Contra 4, known as Contra: Dual Spirits (魂斗羅 デュアルスピリッツ, Kontora De~yuaru Supirittsu^?) in Japan, is a 2D action game for the Nintendo DS and the eleventh original installment in the Contra series. The game was released in North America on November 13, 2007. Contra 4 was produced by Konami Digital Entertainment in America and developed by WayForward Technologies, making it the first Contra game developed from an American company, as well as the first original Contra game for a portable platform since the 1991 Game Boy game Operation C.

As the game's title indicates, Contra 4 was designed to be a direct sequel to the Contra games for the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super NES (Contra, Super C, and Contra III: The Alien Wars), with a gameplay model similar to those games, and was also in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the original Contra.

A mobile phone port was released on November 19, 2007. No European or Australian version of the game has ever been released.

Plot

The plot is set in 2636 A.D., six months (originally two years^[1]) after the events of Contra III: The Alien Wars.^[1] With the Red Falcon alien threat defeated and the Alien Wars finished, the Earth is peaceful once again. However, a similar alien entity calling itself Black Viper begins launching attacks against the human race, causing mass destruction over the planet. After strange readings are detected at the Galuga archipelago (the setting of the original Contra), the Earth Federation sends their four strongest Contra Force commandos on a final strike mission to destroy Black Viper and its army of aliens, robots and mutants.

The continuity of Contra 4 is based on the Japanese canon that was adapted into the English localization of series with the release of Contra: Shattered Soldier. However, the game's producers took a number of liberties with the established canon by integrating elements of the American localizations of the older games, thus fusing the two versions together. The alien Black Viper was originally mentioned only in the North American instruction booklet of Operation C, whereas the original plot of that game (released as simply "Contra" in Japan) was about an unnamed superpower creating new weapons using an alien cell. In the timeline presented in the instruction booklet and official website, the events of Operation C are interpreted as a previous mission of Mad Dog and Scorpion –two new characters created specifically for Contra 4– against Black Viper. In actuality, "Mad Dog" and "Scorpion" were the names used for Bill and Lance for the North American NES games. In addition, Operation C was originally a solo mission of Bill in Japan and Lance in North America, as the game was one-player only (it should be noted that Shattered Soldier, which was released before Contra 4, establishes Bill Rizer as the hero in Operation C in all regions of the former game). In the North American manual, Red Falcon's leader is named "Jagger Froid". Also, the date of events listed use the original Japanese dates.

Gameplay

Contra 4 is based on the same 2D gameplay system featured in the series through Contra III: The Alien Wars, ignoring many of the game mechanics introduced in later games such as the fixed weapon configurations in Contra: Shattered Soldier and Neo Contra, returning to the old method of picking up power-up icons to obtain new weapons. The play controls are similar to Contra III, including the ability to hold two weapons in inventory. The action spans both screens of the Nintendo DS system and a grappling hook can be used by the player's character to latch onto railings, allowing the player's character to move from one screen to the other. Similarly to the arcade version of Super Contra, the player can pick up the same power-up twice, giving them an improved version of the same weapon. The player can also discard a power-up, allowing them to try out a new weapon without losing a previous one.

In addition to the standard side-view stages, there are also tunnel stages similar to the two "3D view" stages from the original Contra, in which the perspective shifts behind the character's back. The action in these stages is displayed solely on the upper screen, while the bottom screen is used to display the stage's map and the locations of power-ups. Other than using both screens, Contra 4 makes no usage of the DS' special features such as touch screen (besides navigating the main menu), microphone, or multiplayer modes.

Arcade Mode

Arcade Mode is the main portion of the game, which is composed of six standard stages and three tunnel stages, for a total of nine stages. The stages pay frequent homage to Contra, Super C, Operation C and Contra III: The Alien Wars. Three difficulty settings are available: Easy, Normal and Hard. Easy is intended to be accessible to novices by providing the player with plenty of lives and credits, as well as making all power-ups upgraded by default, but does not give the player access to the final two stages nor the ending. Normal is a moderate setting described to be "as difficult as the original Contra", whereas Hard features faster moving enemies and enemy fire, with fewer lives. Hard mode also features a different ending from Normal.

Challenge Mode

After completing the main game (Arcade Mode) once on any difficulty setting, a Challenge Mode will be made available in the main menu. This game mode is composed of forty different challenges in which the player must complete various tasks within the side-scrolling stages of Arcade Mode.

Stages

Stage	Name	Minibosses	Boss	Music
1	Jungle	Rail Gun	Defense Wall	Dense Forest Battle
2	Laboratory	-	Gromaides	Waterfall
3	Base	-	Godomuga	Labyrinth Fortress
4	Harbor	Nouei Missile Hugger 3000	Missile Hugger 3000 (ground battle)	Harbor
5	Ocean	Reaper	Barracuda	Daredevil
6	Factory	-	Big Fuzz	Cyborg Factory
7	City	Magnus Arachnid	Crustacean Cruiser	It's Time for Revenge
8	Alien Hive	-	Gomeramos King	Alien Hive Tunnel Heart Battle
9	Harvest Yard	Black Viper	Black Viper (Cerebrum)	The Showdown

Endings

There are three different endings in Contra 4, depending on the difficulty level chosen in Arcade Mode:

