I wish I could give this a better shot, but I have to leave for a vacation in several hours, and darned stage 3 is still destroying me the vast majority of time.
moozooh - 622,700 - Koitsu - 4+1 - MAME
A surprisingly enjoyable game, but tough as nails indeed. Even never picking up missiles nor powering up beyond level 3 (had to choose Manual to do this, although I truly loathe checkpoints) achieves only as much as keeping the rank just a step below max. Still not sure whether going for the Moai battleship is a good idea compared to going through stages 3/4 at supposedly lower rank, but I got it here. Also, kept the chain through stage 2 in this run. Unless you're super awesome, the trick is to avoid killing bell-producing enemies at certain spots where grabbing them is especially problematic (hello, offscreen scrolling).
Also, posting this for agill/DK64_MASTER, just in case:
DK64_MASTER - 751,400 - Koitsu - 5 - MAME