- Not to be confused with Huge Robot.
Big Fuzz (大覚ロボ ビッグファズ Daikaku Robo Biggu Fazu?, lit. "Great Awakening Robo Big Fuzz") is a recurring boss in the Contra series.
Description[]
Big Fuzz is a gigantic, skeleton-like robot who was programmed to protect factories occupied by the alien invaders. He usually makes his entrance by forcing open a large metal door in the background and then proceeding to attack the player (these doors usually end up violently closing and beheading him at the end of the battle).
His main form of attack is to breathe a continuous stream of fire, although he can also shoot tracking laser beams from his eyes and deploy several timed bombs at once.
Appearances[]
Contra III: The Alien Wars[]
First appearance of Big Fuzz in the series (renamed as "Robo-Corpse" in the English instruction booklet). He is fought at the end of the Factory Zone after fighting two smaller versions of himself.
Big Fuzz introduces himself by tearing open a large hole in the background wall, his entire upper body soon shown as he constantly moves his head while his metallic hands hold the walls in place. His attacks are in the following order, and after the third attack, will repeat the entire pattern all over again:
| Attack | Description |
|---|---|
 |
Big Fuzz starts by shooting tracking laser beams from his eyes that chase the player for a few good seconds. |
 |
Big Fuzz's main form of attack consists in breathing a continuous stream of fire from a visible cannon in his mouth, firing in a clockwise motion, requiring the player to move quickly and precisely to avoid being incinerated. |
 |
After stopping the flame, Big Fuzz rapidly moves his head before deploying several timed bombs at once onto the room, hiding himself behind the wall he previously opened up. If the player is on the ground by the time the bombs count to zero, they will explode and the player will lose a life. The bomb's explosion also leave behind a large trail of flame spreading slightly outward before dispersing. |
With the explosions from the third attack gone, Big Fuzz reopens the wall and repeats the entire process.
On Hard mode, all of his attacks are much more difficult to avoid:
- His twin heat-seeking eye lasers will recover and track faster, and last longer on the screen. While in Normal mode, the lasers disappear once Big Fuzz begins charging his flame attack, on Hard mode, they will stay until Big Fuzz makes a full rotation on his fire attack.
- His fire breath attack rotates much faster. On Normal, the player can perform a full rotation while climbing on walls and ceiling and still outrun the fire, but on Hard, the player has to quickly drop down from the center of the ceiling as the fire breath attack can outrun their climbing speed. This attack combined with the above eye beams make the fight much more difficult.
- The bombs have drastically shortened fuse counters and cover more space, to the point that the only way to dodge the attack is to bait Big Fuzz into planting bombs on the ceiling and then instantly drop down, because if the bombs are on the ground the player won't be able to move fast enough to climb the wall and dodge them.
When defeated, the sliding door in the background that Big Fuzz forced open will close on his neck, resulting on him being beheaded.
In the Game Boy port, Contra: The Alien Wars, Big Fuzz doesn't claw his way into the room and instead enters it by destroying the back wall and sticking his head through, remaining there for the rest of the fight. The boss also does not perform the laser-eye attack.
C: The Contra Adventure[]
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Contra 4[]
In Contra 4, Big Fuzz incessantly crawls through the narrow corridors of the Factory to pursue the player. He attacks by breathing a long stream of fire that has to be either jumped or crouched from, depending on the visual cues given during the battle (the general pattern is low sweep, low sweep, high sweep). After taking enough damage, he chases the player and gets caught in the doors the player went through to reach it. The only way to finish him is to shoot the damaged Nuclear Balls on the sides of the door to manually close it and clip off his head. For this end, a weapon with a high repetition rate of fire (such as the Machine Gun) is preferred over slower firing weapons, regardless of their damage output, as the constant hitting on the Nuclear Balls will make the gate to close up much faster. If the gate doesn't close in time, Big Fuzz will reopen them and perform a general pattern of three flames. After which, the phase repeats (the doors can be fired upon once more).
Prototype information[]
In earlier builds of Contra 4, Big Fuzz was slightly different from the final build. Big Fuzz could be seen already loaded in the room just before the boss room, standing in a unique idle pose. In its room, it is slightly positioned more farther back. When approached, it adjusts its hands and fires its long fireball stream as normal. The angle may appear different due to its farther positioning, and the fireball streams do not have appear to have any specific pattern, moving toward any such horizontal angle. Once it receives enough damage, it performs its crawl animation where during this phase, it can actually extend its hand and reach out to the player in an attempt to crush them. After a while, it proceeds to its final phase where it is near identical to the final build save for the long stream of fireballs moving in erratic horizontal angles. When decapitated, the head bounces high and strongly before finally rolling still.
Contra Returns[]
One significant change involved in the boss fight against Big Fuzz in this game is that the player cannot cling onto the ceiling of the room where the battle takes place.
Big Fuzz still possesses time bomb deployment, but instead of releasing fire bombs which would force the player to hang onto the ceiling to avoid getting caught in the explosions, he now releases three time bombs at their current position; all the player has to do is move away from where the bombs are laid, making their pattern easier to evade.
Big Fuzz's flame breath attack also returns, but instead of breathing a stream of fire clockwise, it breathes it left and right in an attempt to sweep and burn the player.
Just like its Contra III incarnation, Big Fuzz also launches tracking projectiles (energy balls instead of laser beams this time around) at the player from his mouth, but they're shot one at a time and can be neutralized after taking multiple shots.
When defeated, in this game Big Fuzz simply breaks down and collapses.