Image	Description	Notes
	Easy: "You'll never see the ending on Easy! Try playing on a higher difficulty for a real Contra experience!"	A short and simple two-screen message stating the player must play on a higher difficulty to view the ending. Immediately plays once Stage 7 is cleared.
	Normal: "The Alien Wars have ended at long last! With Black Viper destroyed, the motives behind the alien attacks remained a mystery. Whatever the truth may have been, it was lost to time as the invaders became a mere footnote in the pages of history. A footnote which read: They sure blew up good."	Bill Rizer is standing in the middle of a ruined portion of the City, surrounded by many human bystanders, whom are happily cheering the hero for saving the world once more.
	Hard: "The Alien Wars have ended at long last! With Black Viper destroyed, the motives behind the alien attacks remained a mystery. Whatever the truth may have been, it was lost to time as the invaders became a mere footnote in the pages of history. A footnote which read: They sure blew up good." "You've done the impossible, and there are no more aliens left to blast--you've mastered Contra on Hard Mode. Go home, soldier. You've earned it. You are the ultimate Contra; consider yourself a hero."	An image of Bill Rizer standing victorious on top of a defeated Black Viper's motionless husk with a flag in one hand and the Contra Helicopter flying away toward the sun. The message is the same as Normal mode, but with additional lines added to the end.

Development

Main article: Contra 4/Development

Soundtrack

Main article: Contra Dual Spirits Original Soundtrack

The music and sound effects were handled by famed video game music remixer Jake "virt" Kaufman, who also composed for Shantae and founded the game music remix site VGMix. The soundtrack consists of a few arrangements of music from previous Contra games, as well as a lot of new material. When Arcade Mode is played on the Hard setting, an arranged version of "Jungle Battle" theme from the original Contra is played instead of the standard stage music. The standard Jungle theme is actually an enhanced version of a "Contra-style" chiptune song previously posted on Kaufman's website, called "Vile Red Falcon".

A soundtrack CD was announced by Konami to be bundled in the first print of the Japanese release of Contra: Dual Spirits as a gift for preorders through the Konami Style webshop. This deal was only available for Japanese residents. In addition to the music found in the game, a four-minute live performance of the "Harbor" theme is included as a bonus track. The theme is performed by The Smash Bros, Jake Kaufman's video game tribute band.

In 2010, Kaufman contributed a track to a Contra 4 remix album called Contra 4: Rocked 'n' Loaded.^[2]

Reception

Contra 4 received positive reviews from critics, scoring an 83 out of 100 on Metacritic. Contra 4 has been hailed as a rebirth of the Contra franchise, returning the gameplay to the classic roots of the series. It has garnered multiple awards, including IGN's "Best Action Game" and "Best Revival" of 2007,^[3][4] GameSpy's 7th best game of 2007^[5] and one of Gaming Target's "52 Games We'll Still Be Playing From 2007".^[6] GamesRadar named Contra 4 the 22nd best DS game of all time out of a list of 25. Metacritic gave this game a score of 83/100. Praising it as a return to the classic 2D nostalgia feel.^[7] Game Rankings rated this an 84.10%, as again being a favorable review marking the 20th anniversary of returning to 2D classic.^[8]

Gallery

For developmental images, see Contra 4/Development.

Screenshots

Title screen
(International)

Title screen
(Japan)

Packaging artwork

Contra 4 cover artwork
(North America)

Contra 4 cover artwork backside
(North America)

Contra: Dual Spirits cover artwork
(Japan)

Artwork seen in the back of the game's instruction manual.

Official wallpapers

Miscellaneous

Contra 4 fold out poster that came in an issue of Nintendo Power.

Museum poster information from Contra 4.

Background on Konami Mobile's Contra 4 page with fan-made artwork from a character design contest.

Bosses concept sketches 1.

Bosses concept sketches 2.

Unused vehicles concept artwork.

Storyboard cinematics.

Artwork used in the game's intro sequence.

Videos

Trivia

• The events in Contra 4 were formerly stated to take place two years after the Alien Wars, in 2638 A.D.; however, with the release of Contra: Rogue Corps, which also takes place in that year, Contra 4 had to be moved to only six months after the Alien Wars in order to make Rogue Corps fit into the timeline. This was probably due to Contra 4 technically being a western developed game, which had already made several changes to the original Japanese established canon.
• Neo City serves as the setting of the seventh stage, with Neo City being where the events of Contra Force originally take place, making it one of the only links that game has with the rest of the Contra series. This reference was first seen in the English localization for Contra III: The Alien Wars, where the first stage was identified as "The Streets of Neo City", and it's most likely from that game where the reference was carried over from.
• The Hybrid Aliens running through the air vents above may be a reference to the scene in the 1986 science fiction horror film Aliens where the xenomorphs did a similar strategy to get to the human characters.
• The title screen's music reflects that of the original Contra title screen music.
• No matter which character was chosen, the Normal and Hard mode endings will always display Bill Rizer.
• This is the first game to have Player 1 play as Lance Bean both in single player and in co-op. In previous entries, Lance was only selectable as the Player 2 option during a 2 Players game, or he was unavailable to play as.
• In the menus for the Classic titles, the games taglines can be read on the top screen. However, the tagline for Contra is slightly reworded. While the original box cover reads: "...you either win or the whole world loses.", the tagline seen in Contra 4 reads: "...either you win or the whole world loses.".
• Part of the Normal/Hard Mode text at the end of the game reads "...the motives behind the alien attacks remained a mystery.". This line may possibly foreshadow the plot of Contra: Shattered Soldier, which chronologically appears right after Contra 4.

Related products

• Contra 4 Comic - An unlockable digital comic in this game that is loosely based on its plot.
• Contra 4: Redux - A remaster/follow-up sequel to this game on mobile platforms.
• Contra Dual Spirits Original Soundtrack - The soundtrack for this game.

References