- Not to be confused with Air Combat.
| “ | Jet motorcycles and helicopter missiles. If it moves, you will ride it. Anything to catch Red Falcon. | „ |
| ~ Contra III instruction booklet description |
Air Battle (空中戦闘 Kūchū Sentō?) is the fourth stage in Contra III: The Alien Wars. It is an exhilarating chase fight on jet motorcycles across a barren highway in the middle of the desert until the enemy proceeds to take to the skies.
Overview[]
The players ride on Jet Motorcycles across an unnamed highway. After a large portion of the battleship Dodriguez's army has been obliterated, the hero(es) take to the skies and give chase to the fleeing battleship.
The level begins riding at high speed inside a tunnel, with a large troop of Hellriders soon catching up from behind, riding high on the screen and commanded by their leader clad in black (the leader does not appear again and thus cannot be killed). Most Hellriders will shoot a barrage of bullets diagonally-forward from their jet motorcycles; staying on the left side of the screen will completely avoid their fire. A few of them will instead toss grenades straight down which will explode in a column of fire; the grenades themselves are harmless to the touch, only the resulting fire is dangerous; jump forward to avoid their explosions. The Hellriders are also harmless to the touch, so the player can focus on jumping over the exploding grenades without having to worry on bumping into one of these enemies above.
Hellriders give a lot of points on defeat; if the player is able to kill most of their units they may be able to earn two or three extra lives. This is more easily done with a powerful weapon (like the Crush Gun) and on either Easy or Normal difficulty settings; however, on Hard difficulty, Hellriders are much more resilient, usually letting the player to kill just a few of them.
Enemies[]
Minibosses[]
- High Speed Tank Booby
- Tetranducker
- Sensor Arm
- Dangling Soldier (leader)
- Fierce Cannon
- Rocket Ninja Sasaki
Boss[]
Notes[]
- This is the only stage in the game that doesn't feature a particular music theme for the boss fight; the main background theme, "Daredevil", is played during the entire stage, including the end area boss fight.
- This stage does not appear in the Game Boy port, Contra: The Alien Wars.
Gallery[]
Screenshots[]
Maps[]
Music[]
| Game | Title | Audio | Usage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contra III: The Alien Wars | Daredevil | BGM | |
| Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX | Daredevil | BGM |
Trivia[]
- This stage bears some similarities to Stage 4 of Rocket Knight Adventures, another game by Konami:
- Both are Stage 4 in their respective titles.
- Both stages take place involving a large flying battleship.
- One section of the battleship has four adjacent ports for infinitely spawning enemies to drop onto a hanging bar, during a mid-boss fight.
- This stage's overall theme was later reused in Contra 4's Ocean stage.
See also[]
- Air Combat - A similar stage in Contra: Hard Corps.
- Contra Helicopter