Contra III: The Alien Wars/Stage 6: Red Falcon's Lair

Walk to the right and kill the alien hanging from the wall. Continue to the right after it's gone. You have to watch out for the fast moving aliens that will appear from time to time throughout the stage. The Mouths from Contra will also make a reappearance. Destroy them if you can and use your Aura bombs to make a quick getaway if it gets to tough. You'll run into a boss in the long corridor ahead.


 * Red Falcon's Heart: Well, well, look who's back. It's the final boss from the original Contra and it is even easier this time around. The first thing you should do is destroy the two sacs at the bottom and then the two at the top if you want. After that, concentrate on the heart itself and it should be dead in no time at all.

Run to the right and soon after another sub boss will appear.


 * The Crawler: This weird looking alien is the final boss from Super Contra. It will charge at you after it comes out of the ground and then jump backwards. When it lands, jump on its leg and use your weapon on its face while it's visible. After that, it will shoot brown globs into the air and they will rain down on you a few seconds later. A nice trick to use here is pause the game and see where there's an opening between the globs and then move there. The boss starts its attacks from the beginning again at this point.

Continue to the right until you reach several holes. Jump across them and then jump to the wall and start climbing. The third and final sub boss will appear near the top of the wall. As a side note, doesn't this music sound very similar to the music from the movie Predator?


 * Vicious Slave Hawk: This boss attacks a lot like the Tri-Transforming Wall Walker from stage 3, that is, it tries to bump into you. Dodge it accordingly and blast it when you can. When you've done enough damage, it will switch attacks. Now it will teleport beside you and try to hit you with its tail. Don't stop moving around or you'll get it. After you've done even more damage, it will blow up and you can continue on.

Keep going up the wall and at the top, a capsule will fly by. Grab it if you want and head to the right to meet the final boss of the game.


 * Red Falcon's Body: Now this is a real final boss, unlike the laughably simple final bosses for Contra and Super Contra. You need to destroy one of the arms as quickly as possible or you'll start dying when they extend outwards, following you around. After one is gone, little aliens will fall out of the socket and start running around. Kill them and destroy the other arm. After that, blast the head and it will eventually be destroyed, revealing the brain.


 * Red Falcon's Brain: This battle can either be very hard or very easy. The brain doesn't attack itself. Instead, the balls rotating around it will decide what happens. The brain is invincible at this point so you have to shoot one of the balls to get started. It isn't that hard to hit a good or average ball but only one person should hit the ball to choose. You can also use a slow down switch if you have one on your controller to make this part simple as pie. Here's a run-down on the balls:
 * Noose Ball (Gray ball with purple marks): This one is the noose ball because that is almost literally what happens. About five or six gray balls will surround you and slowly tighten until they kill you. Avoid this ball only if you don't have any aura bombs, otherwise you probably won't be able to destroy them all before they kill you.
 * Easy Ball (Red ball): The easiest non-bonus ball you can get, besides the leg ball. A group of red balls will surround the brain doing nothing at all. So, use a few aura bombs to destroy the red balls then pull out a strong weapon and blast it up until the brain switches its attack again.
 * Snake Ball (Green ball with red marks): Avoid this one like you would the plague or a root canal. If you do manage to get this one, you better have excellent timing and dexterity, plus it never hurts to say a prayer. It creates a snake made of balls that wander around the screen for 30 seconds or so, which will probably result in a at least one death.
 * Rolling Ball (Gray ball): One of the tougher balls you can get, but definitely not the hardest one in the game. The brain will move to the lower right side of the screen and two or three (depending on the difficulty level) balls will start rolling towards you. The trick here is to time your jumps so you can get over the first ball well enough, but with time to spare so you get over the next one the same way. Use your weapons so you can hit the brain while you're doing this.
 * Leg Ball (Blue ball with marks): This ball is simple to avoid and lets you get free hits on the brain, so milk it for everything it is worth. Stand at the edge of either side of the screen and hit the brain as much as you can.
 * Bonus Ball (Gray spike ball): The best ball you can get, period, but there is a slight chance you can die. The brain will move to the center of the screen and every possible powerup in the game will rain down on you. It goes without saying that this is very good and you should aim for this ball as much as possible.
 * Rain Ball (blue ball): Not good. Avoid this ball at all costs because just like the snake ball, this one is very hard to survive. The brain will drop balls that you can't destroy and you'll just have to dodge them as best as you can. There is no concrete strategy here, just do try your best to avoid the balls.
 * Easier Rain Ball (looks like an eyeball): This is almost the same as the previous ball, except you can destroy the balls this time, which makes it much easier. Use a strong weapon and blast up the balls bouncing around the screen…or be lazy and use a Aura Bomb.

Ending 1

 * Easy and Normal difficulties

The brain turns purple as it falls to the ground and when the eye closes, the lair will start blowing up. A helicopter lands inside the lair and takes off from the island much the same way as the original Contra, but in 16-bit goodness. Well, you destroyed Red Falcon and his hordes of alien henchmen again and you should be rewarded with an ending, right? Wrong. You need to finish the game on hard to see the real ending. It should say something about trying the game on the next difficulty, but I wouldn't try that until you can breeze through normal.

Ending 2

 * Hard difficulty

Red Falcon's Brain Part 2: Yeah, it's still alive but this battle is simple. It will try to hit you with its newly acquired arms in a left to right pattern and then bash the undercarriage of the helicopter. Start jumping and firing at the brain. Use any Aura bombs that you have left. Also, when you're hitting the brain, don't press while you're hanging onto the helicopter or you'll fall off of the helicopter. Rinse and repeat until it's finally dead. You finished the game.

The brain is destroyed for good this time. The helicopter will continue out of the lair and leave the island behind, just like the original Contra. The credits will scroll along and awhile later the chopper will land in Neo City where a bunch of people are waiting. The army will give you a metal for your bravery and the game will end. You've finished the game on hard and that's no easy task for anyone. If you found it easy, you can make the game harder by changing the number of lives you get in the option screen. After awhile, the game will restart on hard, with all your current weapons and lives. Good luck!