Operation C

* Front
* Back

Low%

## Overview

*The whole Operation C speedrun wiki is under construction. If you have questions, for now join us on the Contra Discord. We will gladly answer all your questions.*

Operation C (Game Boy) is the third installment of the Contra franchise (in black & white). It features a new weapon that has become a staple of the series - the Homing Gun - and is the first Contra game to introduce autofire (no need for mashing or Machine Gun power-up).

Being on Game Boy and perhaps more limited in terms of memory and RAM, this game offers 5 stages, only 3 powerups (no mass destruction or barrier (B) like used in previous entries), fewer enemies on screen at a given time, as well as fewer trolls.

This game has side-scrolling stages (1, 3 and 5) and top-down view stages similar to Super C (2 and 4).

This game is not hard, but playing it at an optimal level can be tricky. A lot of the advanced strategies require pixel perfect positionning, perfect shot timing and frame perfect movement.

## Powerups

The R power-up of Contra and Super C is absent, but if you grab a second S, it can be upgraded to shoot a wider spread of bullets, and faster. The F and the H can not be upgraded. There is no L or weapon of mass destruction.

All weapons are autofire.

**P-Shooter (no powerup) :** Similar to Machine Gun in Contra 1. If you die during the run, and you don't have the Fire Gun available, the P-Shooter is your best friend. It is surprisingly efficient for most of the run, and used at the end of Stage 5 for optimal strats. It could potentially be used for the other parts for optimal times (mini-boss in Stage 3 comes to mind).

**Spread Gun :** For the Operation C speedrun, the S power-up is considered the worst weapon and is generally avoided altogether, except for the beginning of the Stage 1 to kill the first few trolls.

**Homing Gun :** *Bullets aimed at the enemy will be guided toward their targets. This is kind of technology you need to even your chances of survival.* This weapon can be used for safe or beginner strats, but it is generally avoided during the any% speedrun. You will see it being used in the optimal TAS (tool assisted-speedrun), but making it optimal is almost impossible in real-time attack (RTA). The movement of the bullets can be hard to predict.

**Fire Gun (Fireball) :** *When enemies or obstacles are encountered, this gun sends explosions in four directions, attacking a wide area*. This will be the weapon of choice for the any% speedrun. It is really efficient at close range. Grabbing two F does nothing. If you hold the fire button, it takes 7-8 frames for the next fireball to come out. You can only shoot two fireballs on screen at the same time. Careful with lag.

## General Strats

**Avoid lag**: Lag will occur pretty easily, every time the screen is a bit crowded. Try shooting only when necessary.

**Avoid unecessary jumping**: Like in Contra 1 (NES), you lose a frame of forward momentum everytime you perform a jump or drop down from a platform and land.

**Input delay**: Most inputs (jumping, ducking, moving forward, shooting) take 2 frames to visually happen after you pressed a button.

**Press start between stages**: There is a little animation between each level. It is important to press start to skip to the next level. Try mashing the start button when the level transition screen is scrolling up. You can lose some frames here if you don't hit the start button frame perfect.

**Leaving the scene**: There are many mini-bosses in the game. The screen gets locked-in during the fights. Leaving the scene at the precise moment and at the precise position will be very important for almost every stage, to ensure optimal times.

**The "Blooming"**: If you shoot at the floor while moving forward, the fireballs will explode on the floor and create enough fireballs to protect you from trolls coming from the back. First called "brooming", this technique became "blooming" (because you are creating a flower of fireballs). This strat can help but can easily create a lot of lag. Also, it’s not 100% consistent because sometimes trolls will still kill you from the back (mostly near the end of scrolling section or if they happen to touch you when no fireball is bouncing). Be careful with blooming.

## Rules

*From speedrun.com*

1. Include an actual reset, no load state back to title menu.
2. The inclusion of game audio is strongly advised. The absence of this may disqualify your run!
3. Timing starts on "the frame your sprite becomes active" and ends on the last hit of the "final boss".
4. **Emulator**: The authorized emulators are BGB 1.5.7 and its newer releases & Gambatte r571. (http://sprintinglegs.com/emutiming/results.html)
5. Emulator runs should be resetting between run and not load a save state.
6. Please state the name of the emulator used in the description.
7. Times on the Super Game Boy will be converted to be comparable with other times on the leaderboard since it is running 2.4% too fast. Do not convert times by yourself!
8. Speedrun mode is encouraged for emulator.

## Levels

This game features five levels, each with their challenges you must overcome. In this guide we'll cover the skills you'll need to complete runs with good, or even great times.