I'm playing through on Easy now and it's a lot more tolerable. I'll beat it like this and then move up to Normal.

I guess it's just taking my brain a little time to warp itself back to 1989.

I know it can be against the rules, but doesn't it have the 30 lives cheat as the original one ? Please don't call me cheater ;), but that would help a lot, I remember how it helped me beat the first one and then I tried to beat it without the cheat.
How do I miss those days, where your problems could be solved with an Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right ... if you follow those steps you could even be dancing pretty well :P!!!!!!!

Goosegaws is right, the challenge mode is a great feature for an old-schoolishly challenging game. It basically allows you to play through the majority of the game in small(around 90 seconds) chunks-this makes the regular mode much more manageable. I've almost finished the challenge mode(4 more left), and I can't get a good enough start going on normal yet to keep myself from resetting;)

I love it, it's a breath of fresh air straight from the 80's. It's very much like Ninja Gaiden on X Box in that it isn't so hard it makes me punch myself, just makes me think about it sometimes. Basically it doesn't whore itself out by removing it's notorious difficulty, but remains more challenging than most games without going too far overboard.

Camiloc, I'm not sure if the old Konami code works on Contra IV itself, but there is a glitch that allows you to get 99 lives. You have to lose your last life just as you achieve a 1-up(happens via certain scores). I haven't lowered myself to this point, but I've been known to crawl in a ditch here and there. :)

@camiloc:

Though I have not tried this myself, I have read that the first time you use the Konami code it will upgrade your weapons. If you use it a second time, it kills you. No thirty lives code on this go-around, I'm afraid!

@GooseGaws: That is true, but you can use the code per continue per stage without dying, you just can't use it more than once per stage per continue.

finished the game on normal...can't get past the 4th mission on hard... great game, sooo goood