. Contra: Well, the heart incarnation of Red Falcon from Contra is back but unfortunately it’s still pathetically easy to kill. Super C: Red Falcon’s form in Super C is back and this time he is marginally tougher but not that much. Super C: Red Falcon also takes the form of one of the easiest bosses from this game in my opinion, the evil Jagger Froid. Heh. The Predator: I figure this is a joke since it was rumored that heroes from Contra were modeled on Stallone and Shwartzeneggar. Also, if you listen to the music in stage 6, just after you kill the Crawler you should notice a resemblance to some BGM played in the movie. R-Type/Gradius: It seems to me that the whole latter end of stage 3 is possibly a long reference to R-Type and Gradius. The latter end of the third stage seems like one long reference to R-Type because you have to do something similar: destroying the turrets and pieces of the ship while it passes by you. The boss of this stage, again, is a probably a reference, this time to Gradius and the tell-tail “destroy the core” -type ship that Gradius is known for. That and it’s damn difficulty. ======================================================================= FAQ ======================================================================= Q1: How come the "Konami Code" doesn't work? To make a long story short, it isn't in this game. If you want lots of lives, just start the game and kill enemies until the cows come home... you'll eventually gain lives, but it isn't pretty or quick. ======================================================================= Closing ======================================================================= ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Final Comments ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Goodbye and it’s been fun writing this thing for you all. Well, not really, but I had to have something nice to say since this guide is almost at the end. Heh. Just kidding. Anyway. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, praise or criticism, they should be sent to . If you're looking for specific information and it isn't in this guide, please tell me about it and I'll remedy the problem as soon as possible. I'm eventually going to add everything that's pertinent to this game. Check the GameFAQs Contra 3 board for more information. I'm sure that there are plenty of experts there to help you out. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Credits -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- First off, Konami needs to be congratulated for making this awesome game. Secondly, my brother who contributed a lot to this guide. I still have to thank Flying Omelet who’s own cameo section inspired me to do something similar in this guide. Anyone else who contributes will get a nifty spot here, so don’t delay, contribute today! EOF____________________________________________________________________________