The Rock (岩 Iwa?) is a recurring enemy in the Contra series. While not a living opponent, these environmental hazards will attempt to crush the player on their way down.
Appearances[]
Contra[]
Giant boulders that drop from platform to platform until they leave the screen. Rocks first appeared in the Waterfall stage, and since then, they are usually encountered in waterfalls or other vertical scrolling sections in some games. They come out from large holes on the walls that produce them in infinite quantities (these likely being mechanical devices set there by members of the Red Falcon army). The player is strongly advised to stay away from the holes that produce them, lest a new boulder unexpectedly comes out and kills them.
As expected from an object of these characteristics, they are considerably durable and it will take many shots from most weapons to destroy them, so most of the times it is just better to get out of their way. However, if a weapon is powerful enough (such as a fully powered Spread Gun at close range) and the player concentrates all their firepower on them, they should be taken down easily.
Super C[]
While the original arcade version of Super Contra doesn't feature any Rocks at all, they were added to the NES conversion of the game, Super C. They appear in Base Area 4, where the player must ascend to the top of the first half section of the stage by climbing up a series of sloped platforms. Unlike the first game, where they came out from holes in the background, rocks are now positioned on determined spots of the map and will start falling and/or rolling once they are revealed on the screen as the player approaches them. This knowledge is crucial to successfully complete the stage, as sometimes when the player is jumping from one platform to the next, the upper edge may suddenly reveal a rock that will instantly drop and crush them. This threat can be overcome by making stationary jumps whenever the player reaches a suspicious-looking spot where one of these boulders could appear.
Operation C[]
Rocks once again don't come out from holes and instead they come in groups bumping along the slopes of hills in the jungle stage.
Contra 4[]
Rocks appear in the latter half of the Laboratory stage, in a mild recreation of the waterfall stage from the first game. Rocks can come in two different sizes this time around: large and much larger. They cannot be shot at, as shots simply pass through them, leaving evasion the only option against these obstacles.
Rocks don't appear on the Easy difficulty setting.
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Trivia[]
- Falling Rocks have also appeared in the Ganbare Goemon series (also by Konami), looking and sometimes behaving almost identically to those from the Contra series, which could be a reference. They made their first appearance in that series in Ganbare Goemon! Karakuri Dōchū, released on the Famicom in 1986.