Crab the Joe (クラブ・ザ・ジョー Kurabu za Jō?) is a miniboss in Contra: Hard Corps.
Location
In order to fight this enemy, the player must choose "Rescue the research center" at the end of the first level, and then "Surrender and fight later" when they get ambushed by Colonel Bahamut and Dr. Geo.
Description
A flying pod piloted by Deadeye Joe. Making honor to its name, it is a spherical mechanized vehicle which features four retractable extremities that have spears at their ends, with which they cling onto the room's surfaces.
The fight consists of three phases:
First phase:
- At the beginning of the encounter, each leg will retract and reattach to a different spot to the left of its previous position, one at a time and at a very slow pace, while leaving some safe spots throughout the room. Each leg can be damaged independently.
- As the boss keeps sustaining damage, the legs will start moving at a faster pace. Once enough damage has been dealt to one of them, it will explode and the rest will retract back into the pod, commencing the second phase of the fight.
Second phase:
- In the second phase, the remaining three legs will extend a medium distance from the pod and start spinning around it while the pod itself starts hovering and bouncing throughout the room.
- Each leg will retain all damage dealt during the first phase, thus requiring just a few more shots until all get destroyed. Once all three legs are disposed of, the third and last phase of the fight will begin.
Third phase:
- The orb will start teleporting to random spots throughout the room and rapidly bounce up and down in an attempt to crush the player.
Once defeated, the machine will explode and send Deadeye flying out; at this moment, Colonel Bahamut will enter the scene and outright kill him due to his constant failures. The player will then be allowed to continue to the last boss encounter of that route.
Notes
- This boss also appears in the Game Boy Advance game Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX, a handheld port of Contra III: The Alien Wars; however, this is not a canonical appearance and has nothing to do with the plot. Likewise, Deadeye Joe does not appear in this version, only the boss. The inclusion of the Big Battle stage was only to replace the overhead-view Sheer Cliff stage from the original game.