Contra 3: The Alien Wars Cheat Codes (for Super Nintendo)

[final kaoss]

Fighting the brain boss

If you get up to the brain boss on the last level and find yourself low on lives this is what you do. Aim for the orb floating around the brain that looks like an eyeball. Try to stay under the brain and shoot the eyeballs when they come out. This will give you tons of points and you may be able to get up to three or four extra lives.

[final kaoss]

How do you get past Level 5 hard

This is the second of the two overhead stages. Blow up all of the alien spawning pods and you will be taken to the end boss, just like in stage 2. I highly recommend starting at the top right corner of the stage, and defeating the pods right side down, and then the pods on the right side on up.

The southeast bottom of the stage will have a "sea" of swirling sand that will cause you to spin like mad when you are on them. In easy and hard modes, you can press and hold L to steady the screen so you can attack the pod in the middle. In hard mode, also press and hold L, but it will only stop you from spinning very fast; you will still spin around. In this case, use a bomb to help destroy it, since you can't get a good consistent stream of fire directed at the pod.

Do not fire your guns while you are standing on a bridge. If you do, it will begin to explode and crumble.

Be careful of the sharp turns on the west side of the stage. Don't get too close to the edge, and use L and R to scroll the screen to make getting through those turns and twists easier.

After you dodge the claws that go in and out of the hill of flesh and do enough damage to its weak spot, the eye in the center, the sand around it will begin to move, and the screen will spin if you are on it. You can control the spin in easy and hard modes using the L and R buttons, to a point. You shouldn't have too problem in those modes in dodging the arms, using bombs on it and shooting the eye. However, in the hard mode, this guy is really hard, especially if you get motion sickness easily, because you can't stop the rotational spin of the screen while you are on the sand. Hold the L button to try to steady yourself on the screen. You'll still rotate around, but not too uncontrollably. The best strategy for this guy in hard mode is simple: if you are not on the sand, you don't spin, and you can't reach the eye if you are on the outer edges where there is no sand. So, do a kamikaze run. Do enough damage so the screen starts spinning, then trigger a bomb if you have one, then rush towards the eye. You'll die, and come back invincible for a few seconds. So, use the new bomb you have, and shoot for all you're worth at the eye, and make sure you get as close to the eye as you can, short of actually going into the eye itself. Doing this will cost about 5 to 7 lives, but at least it gets you past it. You'll probably need another continue for the next stage, since you lost so many lives killing the eye creature, so make sure you go into the boss round with two or more continues.

[final kaoss]

29 lives

On the last level you can get yourself the maximum number of guys. All you have to do is stand on one of the platforms. You do this so the aliens can run under you. You have to have the screen in the right spot too or aliens will get on your platform. Next you need to have a weapon. Heatseaker works the best, but really any gun will do. Now all you have to do is put a weight on your controler and leave for a while. When you come back, you will have about 29 lives. That's the max or it's close to that many lives. This takes a while too.

[final kaoss]

Get a flame thrower

On the second level, with the difficulty set to hard start on the bottom left corner. It should give you a flame thrower when you kill the guy in the dome. If your lucky you'll be able to get it in an easier difficulty.

[final kaoss]

Reset the game

If you press L, R, Select, and Start at the same time it will reset the game in progress.

[final kaoss]

Hints

When you fight the Turtle, use C power, stand on the bottom and shoot, but don't stand too close to the Turtle and aim at the heart. The Turtle will die faster if you and the other player use C power.

The game will end if you beat the brain (it comes after the head) in stage six. After you beat the game and is playing easy the game will go to medium and after you beat medium the game will go to hard. When you beat hard the game will end.

Use the tank to blow down the second fort faster.

Use L power or C power to kill the guy in the big tank.

Use H power when you get to the part where fire blows up and stuff.

[final kaoss]

Walkthrough

Stage 1

This stage is fairly strait forward. Shoot everything that moves and watch out for the dog-like creatures digging around in the trash. They will jump out and attempt to run your character down.

The Boss: The giant turtle isn't too hard to beat, depending on your weapons. To defeat it, shoot at the red spot below the turtle's head. You can also shoot and destroy the pod on turtle's back to stop the assault of flying enemies, but the red spot is the most important. Jump or shoot the crawling things the turtle dumps at you and by all means avoid the beam the turtle shoots. There is a small delay before he fires, watch for it.

Stage 2

This one takes some getting used to. The object is to destroy the manholes scattered around the area. The trick is, that in the hard level, the guys in the manholes tend to shoot a fairly constant stream of bullets your way. This is easily avoided by laying down, but if there are other enemies on the screen, you could be in trouble. Some of the guys in the manholes like to duck into their holes when you are facing them, the trick is to be really quick in turning around so you can get off a shot or two.

Boss: There is a lot of room to maneuver here, so use it. Lay down to avoid the bullets it fires, and destroy the gun ports for much needed power ups. Avoid the boss when it starts spinning. When all the gun ports are destroyed, the boss will spin and launch itself into the air, it will then try and crush you. Pick a direction and keep going! When the boss hits the ground, stop and fire away at it's center. After doing this a few times, the boss will be destroyed.

Stage 3

You are assaulted from the very beginning. Shoot the aliens as they fly over and jump to avoid and bombs dropped your way. When the tank arrives, concentrate your fire on it because when it is destroyed, the aliens with the jetpacks stop also. When the large ship arrives, shoot the gun ports, avoid the electrical attacks, and shoot the aliens. The large claw thing is easily avoided by staying on the right side of the screen. The little robot after that is fairly easy. Stay on the left side of the screen and shoot at it's head. You are not completely safe in the corner, but if your aim is good, you shouldn't need to worry about getting run over. After being picked up by the helicopter, you are attacked by a robot with a grappling hook. Avoid the hook when it changes position and stay as far away from it as you can. Since you have a very limited area to move around in, this is easier said than done.

