New Contra game for 360/Ps3

[Ryu the Grappler]

Well IGN does have a history of hiring some ignorant writers (that never gets old).

[kitten]

Bumping this back up - Anyone want to move the video discussion (and posts) from the E3 thread into here? I'd rather half the talk of Uprising not get lost in a separate thread.

[kitten]

Here's an image I made and a list of the sources I took stuff from. Since the timeline is starting to get confusing, I figured this might help some people. There may be an inconsistency or something incorrect, I won't take a correction personally!



1973 - I'm unsure if this date is correct, I pulled it off Wiki, but it seems accurate.
2613 - You can see this in the loading screen before the first level begins in Hard Corps: Uprising.
2631 - Date is only clear in Japanese version. US version uses altered story. Date is made clear to be canon in all region versions of Contra: Shattered Soldier's Database.
2633 (1) - Date is only clear in Japanese version (said to be one year after the first Contra). US version uses altered story. Date is made clear to be canon in all region versions of Contra: Shattered Soldier's Database.
2633 (2) - Made clear (I believe) in the intro to Contra: ReBirth.
2634 - Date is only clear in Japanese version. US version uses altered story. Date is made clear to be canon in all region versions of Contra: Shattered Soldier's Database.
2635 - Date is only clear in Japanese version. US version uses altered story. Date is made clear to be canon in all region versions of Contra: Shattered Soldier's Database.
2636 - Date is only clear in Japanese version. US version uses altered story. Date is made clear to be canon in all region versions of Contra: Shattered Soldier's Database.
2638 - Made clear (I believe) in the intro to Contra 4
2639 - Hard Corps is revealed, in the manual, to take place 5 years after the Alien Wars. Date is made clear to be canon in all region versions of Contra: Shattered Soldier's Database. After the fight with Noiman Cascade, it is revealed that Bahamut attempted a coup 2 years prior to the current date.
2641 - Hard Corps is revealed, in the manual, to take place 5 years after the Alien Wars. Date is made clear to be canon in all region versions of Contra: Shattered Soldier's Database.
2642 - Date is made clear to be canon in all region versions of Contra: Shattered Soldier's Database.
2647 - Date is made clear to be canon in all region versions of Contra: Shattered Soldier's Database.
4444 - Date is made clear in the opening to Neo Contra.

"Contra"dictions -

The Triumvirate are said in the Shattered Soldier Database to have ruled continuously for hundreds of years. This is contradicted by the Earth Federation president in ReBirth and perhaps the "Commonwealth" ruling during Hard Corps: Uprising.

Contra 4 retcons Operation C to be a mixture of the US and Japanese plot. Bill was no longer a part of the operation and two new characters "Mad Dog" and "Scorpion" took care of a new alien menace during the operation named "Black Viper," who would return as the antagonist of Contra 4.

[X-pert74]

Man, the Contra series storyline is a mess. This isn't really a major error, but in the timeline pic, the first instance of Dr. Geo Mandrake's name is mispelled as "Deo Mandrake"

[Feynman]

Contra has a storyline?

In all seriousness, it's really entertaining to see how the very loose plotlines of long-running franchises from the NES era have developed over time. The Contra plot is rock-solid compared to shit like Mega Man or Zelda.

[X-pert74]

The Contra series was doing okay until last generation. Shattered Soldier was okay initially, but then later games seemed to completely forget that the aliens aren't supposed to be bad, and then time-travel and clones came in, and recently it's become a huge mess. I think ReBirth was designed intentionally to make things more confusing just for the fun of it.

[Atma]

All this talk about Hard Corps lately in here and in IRC makes me seriously want to try it out and then get this one. I've been meaning to try and branch out my taste in games from RPGS ONRY and this sounds like a good way to do it. I LIKE things that are brutally difficult, anyways.

[X-pert74]

Then you'll definitely get that from Hard Corps Also the other Contra games are well-worth trying too.

[Ryu the Grappler]

Jun 17, 2010 14:45:01 GMT -5 kitten said:

Here's an image I made and a list of the sources I took stuff from. Since the timeline is starting to get confusing, I figured this might help some people. There may be an inconsistency or something incorrect, I won't take a correction personally!

You left out the discovery of the Moirai Relic at Jupiter by Resource Miners in 2627 (Shattered Soldier) and the development of Project C at 4434 (Neo Contra). Also Lucia was not Dr. Mandrake's creation per se, but she was built based on his research.

The only reason why the Contra canon is because the American version of the series had a completely different continuity up until Contra: Shattered Soldier.

Of course the same can be said of the American localizations of most Japanese game series before the internet came and made exposure to the original Japanese versions easier. Sonic the Hedgehog's homeworld of Mobius never existed in the Japanese version and Ryu and Ken's fighting style was never meant to be Shotokan Karate in the first place. And then there's the more obscure examples like the fact that the main character in Shadow Dancer for the Mega Drive is not Joe Musashi, but his son Hayate.

This was how the Contra continuity used to be in America prior to Shattered Soldier: (copied from the Legacy of War manual)

The Legacy . . .

1957 A large object lands in the Amazon basin, near the ruins of a lost Mayan city. Scientists
dismiss the incident as a trivial cosmic occurrence. 1987 Rumors reach the Pentagon's front
office. Frightened villagers in the Amazon River area talk of a hideous being with an army of
evil alien henchmen. Two heroic members of the Elite Special Forces (operating under the code
names: "Scorpion' and "Mad Dog") are dispatched. They deal with the threat known as Red Falcon,
and put a stop to its attempt to take over the Earth.

