Not a very clean finish but can't complain either. Wound up making it to the fourth or fifth loop on this same playthrough before I ran out of continues. Great game
im playing using retroarch which emulates dozens of consoles and a website called retroachievements which has achievements for i think over 8000 games now here is a link to my retroachievements profile: retroachievements.org/user/cart
i do emulate but i don't use save states or cheats or anything like that. basically you just learn all the problem areas and just stop dying there. every loop gets harder/faster enemies/spawns but on this same playthrough i wound up getting to the 4th loop on the same set of continues before i finally ran out. i'd say just practice with the contra code until you can beat the game without using a continue with the 10 lives it gives you and you will be good enough to beat it straight up. the more attempts you make the better you get at the earlier levels too so by the time you get to the hard stages you will have 7+ lives. and like pretty much all nes games, once you can beat it once, youll be able to beat it over and over again and basically be able to curb stomp the game
