Rapid in conjunction with the Spreader makes it that much more effective. It's quicker to cluster the shots so that you do even more damage that way.
Also, that no-death
Contra run was one of my white whales. And speaking of white whales...
January:February:March:April:May:33) Final Fantasy V (SFC) (6.0) (5/1) (~33 hours)34) Super Adventure Island (SNES) (7.0) (5/2) (~1 hour)35) Dragon Spirit: The New Legend (NES) (7.5) (5/3?) (~30 minutes)36) Mighty No. 9 (PS4) (5.0) (5/6?) (~5 hours)37) Contra III: The Alien Wars (Hard) (SNES) (8.5) (5/11) (~1 hour)Yes, I beat
Contra III on Hard. The time might say an hour, but it's more like 15 hours of practice before I got it all down. I had a splendid early run up until Stage 4, only dying once, then I got all sorts of careless and started hemorrhaging lives. Actually had a somewhat decent missile boss, though. Finally had to burn my first continue in Stage 5, then proceeded to no-death that until I got to the boss. And even that went pretty well. Double-tap L works wonders.
For the last stage, I had most of my continues, but figured I'd give myself a little buffer in case things went poorly at the last boss. Which it did. Turns out you can grab the homing shot, stand in a safe place, and blast aliens to your heart's content, racking up extra lives. I definitely went ahead and got 15, just to be
dang sure I finished it. I didn't end up needing them, but the last boss went poorly enough that I was glad to have them.
So I never have figured out how to effectively dodge one of the attacks the last boss throws out at you. I usually will lose at least three lives when he pulls it... and of course, that was one of the attacks. I also ended up with one of the bubble attacks
twice, which is also no fun. But still, took him down.
Then the chopper. Well, turns out that he can be a cheating SOB. Most runs, he'll start with his right hand, then his left swiping at you, but nooooo, he starts with the left, while I was pumping him full of lead. So there was one more life gone. And another just from being stupid. I've had much better Stage 6 runs... but who cares? It's beaten! Y'all will forgive me if I don't play the game again for quite some time.