The game consists of five stages however, the final boss stage, along with the true ending, cannot be accessed when playing on the Easy difficulty setting. Playing on the Easy setting will allow the player to always keep their current weapon after losing a life, a feature not available in any of the other settings. The traditional Flame Thrower, however, is missing. The power-ups in this installment consists of a Spread Shot, a Laser Gun, and a Homing Gun. The dual weapon system from Contra III: The Alien Wars returns and the player's normal gun can now shoot in auto-fire once again. Two additional characters: BR-W9 (also known as 'Brownie' and called Tsugu-Min in the Japanese version), an android shaped like a little girl and Plissken, a tall lizard-like humanoid alien (whose name is a tribute to the Snake Plissken movie character), can also be selected once the player has completed the game on Easy (BR-W9) and Normal (Plissken). The player initially has a choice between two different player characters: Bill Rizer, the traditional Contra hero, or Genbei Yagyu, an alternate incarnation of the protagonist from Neo Contra. As with most Contra games, up to two players can play simultaneously.

The game can be played with the standard Wii Remote, as well as with the Classic Controller or a Nintendo GameCube controller. In the true ending of the game, it is revealed Chief Salamander was actually Plissken all along, who infiltrated the Contra unit under an assumed name.Ĭontra ReBirth retains the same sprite-based side-scrolling gameplay as the series' earlier installments. However, Chief Salamander is nowhere to be found. With the help of BR-W9, an android shaped like a little girl, and Newt Plissken, a tall lizard-like humanoid alien, the Contra warriors manage to take down the Neo-Salamander Force.

Bill Rizer and Genbei Yagyu, two members of the present day Contra team, are deployed by the Galactic President to travel back in time in order to stop them. They end up setting base on the ruins of the Shizuoka temple at the Yucatán peninsula in Central America. In 2633, the Neo-Salamander Force, led by their mysterious leader Chief Salamander, travels to the year 1973 to eliminate the ' Contra' force while Earth's defenses are still primitive and are no match to theirs.

Contra rebirth soundtrack