The Red Corps are enemies in Contra. They are soldiers in red uniforms that drop a weapon power-up when defeated.
Description
The Red Corps are enemies who exclusively appear in the "Base" pseudo 3D corridor stages of the original Contra. They look almost identical to the rest of the soldier enemies in those levels, with the main difference being that they wear a full red uniform. Their role is to act as a source of weapons for the player due to the absence of Power-up Capsules or Sensors in these levels. A single Red Corps unit will appear in most rooms of a base level, but not in all of them.
A Red Corps unit does not attack in any way and only limits himself to jump from one end of the room to the other, taunting the player. When shot, he will release a fixed weapon power-up; the released Falcon Symbol will then fly all the way from the back of the room, where the Red Corps was downed, to the foreground for the player to collect.
Care must be taken when killing a Red Corps unit, as it's not uncommon that it becomes almost unavoidable to accidentally pick up the weapon he drops while the player is trying to evade all of the incoming enemy fire, and the weapon may not be as effective as the one they're currently carrying. It's also common that if the dropped weapon is undesirable, and since it will never disappear from the screen, it may become a hindrance until the player manages to advance to the next segment of the stage, blocking a big part of the player's movable area and considerably reducing their maneuverability.
Base corridor stages later reappeared in Contra 4 (Base, Factory and Alien Hive). While the Red Corps didn't reappear in these levels, other enemies play their role of dropping weapons; however, these enemies don't feature any particular traits that differentiate them from the rest.
Gallery
Screenshots
_-_01.png "Red Corps - Contra (arcade) - 01.png (26 KB)")
_-_01.png "Red Corps - Contra (NES) - 01.png (15 KB)")
_-_01.png "Red Corps - Contra (Commodore 64) - 01.png (5 KB)")
Sprites
.png "Contra NES Red Corps (sprite).png (303 bytes)"){kind=icon}
.png "Probotector NES Red Corps (sprite).png (319 bytes)"){kind=icon}
Artworks
Trivia
- In Probotector (NES), these enemies were changed into an all red colored two-legged robot, mirroring the blue colored robot seen in the same stages.