Contra Advance : The Alien Wars EX

Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX is a Game Boy Advance run-and-gun game released by Konami in 2002. Developed by Cing, it adapts the alien-war premise and rapid side-scrolling action of Konami's 1992 Super NES game Contra III: The Alien Wars for Nintendo's handheld. In Japan it was released as Contra: Hard Spirits. The mission is to battle through an invasion force and prevent Red Falcon from taking over the world.

The game is built around direct arcade-style movement: a commando runs, jumps, shoots, and survives crowded combat screens filled with hostile troops, creatures, projectiles, hazards, and large bosses. Stages move from one encounter to the next at a brisk pace, asking players to learn enemy patterns, protect their limited lives, and press forward through each dangerous area. Weapon power-ups change the character's firepower, giving the action its familiar Contra emphasis on choosing an effective shot while staying mobile.

Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX contains six stages. Rather than reproduce every level and perspective effect from Contra III, this handheld version reshapes the route into a side-scrolling campaign. Its two overhead stages were removed, while additional side-scrolling material based on Contra: Hard Corps was incorporated. That makes it a related but separate arrangement of stages rather than a one-for-one Super NES conversion, and a useful entry point for players interested in how the series was adapted to the Game Boy Advance.

The Game Boy Advance layout also changes part of the original design. The Super NES version's second weapon slot and screen-clearing bombs are absent here, so weapon management is more streamlined on the handheld. The game uses a password system to record progress. It supports a two-player cooperative mode when two Game Boy Advance systems, two game cartridges, and a link cable are connected, allowing both commandos to fight through the campaign together.

Konami published Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX in North America in November 2002, with the Japanese release following that month and the European release arriving in February 2003. It belongs to the long-running Contra series but should not be confused with the Game Boy version of Contra: The Alien Wars or the original Super NES Contra III. The title later returned through the Wii U Virtual Console, preserving this specific Game Boy Advance reinterpretation of the Alien Wars story.