BIL wrote:Blimey, Super Contra's VHARD loop is just as punishing as I'd recalled. Having 1CCd Guevara in the interim, I'd put it in that one's ballpark. Super is about as flawed as SNK's de facto Ikari III, to be sure, both demanding charity even as they dole out the punishment... but when those infernal chokepoints break, they break
hard. 
The stronger the shackle, the greater the recoil when it is finally broken. - Super FromSoft Bro Miyazaki
This said - I'm always wary of being roped into pure sadomasochism, when there's super-smooth yet balls-hard stuff like Rygar and S.A.R. I could be playing. I make a firm distinction for calculatedly high-yield ballbreakers, though. There's crummy cheapshot memorisers, like Haunted Castle - and then there are
REVENGEONEERINGS, 
where you've given a fuckoff massive hammer, then tasked with artfully bashing cold pig-iron into white-hot killathons. Not the controlled chaos of Dai/Saigo, nor the performative assault course of Alien Soldier, or even the simple catharsis of Nazca; more violent puzzle/action games with biblically body-stacking payoffs. Great for the occasional deep dive project.
Anyhoo, I'd recalled something in stage 4 saving my ass, and consulting a Japanese 2-ALL to see they'd done the same. I didn't write it down! Crumbs! I think I rediscovered it yesterday.
Loop 2 / VHARD Stage 4 Hell Ramp
Ex2
Beaned! Possible Enemy HP down? (starring MUTEKI no ZANAC
)
Notes on above / ARIEN no GYAKKUSHU 
Seems panning the camera up with a high jump [up+jump] affects the runners' spawn position, preventing an otherwise near-impossible pileup. I don't know why this works, but it seems to. It's deadly to execute the high jump at the top of the ramp. Much safer to yeet yourself off the platform, ready to land and commence Bundle extermination.
I also have a sneaking suspicion that regular Machinegun + autofire is superior to the SMG, owing to rank reduction. It's terribly easy to get beaned by an unwanted new weapon, in the aftermath of the Hell Ramp - but since the last of the three drops is the MG, you can recover and limp on. Or so I thought! Once I was done experimenting, I went ahead with a beaned run, and demolished not only Winged Xeno, but also Loop 2 Stage 5, completely blind. That is completely blind - I'd never bothered going past 2-4 in my last sessions. Hmm. More research needed!
Excellent analysis BIL. I just cleared it on hardest (1 loop) and have quite a bit to say.
First of all, this is an infuriating game, and although it only takes like 10 minutes to clear it, pretty much all of it is extremely difficult and the kills come cheaply and often. It always seems like I am just barely in control of the game and even the slightest mistake will result in a death, which happened often to me. There is a fair amount of RNG BS in this game too, so certain parts can be a joke or a nightmare, it all just depends on what you get thrown at you.
I decided to not use autofire because I'm an idiot and also stubborn. I also ended up using a controller instead of the cabinet controls because I just can't hit the diagonals fast enough or precise enough with a stick and this awkward aiming system the game uses. It wasn't so bad for the first Contra but this game requires a much tighter control.
Stage 1:
You start of grabbing the machine gun, and although it has autofire, it's only like 5Hz (I think, just guessing). Thankfully, you can kind of simulate the level 2 machine gun by tapping very fast, which actually did help me out a lot here since the level 1 machine gun kind of sucks. In fact all the weapons suck in the game except the level 2 machine gun. You want to kill that tank as quickly as possible, as he can drop some undodgeable bullshit if you are unlucky.
I think in a 2-all run you would have the level 2 gun carried over from the first loop so it's probably not as bad for the first part of the stage but the end of the stage is still a nightmare either way. The section after the helicopter is just a mess, and you absolutely need to kill the first sniper on the ledge immediately to stand much of a chance in the last room.
Actually the majority of the game is like this, there are very high priority kills that need to happen or you die and it's all over. This is pretty much a 1 life game too. You can die on the final boss but anyway else, and I do mean anywhere and it's a game over. Actually, if you are using autofire you can recover in several spots that have machine gun drops, but without it you are fucking toast.
Stage 2:
Not too bad actually except for the bridge segment. Since I need to conserve both bombs for the final stage I had no choice but to try and run through that part as fast as possible. I did devise a strategy for it but I do not think it is 100% safe, I think the turrets can fire at slightly earlier or later which can make the pattern undodegable. Not really sure. You can also try and ping down the turrets but it takes forever. I think if you take too long, more and more soldiers starts showing up and will overwhelm you. In a 2-ALL attempt I'd probably bomb here. Nothing else in the stage is really that bad IMO.
Stage 3:
Probably the "easiest" stage? The first section is by far the hardest of the level and requires you knowing exactly where all the snipers are and taking them out as soon as they scroll on to the screen. If you don't it's pretty much over. The water section is very easy and the log part can get you killed if you aren't careful about the jumping soldier. This section also has another machine gun, so if you are playing with autofire and have died earlier, you can recover here.
