Contra 4 (June 27, 2007 Prototype A)

Early prototype of Contra 4 with tons of differences. Tons. Has pretty much every kind of difference one can think of that is found in prototypes. This build predates the one shown at E3 by a couple weeks. This is as close to an alpha as it'll get. Surprisingly, this was leaked within a month after the North American release.
Yet, it's clear from this prototype that much of the game had already been set in place by this time. So Wayforward announced this game pretty well into its development. 2 copies of this build are known to exist on DS dev cards, both now in the same hands.
==Notes==
As mentioned before, there are tons of differences, too many to list (and probably a lot more not yet even found).
*Debug menu upon booting the game. Almost everything can be accessed from it: stages, main menu, wireless menu (multiplayer), functionality tests of sorts, Download Station demo's menu, etc. Directly accessing a stage starts the player with 99 lives.
*The debug menu states that this is a European build. This is likely to be accurate, despite the internal ROM info containing a USA serial code. Based on the debug menus in the final North American and Japanese releases; also based on differences in bonus features in the game.
*Frequent crashes that occur mostly randomly, though some are triggered. Also bugs and glitches during gameplay, as well as lower performance.
*Pretty much everything is incomplete: rudimentary menus, storyboard format intro, no ending, early options, non-working settings, different arrangement of settings, different text, different event scripts, etc.
*Lots of gameplay differences: the way lives are handled, difficulty settings, continues, etc. Can cycle through the (incomplete) arsenal by pressing select. Controls are unpolished. Cheats don't work yet. Various character differences; ex, gold palette variant of Probotector is a separate playable character named Goldenrod. Various differences in the guns, enemies, bosses.
*Rudimentary challenge mode and set of challenges.
*Incomplete bonus features; though surprisingly, the emulated NES Contra and Super C mostly work.
*Tons of differences with the levels, many are incomplete to varying degrees; all have at least some different item/enemy placements; stage layout differences.
*Lots of visual differences; lots of sprites and other graphics are either different or missing.
*While music doesn't play anywhere in-game, the tracks are present in the data. Some of these are earlier renditions than what is heard in the final.
*Lots of missing sound effects; especially the voice clips don't play.
==Origin==
ind-c4pt.nfo
iNDEPENDENT --
 ________/\ ____________
 /___/ \/ / \
 / / / / / /
 / / / / / /
/ /____/ \ __/_________/
/___/ \/ Proudly Presents:
<----[Release Info]-------------------------------------->
 Game - Contra 4 Prototype @ 27-06-2007
 Release Date - 19-12-2007
 Platform - NDS
 Origin - said to be EUR
 Size - 512Mbit
 File Name - ind-c4pt.zip
 Supplier - OSpencerO
<----[Release Notes]------------------------------------->
 None
 
<----[Greetings]----------------------------------------->
 None
==Screenshots==
File:Protomenu.png
File:Goldenrod1.png