Your Sledgehammer posted:

My favorite game that is thought of as very difficult is Contra for the NES. When I was a kid, even the 30 lives code wouldn't get me close to offing the vile Red Falcon, but now I can occasionally beat it without losing a single life. All it took was some practice; during one semester of high school, I'd pop in Contra for 30 or 40 minutes as soon as I got home and see what I could do. After just a few weeks, I didn't need the code or any continues. It's really just a matter of memorizing enemy placements, as most enemies are fixed. Nab the spread gun early on and you're good to go. I'll play it off and on for a couple of weeks once every 2 or 3 years, and it's like riding a bike. It's also one of the purest run-and-gun games out there; each level is near perfect in length (except maybe Level 4, which is a bit long for what it is), and I think the soundtrack is extremely underappreciated. In fact, were it not for the works of one Koji Kondo, I'd call it the best soundtrack on the NES.

The real make-or-break part of the game is Level 5, the snow field. I can usually breeze through the first four levels, but five poses a significant challenge and marks a step up in difficulty. A lot of it has to do with the fact that the robot enemies that randomly appear take on a new level of aggression in Level 5 and start shooting their guns at you more often. There's a little platforming section early on in the level that can put you in situations where an enemy has fired after you've already jumped, and there's pretty much no way to avoid losing a life. I've probably died more on that level than any other.