1990. Red Falcon resurfaces. Re has recruited other alien allies, and also attempts to use
biological contaminants to turn U.S. forces into his soldiers of destruction. Scorpion and Mad
Dog reunite to deal with Red Falcon and Jagger Froid. Scorpion and Mad Dog kick serious alien
butt.

Fast forward to the future. The vile Black Viper is sent to accomplish what Red Falcon could
not: overtake planet Earth. Scorpion is sent in to erase Viper. After a brutal confrontation,
Viper is defeated.

Years later: The elite Contra Force-an independent law enforcement group made up of Special
Forces alumnus-is sent in to handle an Earth-based terrorist group known as D.N.M.E. who are
trying to take control of Neo City.

2636. The future is once again threatened by Red Falcon. Fortunately, descendants of Scorpion
and Mad Dog are on hand to deal with the situation. The Alien Wars take place, and the Earth
is nearly destroyed.

Five years later., mankind is recovering from the Alien Wars. The government establishes the
Unified Military Special Mobile Task Force, a.k.a. HARD CORPS, to help stem the rising threat of
crime that is running rampant in the cities. Order is restored. Or is it?


The present
Colonel Bassad is the dictator of a small country. Some call him cruel.
Some call him ruthless. Most call him an evil lunatic. It has only
recently been learned that during the Alien Wars, a security guard at a top-secret military base managed to smuggle out an alien embryo. The guard sold the embryo to Colonel Bassad, who has used it to breed an army of fierce alien mutants. Bassad is power-hungry and wants nothing less than total control of the planet. There are rumors that he is working with an alien ally. Some fear that this alien ally may help Bassad by providing an army of alien mercenaries.

Before the conflict can escalate to such a disastrous level, the Special Forces are pressed into service once again. They must try to put an end to this legacy of war.

As far as the "canon" itself, I think Hard Corps and Shattered Soldier were the only games in the series to have decent plots. Neo Contra's plot was way too ridiculous, Contra 4 's plot had a few lame retcons and I don't even think Contra ReBirth is meant to be "canon".

[muteKi]

Hard Corps had some damn awesome dialogue, come to think of it.

[X-pert74]

"Don't hurt me! I was just trying to make a buck! It's nothing personal!"

"You can save your sob story for the people at headquarters!"


I agree that Shattered Soldier's story is pretty good as well. I was honestly surprised by some of the twists that happened in that game's story.

[Ryu the Grappler]

Hard Corps was also the first Contra game in the series to actually have a cast of characters instead of just "player 1 and 2" and all the enemies. Plus, Deadeye Joe was a pretty badass villain.

[rorshacma]

The thing I really liked about Hard Corps. was how it had the storyline splits, with four completely different final stages and bosses. It kind of makes me wonder which of the four was the "canon" ending in reguards to the rest of the Contra timeline.

[X-pert74]

It kind of sucks that story has been devalued in the more recent Contra titles. While I can understand just wanting to play the game and not sit through dialogue, I enjoy having stories to go along with my games. Hopefully Hard Corps: Uprising offers in that regard, since it's a prequel to Hard Corps which has a story.

[kitten]

Jun 17, 2010 20:35:52 GMT -5 Ryu the Grappler said:

You left out the discovery of the Moirai Relic at Jupiter by Resource Miners in 2627 (Shattered Soldier) and the development of Project C at 4434 (Neo Contra). Also Lucia was not Dr. Mandrake's creation per se, but she was built based on his research.

Both of those dates are definitely worth mentioning. I wanted to put the relic discovery date on there, but I didn't want to bother playing through the game again twice to look for that date. My only save had exclusively beaten S-Rank, so I had to go and clear it with a B-Rank (I had to intentionally screw up to do this poorly because the game is ingrained into my memory) just to unlock the database. You're right about Lucia, too. I knew this, but didn't really clarify it and should have.

This was how the Contra continuity used to be in America prior to Shattered Soldier: (copied from the Legacy of War manual)

Yeah, I knew about all this... It REALLY confused me as a kid when Shattered Soldier finally came out over here. The story for Contra, to me, was "red guy and blue guy destroy the aliens."

As far as the "canon" itself, I think Hard Corps and Shattered Soldier were the only games in the series to have decent plots. Neo Contra's plot was way too ridiculous, Contra 4 's plot had a few lame retcons and I don't even think Contra ReBirth is meant to be "canon".

Yeah, plot has never really been Contra's strong point I just thought some people unfamiliar with it might like a general timeline for Uprising, though, considering that it's going to be taking place at a pretty weird place in the timeline and adding to the story.

Neo Contra's plot was definitely silly, but I thought it was a somewhat clever parody of MGS, and it made for a pretty amusing game. I really hope that it gets slapped with a retcon, though, because continuing that plot feels a bit insane. I didn't like Contra 4's retcons, either, even though it was a fantastic game.

To be honest, I'd like to see the plot continue from an alternate future after Hard Corps. Shattered Soldier is excellent, but I like the idea of a future with Lance Bean and that missing 80% of the human population still alive and well.

Anyway, thanks for the input! I might try making a revised version of the timeline here, soon. I couldn't find a single one on the net to post, though.