Super Contra

"Super Contra (スーパー魂斗羅) is the 1988 arcade sequel to Konami's Contra, released during the previous year. Unlike the original Contra, the arcade version of Super Contra was distributed in Europe with its original title and cooperative 2-player feature intact. A home version of Super Contra was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990, which was localized as Super C in North America and Probotector II: Return of the Evil Forces in the PAL region.

In Super Contra, the alien forces from the original game have taken over a base in an undisclosed region of South America and the players once again assume the roles of protagonists Bill Rizer and Lance Bean to counter the invasion.

Set a year after the events of the original Contra, Bill and Lance, the heroes from the previous game, are sent on a second mission. This time, the alien forces from the previous game have taken over an allied military base, possessing most of its troops. Bill and Lance must not only fight against their former comrade-in-arms, but also a new mutated form of the same alien creatures they fought during their previous mission.

The arcade version of Super Contra plays essentially the same as its predecessor. The main difference was in its versatility. While the original Contra had two different perspectives (a side-view and a 3D view), Super Contra replaces the 3D stages with top-view stages similar to other overhead shooters at the time such as Commando and Ikari Warriors. Additionally, the side-view stages of Super Contra featured inclined surfaces, which were not in the original Contra. In the arcade version, the player can now control the height of their jump; by holding the joystick up and pressing the jump button will allow for a higher jump; likewise the player can perform low jumps as well by holding down-right or down-left while pressing the jump button. The arcade version is composed of five stages which spans a military base, a jungle and an alien lair. Stage 1, 3, 4 are side-view stages, while Stage 2 and 5 are top-view stages.

Like in the original Contra, the player can upgrade their default gun into one of the following four special weapons: the Machine Gun, the Spread Gun, a Laser Gun, and a Bomb Gun. Unlike the other games in the series, the power-up icons are now represented by the actual weapons wielded by the character instead of the traditional letter-based falcon icons. The player can upgrade their weapon by picking it up twice in a row. In the top-view stages, the player can also pick up and carry a "Mega Shell", which can be launched by pressing the jump button, killing all on-screen enemies."

Source: Wikipedia, "Super_Contra," available under the CC-BY-SA License.