Contra: Shattered Soldier, originally released in Japan as , is a video game that is part of the Contra series by Konami. It was developed by Team Kijirushi, a group of staff members within Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo. The game marks a return to the two-dimensional gameplay style employed by the series prior to Contra: Legacy of War. A sequel to Contra: Hard Corps, the game was released for the PlayStation 2 in 2002 and for the PlayStation Network in both 2012 for Japan and 2013 for North America. Gameplay Shattered Soldier returns to the classic game system employed by the series prior to Contra: Legacy of War. The game is played entirely in 2D from a side-view perspective, but with fully polygonal graphics, although some segments in which the player rides a snowboard or a motorcycle are viewed from a front or rear-view perspective. The controls and abilities are similar to the ones featured in Contra III: The Alien Wars. In addition to being able to keep the character's mobility still while aiming and shooting, the player can also keep their character's aim still while moving as well (a feature that was introduced in C: The Contra Adventure and retroactively ported over to the Game Boy Advance version of Alien Wars). The major departure in Shattered Soldier is the omission of power-up items. Instead, the player is equipped with one of three permanent weapons that can be switched at any point. Each weapon has a standard automatic shot and an alternate charge shot for a total of six types of shots. The standard shots are: a rapid-fire automatic machine gun (Heavy Machine Gun), a flamethrower (Flame Whip) and a grenade launcher (Diver Mines). The charged versions of the same weapons are: the Round Sweeper, which launches out a "gun pod" that sprays bullets in multiple directions; the Energy Shot, a large gunshot which delivers great damage; and a barrage of Homing Missiles that traces the nearest target. Like Contra: Hard Corps, Shattered Soldier has multiple endings. However, the ending received now depends on player performance, rather than the path taken during the course of a game. The game introduces a "hit rate" system which gauges the number of enemies destroyed as a form of performance metric. Every unique target in each stage, whether it be an actual enemy or an object in the area, that is destroyed increases this