Master Contra is the main antagonist of Neo Contra. He is the founder and leader of the eponymous Neo Contra military group.

He is later revealed to be the result of the second research branch of "Project C", a scientific project that had the goal of creating the ultimate war machine from Bill Rizer's consciousness.

Description

Master Contra is a tall commander possessing red eyes, smooth blonde hair, white gloves and visible "cybernetics" on the temples of his forehead, as well as wearing a noticeable gray with red detailing militaristic uniform. His general appearance strongly resembles Bill Rizer (aside from the aforementioned red eyes) to which Jaguar himself notes to his partner "Bill Rizer".

This body is later revealed to be just a machine electronically commanded by the villain himself. The true body of Master Contra is that of the real Bill Rizer's consciousness implanted into a large base-like weapon powerful enough to vaporize Earth. It is never directly shown what Bill Rizer's consciousness exactly looks like, though without his machine-made body, Master Contra speaks to the two heroic commandos by digitizing a large head of "himself" that resembles the android's head. He later materializes the large head into a more solid form, with wires connected to the base's floor linking to the weapon of mass destruction. Upon the weapon's destruction, Master Contra (temporarily) survives through space as a large deformed fleshy head covered with some armor pieces, with multiple eyeballs and flesh tubes bulging out of his skin. It is not clear if this was indeed the "consciousness" or simply just the former defeated head turned into a mutilated form. If it was indeed the former, then its current appearance may have been due to the growth of the original consciousness, though the exact details of this are unknown.

History

At some point in time around 4434 A.D. (ten years prior to the events of Neo Contra), an unknown government researched into a plan known as Project C, a plan to wipe out the many conflicts that dare to ravage war on the planet. The project branched into two divisions: one was to clone the legendary Bill Rizer while the other was to take his consciousness and implant that into a weapon. Master Contra was the result of the latter.

Though the exact details were never revealed, at some point in time, the still living Bill Rizer had undergone surgery to remove his consciousness and integrate that into a weapons system built with immeasurable power, enough to vaporize an entire planet if need be. Bill eventually was released after this surgery and lived his remaining life on the war-flooded Earth. With the consciousnesses implanted, its integration with the large weapon gave rise to an AI program commanding the entire weapon, eventually transforming its own weapons systems into a personal base from which to command. At some point in time, the AI program created an artificial cyborg body in order to move around more freely and interact with other human beings while still being electronically linked to the "base".

With his base modeled and his android body made, he commences with his original programming of Project C: to rid the Earth of all conflict. He decides that in order to do this, he must abandon all morals of structured society and focuses on "winning wars". Within less than a year prior to the events of Neo Contra, Master Contra founded Neo Contra, a military organization made out of the many criminals who survived Earth's conflicts. The organization takes over prison planet known as Earth and eventually aims to attempt take overs on other colonized planets. The allied planets (The Assembly as named by Master Contra himself) send in the other test subject of Project C, an actual clone of Bill Rizer, along with Genbei "Jaguar" Yagyu, a soldier from the planet Oh Edo, to take down Neo Contra and destroy Master Contra. The two soldiers fight the Neo Contra forces on Earth and receive the help of a mysterious soldier who identifies himself as "Mystery G". After the Four Elite of Neo Contra are defeated, Master Contra confronts the Bill Rizer clone inside an alien-infested facility. At first, Master Contra gives "Bill" a lecture about who the latter really is. This confuses and angers the clone now wracked with doubt and worry. After revealing his plans a bit further, he unleashes his strength to incapacitate the two heroes. From here, his actions will depend on the player's Rank:

• Should the player receive a total Rank of B or lower by the time Mission 05 is cleared, Master Contra takes advantage of the clone's confusion and points his right palm in front of the two commandos, shaking them up with a violent earthquake. As Master Contra says his goodbyes to his "little pawns", he turns his back on them and the base detaches from Earth to rise high into space. The "base" then fires a powerful cannon that destroys the Earth. The resulting shockwave of energy is so powerful that is damages through Earth's Moon as well. What became of Master Contra after this ordeal is unknown.
• If the player(s) receive a total ranking of A or higher once Mission 05 is cleared, Master Contra's dialogue becomes a little more revealing about the nature of his plans before he presses forward with two hands, releasing an invisible energy wave that temporarily stuns the two commandos onto their knees. As Master Contra goes in for the kill with his large blade, he speaks a bit more before he is ready to strike down the clone. He slashes when suddenly Mystery G intervenes and saves the clone's life, blocking the sword with his pair of Rifles. Master Contra repels the old man and delivers to him a powerful slash, fatally wounding the mortal. Master Contra then decides to brush off all three of them, declaring them to be nothing but debris once he is through vaporizing Earth. He teleports away to his facility, leaving the three on Earth. With his dying breaths, Mystery G talks sense into the clone in order to overcome his fears of doubt. He also reveals himself to be like the clone: someone "once called Contra". In the next scene, Master Contra's base detaches from Earth and rises high into space.

