Two years ago I had decided to finally sit down and give NES Contra the attention it deserved after playing some of the newer games around that time before it (Contra III and Hard Corps in Japanese since both have infinite continues unlike the American version), and while it did take some trial and error to memorize levels,I got a run where I finished the game WITHOUT the Konami Code.
I did use autofire since at that time I was tired of mashing from repeated attempts so I decided to use it...and I still felt like I took many close shaves from dying too much; I started using the autofire when I lost two continues twice at Stage 5 according to my description of that day and I can believe that was the case with how getting that far with small scratches only for the grim reaper to start knocking on my door would get me desperate to try autofire just to not lose the run 😅
And as a little gold metal kept online, I had played it with RetroAchievements so this completion without savestates (which is mandatory for HARDCORE achievements, highlighted in Yellow instead of Blue) nor Konami Code is registered in my account :)
All in all I say that this game can be tricky with the enemy placement but it feels like it comes down to memorizing where they come from to do quick work of them and then survive the bosses.
Always nice to see someone remember this old classic :)
Wow, that was an epic run and you did it all alone too. I wish I were a whale and could really like your comment. !PIZZA