The original Run-and-Gun series is back!
Contra: Operation Galuga is a 2024 Run-and-Gun game developed by WayForward Technologies and published by Konami. It is a "reimagining" of the first Contra game and is the fifteenth installment in the series.
The year is 26XX. One night on the Galuga Archipelago, a meteor shower struck the island. Six months later, the terrorist organization "Red Falcon" seizes control of the island with gravity waves emanating from the area. The Earth Federation sends the GX Army to investigate, but soon all contact is lost. As a result, the Earth Marine Corps sends its two best soldiers, Bill Rizer and Lance Bean, to infiltrate the island, defeat Red Falcon, and save all of humanity before it's too late.
Contra: Operation Galuga provides examples of:
- Adaptational Villainy: In the original continuity the aliens behind Red Falcon were eventually revealed to be an ancient defense system that came to Earth to retrieve a dangerous relic which Earth's Shadow Government had stolen from Jupiter. Here they're a Precursor Killer expansionist civilization called the Zagard Empire which opposes the concept of individual free will and wants to conquer, assimilate, or destroy every other lifeform in the galaxy.
- Badass Normal: Stanley Ironside of the GX Army is an immensely competent soldier, taking on enemies with heavy firepower and formidable Powered Armor. All without having the Contra gene.
- Big Bad: General Varanis is the leader of the Red Falcon.
- Body Horror: As Contra finds out the hard way, those brought under Varanis' control, such as the Red Falcon lieutenant, can be turned into mutated monstrosities, thanks to the alien pathogens in their bodies.
- Bullet Time: The Overload for the Laser will slow down time.
- Continuity Reboot: Of the first game, which is about Red Falcon's occupation of Galuga Island and Contra's attempts to liberate it. Unlike the localized release (where it is set in the year it was released in), its timeline will be faithful to the Japanese version. Similar to Contra Returns, the game also brings in characters introduced in future games in the franchise, such as Hard Corps and Shattered Soldier, and involves them in the plot of the original Contra.
- The Dragon: The unnamed Red Falcon Lieutenant confronted in Stage 2.
- Final Death Mode: The Ultra Extreme mode, which has no perks, One-Hit Kill, and no continues.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Just when you thought the game would be over after killing Varanis, a giant alien (heavily implied to be the original game's Big Bad Java) suddenly appears out of nowhere and devours Varanis' ship with you still inside, forcing you to fight your way through the alien's intestines before eventually reaching the heart and finally fighting the alien's head and brain as the Final Boss.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The Zagard Empire at large, with Red Falcon and Varanis serving as The Heavy. The game ends with them beginning to launch a full-scale invasion of Earth.
- Immune to Mind Control: Bradley is the only Red Falcon merc who's not a glorified meat puppet, constantly trying (and failing) to get out of Galuga upon being freed. As it turns it, it's due to experiments conducted on him, which by the end transform him into a familiar gunslinging werewolf.
- Interservice Rivalry: The GX Army and Contra compete with each other to see who's the best of the best in the Federation's military.
- Konami Code: But of course. Entering it on the title screen unlocks a perk in the perk shop, appropriately called Konami Code, that sets your lives to 30 when equipped. In the versions supporting trophies/achievements, it grants one of those, too.
- Mercy Kill: After it's revealed that Varanis, leader of Red Falcon, had captured and turned the GX Army into glorified meat puppets (or "zombies", as Stanley puts it) during a chase at a Red Falcon train - Stanley Ironside considers killing his former comrades a mercy, owing to their predicament.
- Mythology Gag:
- The Probotectors. Aside from the obvious part about them being nods to the censored European versions of the earlier games, they also have their own "names"; the blue one is designated "M4D-0G" and the red one is "SC0RP1." These are nods to the US Manual-given codenames of Bill (Mad Dog) and Lance (Scorpion) in the original game.
- Dr. Drake takes a lot of cues from his counterpart Dr. Geo Mandrake in his Hard Corps: Uprising incarnation; both have some friendship with Bill/Bahamut, and both incarnations of him happen to have a daughter each.
- Old Save Bonus: If save files from the Castlevania Anniversary Collection, Contra Anniversary Collection, or Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection are detected, extra music options based on the older games can be unlocked. Clearing the demo version also gets the player bonus credits and music based on Contra 4.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: This game allows you to play the trope straight in a true Contra tradition or to avert it like the Japanese version of Contra: Hard Corps, giving you three hit points.
- Only in It for the Money: As Bradley admits to Contra, he's just a mercenary who joined Red Falcon for thrills and a paycheck. He evidently wasn't in on what Varanis was really up to.
- Pro-Human Transhuman: The Contra gene, the end-result of the Lemris subtly influencing humanity, is the reason why the likes of Bill and Lance are able to do death-defying feats befitting super-soldiers, despite looking indistinguishable from ordinary people.
- Revisiting the Roots: The game returns the series to its Run-and-Gun roots it was known for, hence the initials" OG", a slang for "Original".
- Reviving Enemy: The golems in the ruins will collapse into rubble after being defeated the first time, only to get back up and reconstruct. Defeating them a second time usually puts them down for good, although some can reform after the second death and require a third to go down for good.
- Self-Contained Demo: The demo is notable in that after players defeat the stage 1 boss, they go straight to the second half of stage 3, the waterfall.
- Sequel Hook: Lucia is missing along with the Lemris following her Heroic Sacrifice. All efforts to search for Lucia and the Lemris have already begun. Meanwhile, Bradley transforms into a werewolf and is spied upon by Sheena and Browny. And with the Lemris missing, the gravity shield is offline, thus allowing the Zagard Empire to invade and setting the stage for the Alien Wars. Also, Lucia is revealed to be Dr. Drake's daughter, indicating that he's Dr. Geo Mandrake from Hard Corps as well as his Uprising incarnation.
- Shout-Out:
- After defeating Varanis at the start of the final stage, this conversation takes place:
- Racking up a cumulative 40,000 Contra Coins earns the "Bury Me with my Money" achievement.
- When encountering Beowulf at the ruins, he tells Bill that they met once before, at Val Verde. Val Verde is the fictional South American country that has appeared in works such as Commando (1985) (which was one of the inspirations of the Contra franchise), Predator, Die Hard 2, and Symphogear.
- Signature Sound Effect:
- The game features a remix of the 'Konami Pause' sound effect, which dominated the pause sound effects of almost all Konami games in the 8–16 bit era.
- Dying or losing a life will cause the 'death sound effect' from the first Contra and Super C (NES version) to play (instead of a death scream like the succeeding games).
- Sole Survivor: Stanley is all that's left of the GX Army forces sent to fight Red Falcon after Varanis was through turning them into his "zombies".
- The Stinger: Sheena stumbles upon Bradley, who transforms into a werewolf. Meanwhile, as Commander Doyle continues his search for Lucia, Dr. Drake notes that with the energy wave produced by Lemris gone, the gravity shield will disappear, leaving Earth vulnerable to a Zagard attack...
- Womb Level: Not one, but two of them! Stage 7 is set in the Alien Hive, while Stage 8 has you being devoured by a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere and you have to fight your way through its intestines, reminiscent of the final stage of Contra 4.
- Worthy Opponent: Varanis considers the Contra to be as such, to the point of thanking them for “one final, glorious battle” before dying from his injuries.
- Year X: As opposed to the original game set in 2633, it's now set in 26XX.
- You Don't Look Like You: Shadow Beast Kimkoh has a design that looks drastically different from its usual incarnations, now appearing more like a scorpionoid alien whose tail opens up to show the unsettling human face.