The final section has some small facehuggers attack you, some skull guys that come up from the ground, and a few eggs that spit the evil red homing bullshit at you. CYou want to barely scroll them on the screen and try to kill them before they can attack. The red stuff will circle around you 4 or 5 times before it goes away. If there are 4 red bullets, be afraid. 2 or 3 and you will probably be fine. In my run, I killed them both before they did anything (RNG for when they fire, sometimes they do nothing).
The boss is another one of those silly RNG hazards. When you shoot him, he fires off all these alien guys that crawl along the ground. Sometimes they all go in one direction and are harmless, other times they end up all over the place and you are in trouble. You can also try and ping this guy down so he only drops a few at time. Once the mid part is destroyed it's more red homing bullshit. Try to kill him before it gets out of hand, simple stand in the very middle and unload upward.
Stage 4:
This stage is really the sticking point of the game for most people. I actually don't think it's that bad and not really any worse than the other stages to be honest, all of them have stupid cheap kills like this. The one section with the flying aliens and xenomorph runners can be handled a number of ways, see BILs post. Still need to be careful to kill all the shit at the bottom and not grab any of the weapons. Actually, there is another machine gun drop here too so if you die and have autofire, you can recover here as well. I think it's the 3rd blimp that flies through.
The midboss coming up is just all about speed killing, you need to take him out before he drops too many of the red homing things. There's another alien rush after this but it's not as bad as earlier because there are no flying guys.
The final stretch has a few eggs that are easy to kill leading up to the flying xenomorph boss. Now this guy CAN be a joke. Just sit under him and blast away if you have 20 or 30hz autofire he will die before he even does anything. If not, his first attack will likely be to swoop and and try to bite you, simply duck to avoid it and then stand up and continue blasting him. If you are very unlucky, instead of swooping down, he will fire the red homing and you will die. Sometimes he will even fire 2 volleys of red homing and that is totally undodgeable regardless of where you are on the screen. I tried to devise a 100% safe strategy on this guy and I came to the conclusion that the only 100% safe strategy was autofire. In my run he just did the standard bite attack, so now issue there.
Stage 5:
The final level. The first threats are the large mouths that appear randomly. This is one of those areas that is complete bullshit as they can literally spawn underneath you and it's a wrap. Luckily, this seems to be fairly rare, so most of the time they aren't a problem.
After that you will encounter these heads that swarm and spin around you. At first there is just one of them, and he's easily to kill A bit later they come in a massive number and my advice is to just bomb this. You can take them out without a bomb but it's very dangerous and unless you have 30hz autofire I wouldn't recommend it. Even then it's probably still best to bomb.
The next section is a long hallway with yellow guys that swarm from little opening on both sides. I don't really know a way to dodge them reliably and it seems like the direction they go is random. So you pretty much need to plan on bombing this hallway at some point. Try to get as far down as you possibly can before you bomb. Remember there is a delay to the bomb, so it's best to let it go a bit early if you think you will be swarmed. My only other advise is just try to get through as quickly as possible. In a 2-all attempt you might consider saving 2 bombs for this section and that should let you get through with absolutely no trouble.
After the hallway you will reach the final boss, which start as a wall with bunch of heads shooting bullets everywhere and yellow guys running around. I think there is also another machine gun drop here so if you somehow limp into this section and are playing with autofire you still have a chance. There are also more of those yellow guys from earlier running around everywhere. You just need to try and dodge this crap and ping him down, it doesn't seem to have much health. In a 2-all attempt, if you still have a bomb left I'd use it here to clear all the yellow guys.
Finally the big head shows up with the tentacles. There is a quick kill strategy for this guy which requires you to line up such that you only hit one of his eyes and then hit the red thing in the middle of his head. If you line everything up properly he will go down before really doing much. If not, he will bring a barrier up around the red thing and start spitting a bunch of tiny grim reaper aliens out that ram into you.
If you don't get the quick kill, you need to go back to the very bottom of the screen and stay in the very middle shooting upward, such that you are hitting the little spinning barriers and making sure the tentacles aren't blocking his mouth. This will allow you to take out his barriers and at the same time kill the grim reapers. Once the barrier is down, pick your spots between when the arms are back and the reapers are dead to fire onto the red area. This is a risky strategy since sometimes the reapers will still get through your fire and come after you, but it's really all you've got at this point.
If you do die, your only shot is to rush the red thing and fire at it point black so that it bypasses the barriers. If you have enough lives (or a very high autogfire rate), you can take the boss down very quickly by just rushing this spot.
Sorry for the ridiculously long post but I just wanted to get this out while it's still fresh in my mind. Good luck soldiers.
Figures it took a Gradius III conqueror like yourself to lure me back. 
I'm gonna plug away at the JP version a bit - it's a longtime nemesis of mine, and this is a bucket list year.
Dude I had no idea Shells carried over between stages, until reading your notes. 
BGM/SFX are as gloriously grainy/crunchy as ever though).
So I'm gonna stick with its resource-richer endurance test for now. In the future, it's the US VHard I'll return to. I love it when a manual scroller packs this much utter enmity into such a compact-yet-malleable package; it really is like Guevara, a brute ingot to forge into a sword of coinop vengeance as you will.
This is a helluva rough game to take on at such short notice! Impressive to see you knock it down just like the rest.
