I used a few continues, as well as the auto-fire feature built into the Contra Anniversary Collection to beat this. Not the most impressive of clears, but considering it's a really bullshit game, I think I'm fine with this.

Super Contra is just kind of a bummer to think about. It did make some nice improvements over the original arcade Contra in a lot of ways, from better music/presentation, to some interesting new mechanics (like weapon upgrading, apparently; I actually didn't realize this existed this early in the series)... but there's a few key things holding Super Contra back.

One thing, is that this game introduces a really terrible mechanic, in the ability to control the height of your jump, by holding up. Keep in mind, this is a game where you are scrolling from left to right in the platforming stages, and where enemies are constantly swarming you from the sides. You have to shoot them all before they hit you, while also taking the time to awkwardly shift your aim upward in order to have a non-shit jump. What the fuck. I'm glad Contra would never again experiment with this shit mechanic, because it really brings the game down. Good thing they removed it entirely in Super C on the NES.

In addition, even if you discount the bad jump mechanic, this game is just kinda bullshit in general. It loves to swarm the player with a ton of enemies, and even with autofire turned on, it can feel nearly impossible at times. And like with some other notorious arcade games from this era (including some of Konami's own works, like the original Contra), you only have a limited amount of continues before the game forces you to restart from the beginning – even if you've inserted more credits.

It's not worth the trouble. I only went ahead and beat this so I could finally put it behind me, but unless you're a super-dedicated Contra fan who wants to see both the series' heights and pitfalls, I would stay away from this. Super Contra is easily the worst in-house Konami-developed game in the series.