Ladies and gentlemen, we have delved into both Super Contra 7 and Super Contra 8, but now it's time to check out Super Contra 6. It's not a prequel. It's not a sequel. It's not even fun. It's a bootleg hack! Though 7 and 8 borrowed heavily from the likes of Contra and Super C, Super Contra 6 actually does the series an even stronger disservice by stealing from Contra Force, an NES game that does away with Contra conventions in favour of, well, simply being an unamusing shooter weighed down by constant extreme slowdown.
Sometimes found on multicarts as "Contra 6", Super Contra 6 IS essentially Contra Force with a few graphical switcheroos, the most notable being the logo, which now more closely resembles the Japanese Contra logo. Originally, there were four characters (Burns, Smith, Iron, and Beans — yes, Beans) banding together as the C-Force to prevent terrorist attacks upon Neocity. Super Contra 6 keeps this theme, but replaces the main character names with new one. Burns now becomes Rambo (which makes sense, considering the similarity between the content of the Rambo films and the Contra games), Smith becomes Guile (of Street Fighter fame?), Iron is now Ryu, and Beans is given the ultimate new creative name: Bill. He's just a guy named Bill now. Funny, there was actually a character named Bill Rizer in the original Contra; that could very well be the inspiration. The reason for the name change is unknown, but it would've been nice if they hadn't left the original names in the cutscene dialogue! Each character also has a new profile photo, mostly taken from Ikari Warriors III, except for Ryu, whose profile source is Double Dragon.
Otherwise, it's more or less the same as Contra Force, albeit with a little less slowdown, a defining trait of the original. It's also nice that I started out with eight lives instead of three, as Contra Force is notorious for kicking my butt from here to Neocity. There's also a code you can enter (pressing Up and Start) that gives each character 17 lives, a feature not originally in Contra Force. Wait... more lives... and a code for extra lives... Could it possible be?!
Is Super Contra 6 actually superior to the source material?! Was this not a useless project after all? Egad!
Super Contra 6 isn't something you should waste your time trying to hunt down, especially considering neither is Contra Force. I played a bit just to check it out, and you can regale yourself with my chronicles via these screenshots:
