Probotector

I've worked a bit on a Probotector / Contra project recently. This game series is a bit all over the place with lore retcons, which is complicated by the European localization with robots. I tried to incorporate the lore into a consistent story:

— BACKGROUND STORY —

In the 27th century a global federated government lead by a wise Triumvirate of elder sages rules on Earth with seeming benevolence. Culture, technology, and nature have reached a point of harmony. A now nearly demilitarised world is finally at peace after six centuries of precarious developments.

Expeditions are sent to Jupiter and other planets where they make several startling discoveries that are kept secret from the world. This includes an extradimensional gateway leading to a ravaged galaxy which is given the apt name of "Apocalypse". While the gateway is quickly sealed, the find creates unease and ripples that will come to pull established order out of joint.

In the year 2631 a mysterious Trojan asteroid falls into the Galga archipelago near New Zealand — now a highly restricted nature reserve. A local military base is tasked to investigate, finding only fragments of an asteroid shell.

As two years pass, contact with the military base grows increasingly irregular and suspicious. Meanwhile, a top secret research team has investigated early return samples from the asteroid crash site, discovering traces of alien genetic material, spurring internally controversial research which eventually results in a genetic augmentation program to make a new type of hardy “Bionoid” — a human-alien hybrid which will ostensibly facilitate further planetary exploration in certain hostile environments.

This directive is covertly shunted by worried higher-ups towards creating super soldiers, because despite the present calmness something beyond all imagination has been discovered by a contingency expedition to Galga.

The suspicious military base has undergone a complete chrysalis, revealing itself as Red Falcon, a rogue military force. The situation worsens when Red Falcon is revealed to be fully under the control by a powerful alien entity boastfully known as Emperor Demon Dragon God Java, an army commander that hatched from the asteroid and has grown to titanic proportions in just two years.

Seemingly plotting the downfall of mankind, the hostile force has completely fortified the main island, and is sending out brainwashed human scouts and infiltrators out to every corner of the world.

External analysts and pundits are left to speculate which motive or perhaps restrictive force could explain the odd timing of the alien invasion. It would seem like these aliens could easily have made their move centuries or millennia ago when mankind was at its most vulnerable. Regardless, the threat is deemed real and a precision counterstrike is swiftly organized with global support.

In North America, orders are given to two elite commandos of the Earth marine corps "Contra" unit to destroy the enemy's base. Though they manage to wipe out most of the brainwashed human soldiers, the duo ultimately fails, and with the new Bionoid super soldiers not yet ready for deployment, hope falls to a European initiative.

In order to protect the Earth and its people, European expert engineers quickly develop a pair of armed recon combat robots, the PROBOTECTOR class, immediately dispatching them to deal with the threat before it can grow any further...

THE GAME’S GOAL

Your mission begins after you leap from a type 77-SCN Support Craft into the dense jungle engulfing the banks of a river delta. From this point forward you must breach the defensive positions of the remnant military base and battle past a steady stream of alien reinforcements, relying on instincts and luck to survive.

Standing between you and destiny are eight fortified zones, with the final zone evoking the ultimate challenge — the destruction of Emperor Demon Dragon God Yava.

To advance you must wipe-out heavily defended detection sensors confronting you at the end of each zone, allowing your Support Craft to stay in range.

To destroy Emperor Demon Dragon God Java in the final zone, you'll have to infiltrate its massive alien body and destroy its cruel, cold, demon-breeding heart — the Gomeramos King.

Pitted against the universe's fiercest foe,

you either win or the Earth is lost.

So, the names are a bit convoluted in the Japanese version of Contra, but I used them because they're fun. I barely knew anything about the lore of the game going in because the European manual had even less text than the US one. I think originally the NA version of Contra was set when the Contra affair happened (and in South America?), but this was later changed. The Japanese version was the most complex with the animated tiles on the NES, and it had an intro and map. Contra / Probotector is one of those games that just plays really well and is fun to run through.