The Showdown is a music theme originally composed by the Konami Kukeiha Club for Contra III: The Alien Wars. It starts playing about midway through the final stage of the game, Stage 6, Alien's Main Base, and becomes the background boss theme for the remaining of the gauntlet of minibosses and up to the final boss.
This theme is actually comprised of three parts, each playing for each of the final three minibosses: Part 1 plays for the Kimkoh miniboss fight, Part 2 plays for the Metal Alien miniboss fight, and Part 3 plays for the Gava and Searle final boss fights. If a miniboss has not been defeated before its corresponding part finishes, this will loop and play once more, and will keep doing this until that miniboss is defeated. Likewise, if a miniboss is defeated but there is still much remaining of its corresponding theme, it will keep on playing and will eventually change to the next miniboss/boss's theme when it reaches its end, which connects appropriately with the beginning of the next part, in order to not lose the flow of the overall music theme.
A simplified version of this theme appears in Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX, used in the exact same manner as in Contra III.
This theme was later remixed for Contra 4 titled "Winged Alien", being played as a background theme for Stage 9, Harvest Yard. It briefly plays near the end of the stage, when the heroes reach the throat and the beast floods the shaft with gastric juices alongside closing skewing bones, and continues to play all the way up the spine until reaching the final boss's cerebrum, where the song is overwritten by the final boss's theme.
Notes
- This theme does not appear in the Game Boy port, Contra: The Alien Wars. Instead, "Bloody Storm" is played as the background theme for the Kimkoh and Gava miniboss/boss fights, and "Go Forward Under Fire" is played for all three Java miniboss fights.
Audio
| Title | Game | Stage | Audio | Usage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Showdown | Contra III: The Alien Wars | Alien's Main Base | Kimkoh, Metal Alien, Gava and Searle boss fights | |
| The Showdown (Part 1) | Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX | Alien's Main Base | Kimkoh miniboss fight | |
| The Showdown (Part 2) | Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX | Alien's Main Base | Metal Alien miniboss fight | |
| The Showdown (Part 3) | Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX | Alien's Main Base | Gava and Searle boss fights | |
| Black Viper Showdown Remix | Contra 4 | Harvest Yard | Prelude to the Black Viper final boss fight |
Trivia
- A snippet from part 3 is used in Contra: Rogue Corps, during the final boss battle.