If the commandos survived their first encounter with Master Contra, the two ride high speed rocket vehicles and travel to the space construct/weapons facility to give chase to Master Contra, who is gathering massive amounts of energy. Interrupted, he once again lectures, this time about his goal and morals concerning "winning wars". He then proceeds to battle the two heroes face-to-face. The heroes triumph over Master Contra, but this victory is short lived. They discover that whom they defeated was a cyborg. The voice of Master Contra then speaks, revealing his true form and his creation at the hands of Project C. He digitizes a large head of himself with his consciousness inserted, preparing to override the entire station to eliminate his enemies and Earth with it. Unfortunately for him, the heroes were able to overload his larger than life-size head. With this form destroyed, the station collapsed and destroyed along with him. Once again, Master Contra's fate depends on the player's actions:

• If Mission 06 was cleared with a total Rank of B or lower, the base explodes and the fate of the two heroic commandos are unrevealed. Deep within the debris field floats the decapitated head of Master Contra's android body. As the camera zooms in scene by scene, the head's red eyes start to glow with life once more...
• If Mission 06 was cleared with a total Rank of A or S, the commandos survive the explosion by riding on a platform from the destroyed weapon's debris. However, Master Contra was not yet entirely out of the picture. As the heroes escape the destroyed facility, the remains of a flesh and metal filled head gives chase within Earth's atmosphere for one last shot at revenge. Master Contra suffers one final defeat by the two heroes, being shattered into multiple pieces that ultimately burn up from entering into Earth's atmosphere.

Personality and characteristics

Master Contra was an incredibly cunning individual who placed himself on a pedestal but also commended others when it was fit to do so. After Frontline Base 985 was destroyed during an assault, he decided to toy with Bill Rizer, who he thought was 'entertaining' at least twice throughout the game. He then referred to Rizer's effort as 'valiant'. He used Rizer to 'pass the time while the final preparations were completed' and gave orders to 'follow them closely'. Believing not in morals but in wars, he attempted to eventually 'eliminate the need for soldiers and the possibility of any new threats'. He also wanted to destroy 'structured society', for they were bound by 'strict morals', and he called the hypocrisy 'deplorable' - his endgame being to become 'ultimate soldiers' without society's 'foolish morals'.

Master Contra was also exceedingly greedy, lusting for what he called a symbol - Bill Rizer himself. He called the original Rizer the 'never-ending desire for conquest' and 'aggression incarnate'. Because he possessed the consciousness of Bill, his data contained much war information pertaining to the experiences the original Bill experienced, though it is unknown if Master Contra also possessed any of the original Bill's combat experiences in battle, something like a soul that could not be replicated. Also because of this consciousness, Master Contra believed that he himself was the one and only original one, even though he somehow knew of the existence of Mystery G (as seen on a monitor). It is unknown if Master Contra ever knew about Mystery G's identity, but if he did, this fact further characterizes Master Contra's personality. This personality combined with a machine-like structure eventually led Master Contra to evolve into a point where he felt he was powerful enough to have 'far surpassed the original', declaring himself to be the 'ultimate' form of Bill Rizer.

Strategy

See also: Master Contra/Battle

First phase

This is the initial of three fights against Master Contra, although it is a pretty standard phase. He has three attacks, the most basic of which is to launch a stream of fire at you from his sword. Although fairly stationary when doing this, he can also teleport near you and does so while swinging his blade. He will also jump straight up and create small shockwaves underneath him. This usually happens after he teleports, since he'll only jump when you are within the range of his waves.

The sword-swipe can be avoided simply by moving to the side, since it is narrow and does not track you. You'll want to keep your distance from him to avoid all of his attacks, and the further you're away from him, the more time you'll have to react to the incoming fire. His teleportation attack is fatal if you're standing around when he materializes because the sword swing comes almost immediately. Once you see him disappear, start moving along the edge in a wide circle and don't stop. Keep moving as he materializes to regain distance from him. If you are near him (which you'll be after he materializes), he will use his shockwave attack.

This part is not that hard - just keep your distance and keep firing. Compared to other bosses (case in point Plant Contra, Lucia, Kimkoh and Gava), there are relatively few things on the ground at any given time that can kill you. It will take quite a few hits to end this part, but overall, it's not much of a challenge.

Second phase

After you do enough damage to him, he will slow down and instead of swinging the sword, throw it across the room at you. Once it hits the wall it will split into three spinning swords, and each one will fly around the room before in turn, further multiplying into two, creating a total of six blades. For the most part, Master Contra remains stationary during this time. After a while, he will recall all of the swords, move somewhere else, and then start the process again.

