It’s been awhile since the last installment of my sprite/manual comparison of the Contra Series, you can find the previous episodes here, here, and here. Wow, it’s been awhile so I’m just going to dive right into the comparisons:

Box Art

Androids are pretty cool but the Probotector box art doesn’t jump out at you the way the Contra box does. The PAL game doesn’t impart any of the energy and excitement of these games to the viewer.

Story

From the Contra 3 manual:

February 14, 2636 (game takes place on Valentines Day :surprised:. You are about to learn what it takes to be a descendant of command legends Scorpion and Mad Dog. That is, now that the Red Falcon would like to use your family tree as a toothpick. You’re Jimbo and Sully, special forces comrades just like your fearsome forefathers were. Nowadays, your weapons and maneuvers are more advanced than they were when
your ancestors saved the world from being skewered on Red Falcon’s fangs. That brutal is still in his prime and he had plenty of time to plot his revenge. He’s swamped Neo City with six stages of the most cruel and unusual punishers ever. So run, climb, ride, soar and start blasting your way to the Alien Main Base. Before your family name and your planet are just dirt under Red Falcon’s claws.

From the Super Probotector manual:

The Probotector is a fighting robot that was developed in top secret by a special scientific mechanized unit. It is the year 2636.  Once again the aliens who lost in battle to the Probotector have regained their full strength and have begun a large-scale invasion. Humans are mere rag dolls in the face of the aliens’ overwhelming resources, scientific capability and powerful life force Six months later, two fighting robots appear in the devastated city controlled by the alines, -RD008 and RGo11- the strongest Probotectors in history.  A heated battle begins once more.

The Heroes

The Enemies

I did not notice any difference in the enemy sprites throughout the game.

The Cut-scenes

The Ending

Conclusions

Not much to say, as the series progressed it appears Konami’s artists and designers developed the enemy sprites so that re-draws would not be necessary for the European version of the game.  The character sprites are also very similar (look at the chest plates on the men and robots.) The greatest change is in the splash screens, with the original artwork being altered into robots, these screens do suffer for it as well with the proportions and perspective on the artwork with the robots being off. Of course, as with all the games we’ve covered so far, the game-play has been identical.