^^^ It's not impossible, actually, it's downright MANDATORY that you don't die once on the hardest setting, unless it's very early on in the game, like the first or second level.... because once you get to the later stages, and you die and lose your power ups, especially during a boss battle, you're pretty much screwed, because your standard pea shooter just won't do the trick!
I think the developers went way overboard with certain aspects of the difficulty level of the game, like starting with the single shot "pea-shooter" rifle instead of the machine gun like you did in Contra 3. In the original Contra you could still get by with just the pea shooter, but it C4, it's damn near impossible, especially on Hard difficulty.
On 2/24/13, MB1025 said:
You know I was always wondering why no one ever used the dollar sign for $ony, but then I realized they have no money so it would be pointless.