Contra (NES)/Stage 2

Base 1
This stage is a lot different than the previous one as you’ll find out right away. The walls and such are angled to show depth as if the door is far away. The idea here is to destroy the locks (the red flashing lumps) placed at various points on the door in order to destroy the door and move on to the next room until you reach the boss which is fought in the same general manner. Defending each room are turrets which are placed on the doors themselves, Soldiers, and Grenadiers. The Soldiers themselves come in two forms here, fighting ones and powerup ones. Fighting ones are cannon fodder; powerup ones will drop a weapon or powerup when you kill them; usually one will appear in each room. Grenadiers are the real problem. Kill them as fast as you can or they’ll start tossing grenades all over the place. Rolling Grenadiers also pose a fairly tough problem.

The best way to deal with the rolling grenades is to duck and shoot at one which will destroy it or move between two of them if there’s a space. The other way is to jump over them but it’s not really a good idea to jump straight over it but rather jumping to the sides is better. You’ll have to time your jump somewhat but it’s easy as long as you don’t do it too soon or late. Two final tips for the beginner. If there’s too much action on the screen, simply duck and wait it out but don’t wait too long because of Grenadiers. Once you can move again, get up and start firing. Something that I’ve done before is to jump over the bullets but this only works if there’s only a few and you’ll have to time your jumps. One thing that lots of beginners do is press up but you should never do this because you’ll get a shock that’ll leave you unable to move for a few seconds.

Key:
 * [o] = lock
 * [t] = turret
 * ||| = grenade slots


 * lock/turret in center = level with your gun.
 * lock/turret near top = above you, you'll have to jump and fire to hit it.
 * lock/turret near bottom = below you, you'll have to duck and fire to hit it.

Boss: Terminal 1
This boss is fought in the same manner as the stage itself. That is that you can only move left or right and fire upwards. As soon as you’re able to move you should quickly head to either the extreme left or right. You’ll see why a few seconds after you do. Once the turrets start firing, move to the edge of the one you’re closest too and start plugging away at it until it’s destroyed. It’s best to attack from the edge closest to the side of the screen so the bullets don’t get you but this won’t matter after you destroy one of them. After the first one is destroyed, go for the second one and do the same thing.

Now destroy the rest of the stuff to activate the real boss here. It’ll appear along the long black section near the top of the screen and attack by firing large orbs at you. It’s actually marginally tougher than the turrets where. If you have the spread gun this battle will be easy. Just stand in the middle and fire at it. None of it’s orbs should get close to you and if they do you can just move out of the way. Doing this battle without the spread gun is easy as well, you should have to move around to hit the boss and destroy the orbs. Keep doing this until it’s destroyed. It won’t take long at all.