I was just playing for survival and a deathless run, taking the easy route and quick boss kills so I'm probably not in a position to notice. But if you are using the Saturn port and want to use autofire it's best to the JP stick's turbo feature as that will increase the rank.
But if you don't get hit and get yourself powered up to the orange wave and 2 white shots, with auto or turbo, staying to the easy path (A-B-D-H-L-Q-V) and going for quick boss kills, then Gaiden isn't that hard to 1CC. You won't even need to bomb that often. Neon Light Illusion in level H should be your first place to bomb (1 or 2 if you can dodge some patterns) and you might want to spam the final boss if it gets a bit nasty. I've done that at 55 years of age. So I'd expect most people to be able to manage that.
I intend to return to the game now that I have a deathless 1CC and take on the more difficult routes and see all the final bosses.
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