This is just a simple region-free patch for Contra – Hard Corps so it can be played on PAL and Japanese Mega Drive consoles without any nonsense, Konami lock out screens. It is nothing special and there are superior enhanced patches of this game already available if you know where to look. This is just a basic region-free patch.

To learn more about this patch just scroll down past Story, Development, Versions and Legacy.

Contra: Hard Corps, known in Japan as Contra: The Hard Corps (魂斗羅 ザ・ハードコア) and in Europe and Australia as Probotector, is a side-scrolling run-and-gun game for the Sega Mega Drive by Konami.

It is one of the only two Contra installments on any Sega console, the other being Contra: Legacy of War. The game is considered one of the hardest games in the Contra franchise in the West, as the hit point system from the Japanese version was removed.

Story

In 2641, an elite team of commandos called the “Unified Military Special Mobile Task Force K-X,” also known as the “Contra: Hard Corps,” has been assembled to combat the rapid spread of crime and illegal activities following the war. When an unknown hacker infiltrates the city’s security system and reprograms a group of unmanned robots to cause havoc, the Hard Corps are deployed to handle the situation. Members include male soldier Ray Poward; female soldier Sheena Etranzi; Brad Fang, a wolf-like humanoid; and Browny, a small robot.

Development

The development team called themselves “TEAM機知GUY” (Team Kichi Guy). This is actually a pun and not present in the Western staff roll. The Japanese “機知”(Kichi) alone translates to “wit”, but together with “GUY” is sounds like “きちがい” (Kichigai), a slang word for crazy.

Versions

Like many Contra games released both before and after Hard Corps, the game differs significantly depending on region. In the Japanese version, a three point health bar exists for each character, where getting hit removes one point and grants a short period of invincibility. Continues are also unlimited, and there are also various cheat codes that were disabled in the other versions such as a stage select and a 70-lives code.

Conversely, the North American release removed the health bar system, meaning a single hit results in death (which is consistent with most games in the series). Continues here are limited to five retries.

In Europe, the game was reskinned as Probotector (not to be confused with the original Probotector on the NES, a reskinned version of the first Contra game), replacing living humans and an anthropomorphic animal with robots or aliens, and consequently replacing Ray, Sheena, and Fang with CX-1, CX-2, and CX-3, respectively. Browny was simply renamed to CX-4. The story was rewritten to remove elements of human betrayal and the alien cell was replaced with the mechanical X-Drive. This version also lacks the health bar and the number of continues have been reduced to three retries making it even harder than the North American version. Aside from the aforementioned changes and an added language select option (which was uncommon for the era), Probotector is the same game as the North American release of Hard Corps. This extends to the game’s performance, with only the audio being optimised for PAL systems, and everything else resulting in a slightly slower game for PAL 50Hz consoles.

Legacy

The game spawned a series of follow-ups featuring the same characters, including the Appaloosa Interactive-developed sequels, Contra: Legacy of War and C: The Contra Adventure, and the Arc System Works-developed prequel, Hard Corps: Uprising.

Two stages from Contra: Hard Corps would be recycled for the Game Boy Advance release Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX in 2002.

In 2019, it was re-released as part of Contra: Anniversary Collection for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows PCs. It was also included in all versions of the Mega Drive Mini the same year. The game was re-released on Nintendo Switch Online in 2021.

This Patch

We never got this version in PAL regions and it is the superior version as it has humans instead of robots and more continues available in the options. Probotector is the ugly, inferior version given to ALL PAL regions probably to keep Germany happy with their Woke anti-violence and blood status in video games at the time. Konami usually gave PAL territories censored, different reworked versions of their games to stop Germany from complaining which was the case with Castlevania: Bloodlines and Mortal Kombat.

Here I took the USA ROM of Contra – Hard Corps and removed the hard region lock out in it and made it play in all regions. This means you can boot this up on a PAL Mega Drive with no Mega Key device needed and it can also work on a Japanese NTSC Mega Drive. The music plays at the correct speed in PAL 50Hz as well.

Instructions

Inside the ZIP file you’ll find the IPS patch, it is in Lunar IPS format and simply needs to be patched to the USA version of ”Contra – Hard Corps”.

Don’t patch it to the Europe or Japanese versions.

To learn more about this game please visit the link down below.

Enjoy!

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