Contra: Rogue Corps[]
| “ | The giant alien robot defeated by Contra once before, its remains have been fused with parasitic fiends. It is in working condition once again. While on the outside it looks the same as ever, internally it has a higher ratio of organic parts than mechanical. | „ |
| ~ Description from the official website |
Big Fuzz is the area boss of the first stage. He retains most of his physical traits from previous incarnations, but unlike those, he is now stated to feature internal organic material that even surpasses his mechanical parts. In addition, he now boasts two large missile launchers on his shoulders. He casually appears walking among the Damned City ruins and locates the Rogue Corps on the far end of an avenue, and it's from these positions that the encounter takes place. Fortunately, all of his body is vulnerable, and his large body facilitates targeting him most of the time.
- Attacks
- Picks up up to three nearby burning cars and tosses them at the player. He starts the battle with this attack, although only tossing a single car at the beginning of the encounter.
- Shoots a powerful sweeping laser beam from his mouth. This attack can be neutralized by shooting him enough, which will make him stagger and cancel it.
- Shoots barrages of missiles from both his launchers at the player's current position. The rockets can be destroyed in midair, although the player can also just move out of their way since they don't travel very fast.
After sustaining enough damage, the giant robot will start exploding all over his body and burst into flames, marking the end of the encounter. However, this is not the end of this foe, and he returns for a rematch as the area boss of Stage 4, where his body is humorously wrapped up in bandages as a result from the previous battle, but most importantly, only his torso remains. Despite this handicap, he is much more enduring and versatile than on the first encounter. He starts crawling with his arms and relentlessly chases the Rogue Corps all throughout the city ruins. Fortunately, Lily arrives just in time and gives her partners a ride on top of the Guillotine, and it's from this flying vessel where the heroes have to deal with this menace during the whole encounter.
He once again starts shooting missiles from his launchers, while he threateningly approaches the Guillotine; once he gets right next to it, he smashes it with his fist, trying to harm the player, who has the evade the attack. Big Fuzz then recedes once more to keep launching missiles.
After sustaining enough damage, Big Fuzz will perform a big leap over the Guillotine and land in front of it, changing the role of who's chasing who. He will alternate between shooting his sweeping mouth laser beam and launching missiles. Once again, the laser can be canceled by shooting him enough.
Once he has sustained enough damage, a troop of Necroids will suddenly come to support the mechanical beast by attacking the heroes from the side. After dealing with enough of them, Big Fuzz will shoot his laser beam from offscreen and destroy any remaining units for some reason.
Big Fuzz will keep up performing combinations of all these attacks, just with a few visually aesthetics among them, but basically doing the same until it has sustained enough damage, and it is finally defeated for good.
Contra: Operation Galuga[]
Once again, Bill and Lance must defeat this monstrous, skeletal robot, now stated to be made of titanium. New in his arsenal is the ability to shoot laser beams from the palm of his hands.[4]
Gallery[]
Screenshots[]
(Phase 2)
(Phase 3)
Sprites and models[]
(from the game's cover artwork)
Artworks[]
(intro cutscene)
Trivia[]
- In Japanese, Daikaku, meaning "Great Enlightenment", is another name for Buddha. Big Fuzz's title is likely a reference to his size, which makes him look majestic, like a Buddha statue.
- Big Fuzz is based on the Snatcher, the main enemies from Konami's video game science fiction thriller Snatcher, originally released for the PC-8801 and MSX2 computers in Japan in 1988.
- Snatchers are in turn based on the T-800 cybernetic organism from the Terminator franchise.
- In Contra III: The Alien Wars, the sound made when Big Fuzz is decapitated is the same sound used when starting a game on the main menu. This sound was reused in the same manner on the main menu of Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX, but in the latter title, Big Fuzz's decapitation sound is different. The sound effect used there is shared with a sound effect used by Searle when it begins to apply its armor.
- Also, in Contra III, if one looks closely after Big Fuzz's head falls off, its red eye can still be seen behind the wall. This is due to how its shadow is labeled as part of the background.
- In Contra 4, after defeating Big Fuzz's first phase, he starts crawling through the narrow (for him) tunnels chasing the heroes. This scene is reminiscent of the 1984 science fiction action film The Terminator, where near the end, the still operational remaining torso of the T-800 chases Sarah Connor through a narrow hydraulic press.
- This is further referenced in early builds of Contra 4, where Big Fuzz retained a grabbing attack while crawling, mimicking how the T-800 skeleton attempted to reach its arm out to grab Sarah before it was crushed.
- A similar scene is reenacted in Contra: Rogue Corps, where after defeating Big Fuzz in the first stage, his damaged torso returns in a later stage and is fought as the area boss.
- Reapers from Contra 4 bear a strong resemblance to both Big Fuzz and the Brother Robots Kenny 1 & 2. The Reapers may be the continuation of such technology.
- Big Fuzz has often appeared in game covers or as a prominent figure in artworks, cutscenes and diverse promotional media of the Contra series. In an online interview, Tomm Hulett, director of Contra: Operation Galuga, mentioned that when they showed Konami the bosses they were planning to include in the game, they told him to include Big Fuzz, even if he belonged to another point in the timeline, as according to them, Big Fuzz was the "mascot" of the series.[5]
- According to Bannon Rudis, director of River City Ransom: Underground, the final boss fight against Dr. D in that game was inspired by Big Fuzz from Contra III.[6]
See also[]
References[]
- ↑ Contra III: The Alien Wars instruction booklet, page 15.
- ↑ Super Probotector: Alien Rebels instruction booklet, page 18.
- ↑ Contra 4 development name.
- ↑ @ContraSoldier (Contra Official（魂斗羅公式）) at X (March 6, 2024).
- ↑ Switch 2 Leaks Are About to Get Even BIGGER - EP110 Kit & Krysta Podcast at YouTube.
- ↑ Reply from Bannon Rudis on Discord.
Big Fuzz • Crustacean Cruiser • Gomeramos King • Black Viper (final form) | |||