After Contra: The Ending, the Staff Roll and What to Play Next

Most guides stop at the last boss. This one starts there. Everything quoted below is text stored in the Contra cartridge image this site runs, so you can check it yourself by finishing the game in the player on the home page.

Which version this is

The title screen carries the line “TM and © 1988 Konami Industry Co. Ltd. Licensed by Nintendo of America Inc.” That makes it the North American NES release, the one with eight stages named Jungle, Base 1, Waterfall, Base 2, Snow Field, Energy Zone, Hangar and Alien’s Lair. The menu offers 1 Player or 2 Players, and when your last life goes the game asks you to pick Continue or End.

The ending text

Clear the Alien’s Lair and the game does not show a cutscene full of story. It prints a short message instead:

Congratulations! You’ve destroyed the vile Red Falcon and saved the universe. Consider yourself a hero.

Red Falcon is the enemy you have been fighting all game, and this message is the only place in the cartridge text where it is named. Between stages the game shows only the stage number and name, the high score and your remaining lives, shown as REST.

The staff roll

After the message, the credits scroll. The team listed in the cartridge, written as it appears there:

Two things stand out. The staff are credited by initial and surname, except one director, who is listed simply as “Umechan”. And the special thanks go to the “AC Contra Team”, AC being short for arcade: the NES game was a home version of Konami’s arcade Contra, and the home team thanked the people who made the original.

Getting there

You start a normal game with three lives. The cartridge code that checks for the Konami code on the title screen changes that starting number to thirty, which is why so many people saw this ending for the first time with the code on. The stage guide and the weapons post on this blog cover the stages and the pickups. Here, one practical point: the emulator’s save states let you keep a save at the start of the Alien’s Lair, so you can see the ending without replaying all eight stages after every mistake.

What to play next on contra.ee

If you want more shooting, the site files these under Shooters: Paint Strike, Blumgi Castle, Blumgi Paintball, GoBattle, Temple of Boom and Recoil. Contra is at its best with two people, and the Two-Player shelf has games built for two people on one keyboard: Bad Ice Cream 1, 2 and 3, Animals Volleyball and 12 Mini Battles 2. Each has its own page with controls, and the full list is on the games page.