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Why another English translation?
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This was built on top of the excellent work of the
Stardust Crusaders patch by Pennywise.

I wanted a better title screen, and I wanted the
translated text to be more clear to read and have the
overall timing of the Japanese to avoid dragging down
the pace of the game.

The translation was too verbose in places, taking too
long to type itself onto the screen and making it
harder than neccessary to comprehend. For example the
translated attract mode text takes 19 seconds to
appear vs the Japanese original taking only 6 seconds.
I made the text more succinct across the board and
type way faster in the attract mode specifically.
The opening cinematic I finessed the text and between-
line pauses so the cinematic ends in sync with the
music like the Japanese version. Margins were cleaned
up everywhere.

I wasn't a fan of the title screen logo having a
little turd of fire flying across the C in Contra
so I reanimated it from scratch as fire and embers
from below like the Japanese original.

I also wanted an option to keep the original Japanese
title screen and only translate the text. More like
a subtitled version of the Japanese game, rather
than a 'director's cut' of the English game. It's up
to you which version you want to use, they're both
included here in both .ips and .bps format.


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Patch Instructions
======================================================

Choose which single patch version you want to use, and
apply it to the 256kb Japanese ROM (not the 128kb USA
version)

Contra (J).nes
aka Contra (Japan).nes
sometimes called Gryzor(J).nes


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Background On Contra
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The Japanese version of Contra used custom hardware in
the cartridge to give it animated backgrounds, and had
a little skippable cutscene and progress map between
levels.
In North America, Nintendo manufactured the carts and
didn't allow custom hardware, so the animated
background feature was removed, and the rom was
squeezed to half the size, also removing cutscenes and
final boss completion music sting.
This makes the Japanese version the intended version,
like a director's cut (especially note the living
background in the final level and falling snow in the
snow level), but the cutscenes are in Japanese so a
patch is needed for English speakers to understand the
story.
The gameplay is identical between Japan and North
America except for slightly increased difficulty in
the English version (the enemies shoot more).

* 30 lives: The Konami code is in all versions
  At the title screen press
    Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A
  before pressing Start for a 1 or 2 player game.
  You can press Select at any time during code entry
  to switch between 1 player and 2 players, plus it
  resets the menu timer to give you more time to
  enter your code!

The Japanese version also has some unique codes:

* Stage Select:
    Hold Up+Left+A, Press Start to begin the game,
	then immediately hold Select.
  You can also do this after the Konami code to get
  30 lives + stage select.

* Secret Ending: before the credits start rolling
    Hold Start+Select and keep them held
	until the credits are over.
  The screen will flash and a secret message will
  appear.


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Credit goes to:

Pennywise
 - all the original and difficult hacking
MFerraro (@mferraro.bsky.social)
 - new title screen animation
 - new translated text for pacing and clearer story
 - some additional hacking of a couple pointers
 and timers, and reverse-engineering the original hacks
 to build over them and separate the title screen.