Dammit, not done either of those. My list grows longer.

Got through the first level of Metal Gear Slug 3 last night, after turning the player count up to what I thought would be a generous 15. Promptly reset the software and racked the extra lives up to 99. Will return today.

Completely.  In purist terms it's a silly way to play something like this but for some reason the older I get the more I treat games with a mindset somewhere between Augustus Gloop and Leroy Jenkins.  It's rare for me to gitgud at anything retro these days as I'd rather just play through it, form an opinion on what I played (in the manner I played it) and move on.  I can get a general feel for most 2D games based on years of experience, but brute forcing something with save states/silly extra life reserves means any feedback has to be taken with a pinch of salt.

I played through MS3 not long ago.
I have no idea how people get through these things properly but Im happy to spam my way through. As a kid I was always more into seeing what was next, particularly the art. Never overly fussed by challenge or high scores.

I watched GameGrumps play through Super Ghouls and Ghosts the other day (pretty sure that counts as a Run n Gun), I say play through they actually save scummed. To be fair though watching someone play that game properly for the first time wouldn't make for a fun Lets Play. 
Somehow despite being very much in the biz they had no idea about the 'fuck you do it again' ending. Very amusing when they found out. I'm sure a few SNES pads got broken on that one.

In the old days, doing something like that would ruin the game you’ve spent £40 on. It quickly gets boring. Now, just do it, see what it’s about, load up another rom.

Clearing level 1 with one life isn't that difficult with some practice if you take the easiest route. Despite appearances the game is well designed for 1CCing in how it hands out the right powerups at the right time though you are fucked if you lose a life and powerups at certain points. In level 1 ignore the submarine section and move onto the boat section.

I will credit feed at times. Have done it with Metal Slug 3 but you usually miss out on some nice level design that way. I really struggle with level 2 in MS3. 

It's a fine game for score attack too what with the pickups and the hostages. MS3 on PS2 (solo version) also has a gallery that shows the different pickups and hostages you have saved for completionists.

Hellfire 1CC is a hell of an achievement. We played that in here a few years back and I swear I struggled with save states.

Super Shinobi is a different game to Revenge - discovered Super when I bought an MD Everdrive. Excellent game.

Most 16bit games can be 1CCed but it takes devotion. In these days of ROM piles that isn't going to happen too often.

When I realised that modern shmups could be 1CCed, that turned me back onto that genre. I hadn't really played many modern shmups until I got educated on that point and it's why it's my main gaming diet now.

I love the fact that these games look impossible to the uninitiated. I remember first playing Gigawing on the Dreamcast and dismissing it as a coin muncher. Have since 1CCed it.  If anything modern bullet hell shmups can be 1CCed more often than the older ones which really are coin munchers.

Hellfire's a fine game. It has that quality of looking easier than it actually is.

I also magic spammed the bosses, especially dino. Only one I didn’t cheese was the hairy bastard at the end

Metal Slug 3 done (with infinite lives). The last level takes the absolute piss. Wonderful stuff.

Metal Slug 3 - PS5 (90 mins)

Credit fed blitz through the main game.  I'm not sure how the series has passed me by for this long - I've been meaning to get around to it since the mid-90s, but the sequels kept stacking up and I wasn't sure where to start.  It's unlikely I'll play them all, so I consulted a random franchise top 10 on Youtube.  This was no.1, and the guy chatting over the footage didn't seem to think it was a close run thing.

Obviously it's soul crushingly difficult.  It has the decency to ease you in at least, but by stage 3 I could feel it in my plums - I wouldn't have the patience or skill to beat this game properly.  I tested myself with the level 4 boss, which I decided to see if I could beat without dying by setting a save state.  In the end I couldn't quite do it, but I managed it in two lives and it's clear that practice makes perfect, which is what you want with this sort of thing.  At certain points enemies were just munching through what was left of my 100 lives as I pushed through the rest of the game though.  Thankfully continuing gave me another 100, and I managed to do it in under 200 all told.  Touch me.  It wouldn't have made for much of a stream, but I had a blast.  The final level just keeps going, but the insane difficulty of certain segments is irrelevant with infinite credits so I was just shooting things, stabbing things, occasionally turning the volume up a wee bit more and chuckling to myself.

Visually it's easily one of the best looking 2D games I've ever seen.  There are some gorgeous indies around these days, but this would still place near the top of an all-time top ten pixel art graphics list. The animation, phwoar; beautiful stuff, with some top tunes to match.  The gameplay is great, but (and this may be due to the way I played it, of course) perhaps not the peerless run & gun perfection I was anticipating.  It's very, very good, but based on what I played not quite SS-tier.  Maybe co-op pushes it into the God tier.  Marvellous stuff though, I've popped some of the others on my watch list, will treat myself as and when. 92%

Talking of Metal Slug, I've (heavily) hinted at my family for the Irem cart for the Evercade. It has In the Hunt on it, which is what the Metal Slug team made before they left to develop for SNK. Another copy of R-Type is just a delicious bonus.

Nice.  In the Hunt is definitely something I'd like to play.  Fell foul of the the BUT IT'S NOT 3D narrative in UK games mags at the time iirc, there were some pretty low scores around for the Saturn port anyway (which I assume was decent, but perhaps not).

In the hunt is quality and yes...is Metal Slug in a submarine. Have the PS1 port but it's very MAMEable.