There really isn't a specific defensive strategy for this part, just avoid the blades to the best of your ability. They are bright purple, so you'll be able to see them quite easily. They do move quickly and erratically, plus there are so many, so it can be hard to keep track of them. It is usually best to focus on the area nearby to your character and move whenever a blade comes into that zone. Don't bother trying to track all of them while trying to line up a shot at Master Contra; simply point in his general direction and spray and prey. As you move out of the way of the blades, you'll get your hits in.

Your offensive tactics are the same as during the last part - just keep firing heavy weapons and he'll eventually go down. If you have the Katana (especially the flaming variant), use it. Since he is stationary and the weapons aren't coming from him, he is essentially a sitting duck. Once you see an opening, move in and swing fast.

Third phase

The toughest part of the final battle against Master Contra is that the area you can move around is very restricted; probably about a third of what it was in the last two phases. At this point, four decoys will appear (as was the case with Lucia), equally spaced apart. All five will remain stationary and only have one attack: the sword-swing flame from the first phase. The difficulty increases due to not knowing which of the five is the real one - you simply have to guess.

The sword swings are still easy to avoid, except that now two or three Contras will attack simultaneously. Once you see which ones are going to attack, move closer to one of the Master Contras that aren't attacking. This is the only attack pattern, so you don't have to worry about any surprises. One can stand in the center and perform a well timed evade to easily escape any blast that comes their way. When firing through the electrical ring, it will slightly stretch outward for the duration of the weapon fire. This small space provides barely extra room to avoid blade blasts.

When you hit a Master Contra, he will flash yellow if fake (but not die) or red if he's the real one. As soon as you find the real one, keep slamming him with your heavy weapon (you can't get close enough to use the Katana this time) until he either dies or disappears. After a certain period of time has past, the five will disappear and then immediately reappear in the same spots, except which one is real will have changed.

Official Data

Neo Contra instruction booklet page 17

The head of Neo Contra, the sinister organization that threatens the very existence of humankind. In less than a year, he quickly marshaled a powerful army from the hardened criminals that survived the dog-eat-dog world of Earth, the prison planet. Gifted with immeasurable charisma and leadership, his motives and identity are utterly unknown.

Neo Contra Japanese instruction manual

Gallery

Screenshots

Master Contra in his android form.

Close-up of the Android form. His menacing red eyes and cold sinister facial expression can be seen.

Master Contra uses a form of telepathy to incapacitate the two heroic commandos.

In-game model, wielding his large sword.

The android body is defeated as it lays damaged on the floor.

The large virtual head of Master Contra seen on the floor, during his transformation cutscene.

The lifeless android head of Master Contra floats in space along with the debris of his destroyed HQ in one of the game's endings.

Models

Android form, wielding his sword.

Artworks

Front/back concept artwork.

Concept art crop
(front)

Master Contra's silhouette in the Japanese Neo Contra instruction booklet.

Videos

Neo Contra Stage 6 S Rank with Machine Gun

Trivia

• Master Contra's design appears to draw inspiration from the Terminator franchise. This is noted by a few resemblances:
  • During certain cutscenes, the head of Master Contra's android form bears visible silver metallic parts as the "flesh" is damaged. This strongly resembles the T-800 endoskeleton from Terminator series. The Terminator (character) was also portrayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the primary inspiration for Bill Rizer.
    • In one of the game's ending, the android head is shown to be lifeless for a few moments before its eyes glow red (possibly running on backup power). This mimics some scenes from the Terminator films where the T-800 "revives" itself or resorts to using its backup power.
  • Master Contra originally being a consciousness computer form is similar to Skynet. Both computer programs eventually build an aforementioned endoskeleton.
  • When Master Contra digitizes its large head, flashes of lightning are shown in a similar manner as when a person or Terminator enters an area via a time traveling device.
  • During the FMV cutscene where Master Contra's base rises into the sky, the scenery is of a city being destroyed by a massive shockwave taking place under a sunset. This may somewhat mimic a similar city destruction scene from Terminator 2: Judgement Day .
• Master Contra also bears some resemblances to Gene from Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops. Both Master Contra's android form and Gene possessed blonde hair and used a sharp close-range weapon during combat, as well as both being part of a government project. Both characters were also voiced by Steve Blum.
• In the cutscene after the android form's battle, the head's right side is severely damaged with peeling artificial skin. However, in one of the game's endings, the left side of the head is shown to be damaged with removed artificial skin (see Gallery section above).

See also

• Bill Rizer
• Bill Rizer (clone)
• Project C

External links

• Master Contra at the Villains Wiki