Boss: Stay on the left side of the screen, jumping from missile to missile to shoot the laser cannons on the top and bottom of the screen. When they are destroyed, fire at its core. Note: The boss will constantly destroy the missiles you are riding, jump to new ones before the one you are on is destroyed and drops you your death.

Stage 4

Another fairly straight forward level. Watch out for the rolling gun ports and shoot them when they stop. When you encounter the area with the large wasp like creatures I can only say one thing...RUN! On the hard level, these creatures come at you constantly. If you have some bombs saved up, they could be helpful. Keep moving to the right unless one of the wasps grab you. If one does grab you, shoot it. You only have a short time before you end up dead. Then you will encounter a mid-boss. The easiest way to defeat it is with a flame thrower, just hang in one of the corners and blast it's center. The same goes with homing missiles. If you don't have these, then the fight gets interesting. Jump to one of the spinning platforms and when you pass underneath fire up at the center. Watch out for the drill that comes up out of the top if you are on the spinning platforms. After a defeating it, and after a short vertical climb, you meet another mid-boss. Avoiding it's claws on the way up the wall is fairly easy. Shooting down the missiles it fires while doing this isn't. If you can make it up high enough, you can finally have your chance at destroying the thing. It will pull a row of spikes across the top and bottom of the screen to limit your mobility and will then try to crush you against the wall you are hanging on. Once again, shoot at the center while trying to stay out of it's way. (Typing this make it sound a lot easier than it really is.) After destroying this one and after another short amount of traveling, you meet (Yep you guessed it) another mid-boss. Fortunately this one is a lot easier to beat. Pick a corner and stand in it until it stops dropping bombs. Then blast it's center while avoiding or shooting the aliens it drops. Finally after all this work, you get to move and climb some more until you finally make it to...

The Boss: This fight starts with 2 robots. I recommend hanging from the top of the screen and shooting at the red one first since he tends to join you up there and shoot at you. The blue one will stay on the floor and is an easy target. After defeating them, a giant robot will emerge from the background. Climb the walls and ceiling to avoid the beams it shoots at you. They will track you around the screen, but will fade after a while. His second attack will be a blast of flame that he will blast in a clockwise circle around the room, jump to the walls and climb across the screen as fast as you can then jump down as soon as you are past the head to give yourself more time to react. His final attack will be to cover where ever you are standing with a number of bombs. If they cover the floor, climb up to avoid the explosion. The explosions cover a good part of the screen, so you'd better be far away. He will then start over with the laser beams. Through all this, when ever you get a chance, shoot his head.

Stage 5

Another overhead screen. The objective is similar like stage 2. The swirls of sand can be tricky. Try not to fall in the black areas and avoid shooting on the bridges. Shooting while standing on a bridge will cause the bridge o explode.

Boss: Shoot the tentacles for powerups, avoid the fireballs, and aim for the eye. When the boss is about half way dead, the rotation of the sand really speeds up and makes killing it a lot harder.

Stage 6

After all that work you finally reach the final stage. By this time you should have the skills to make it past all the smaller aliens, so I will concentrate on the mid-bosses. The Heart: Destroying the heart moves you onward, but it helps if you destroy the pods around it first. Those scorpion like things can make the room really crowded.

Mid-Boss #2: This thing comes up out of the ground. Stand in the left corner and jump to avoid it's charge. Shoot for the face and avoid the things that drop down from above. When it digs into the ground, it will try to come up underneath you. Defeating it is easier if you can convince it to surface again on the right side of the screen so you can repeat the above processes.

Mid-Boss #3: Again you are climbing a wall. This time it is a dragon-like creature. Try to avoid it's tail and shoot it's head as often as you can. When it is about half way dead, it will start teleporting. This limits the time you have to shoot at it.

The Final series of battles

That's right, Series. On easy and medium the battle consists of 2 parts, on hard 3!

Step 1: Destroying the boss is a lot easier if you destroy the claw like things in the top corners of the screen, because they have a long reach and worrying about them makes things a lot harder. After defeating the claws, stand underneath the head and shoot its eyes and then the red spot on it's head. Shoot or avoid the aliens it drops.

Step 2: The brain. This one is annoying. A series of balls form around the brain and rotate around it. Basically it is asking you, "How would you like to die?" Shooting one of the balls determines its attack form for a while. I recommend shooting for the following balls.

The eye-The brain will throw many large eyes around the room, these can be shot down easily and give lots of points, you could earn a life or 2.
The Red ball-The brain forms a red mass around it. By shooting through it, you can do a lot of damage to the brain.
The Blue Ball-The brain grows legs and marches around the room. You are completely safe in the left corner and you can shoot him however many times you want. The Pale Striped Ball-If you have any extra bombs, this one could be a good idea. If not, this is a bad idea. You are surrounded by these balls, a bomb will quickly get rid of them giving you a lot of time to shoot at the brain. The other balls range from annoying to extremely deadly.

Step 3: If you ever wondered why the brain seems to wake up and disappear, this is why. In the hard version, the brain 'wakes' up and becomes encased in a suit of armor. You are once again riding underneath a helicopter and have very little room to maneuver. Avoid the claws (again easier said than done) and aim for the center. If you get enough shots off, the brain will explode and the game ends with a more or less cinematic ending sequence and a congratulatory message.