Zallard1's comments
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So here are my comments/thoughts on the Contra 4 run and how it went down...

Stage 1 went pretty well. We split up so Mr K gets a crush while I keep the screen scrolling. Other than that, we pretty much just obliterate anything in our path.

Stage 2 is where I kill myself after I destroy a path for K with my machine gun in the lab. I make my best effort to destroy that turret while dying, which entertains me as much as when DK28 kills that rock in the Contra low% co-op. I return later to collect laser and the double crush that K had. We then crushed the snipers/boss, and split the crush between us for the base stage.

Stage 3 gets crushed, literally. One crush is already OP for the base stages, but two just makes it look sad. I give K back his crush at the end. so we each have a powered up weapon again (since I have 2 lasers now).

Stage 4 has us split up so K grabs his 1st laser, then we join up while I grab my 1st crush. There are a few really powerful spawns on the path to the missile, but that's to be expected. The robots that reform to shoot spread are extra obnoxious. Rest of the level is pretty smooth though.

Stage 5 is basically where we power up our weapons all the way to where we both have power crush and power laser. Aside from that, it's an autoscroller with not much else to say.

Stage 6 also gets crushed, being a base stage. The stage is also something of a teaser for what's to come in stage 7, as it's where we begin using double crush and double laser.

Stage 7 gets massacred. Just slapped straight across the face with double crush and double laser. The tank arrives to explode. The spider gets double crushed before you even see his other attack. The one sniper everyone hates gets double crushed so hard he can't even shoot. Finally, the stage's boss gets double lasered so hard that it dies before we even get a chance to ride on a bike. This stage has never been more unsuccessful at killing Contra protagonists than in this run, and I feel a little bad for participating in its demise... maybe.

Stage 8 gets crushed for a little, then K doesn't quite clear the enormous hitbox of the ceiling alien, so I split my powered crush with him (thanks to Heidman for the call on that) and we returned to old habits of double crushing the base stage. K collects powered up Fire, because we all know he's the one qualified for such a weapon.

Stage 9 is brutal. Heartless, nonstop spawns that want nothing but your death with music that fits that theme pretty well. Mr K and I end up trying for a strat where I collect double machine gun, but I accidentally shoot a weapon pod that I thought was offscreen, and accidentally collected a surprise crush that overwrote my machine gun. While panicking, I died once on the way up the ascent to the crushers, and once at the top of the elevator that takes you to the final boss. By some miracle, we ended up getting a pattern that lets powered crush do max damage to the boss (usually it does minimal). That luck basically bailed out the run to where we got an extremely fast 2 cycle.

Just want to say thanks to Mr K for the constant support for helping me learn the game, getting the run to happen, and or course putting together the Contra Conference! It was alot of fun! Thanks go out to Heid, DK, and Blat too of course!

Mr. K's comments
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Note on the run - Contra 4 co-op relies on wireless communications between two Nintendo DS models. Due to some weaknesses in the wireless transmissions with the Nintendo DS, when there are lots of things happening on the screen, the game will lag. One DS is the host and another DS joins. Another side effect of the weakness in wireless transmissions is that there will always be a slight delay from what the DS that joins sees to what is happening on the host side. The joined DS may barely reach a platform with a jump and then suddenly be pushed off because the hosting DS had the platform in a different space.

Special thanks to:
Zallard1 - for being an amazing co-op partner and an all around great speedrunner and friend
Sean Velasco - For making the game and also pointing out that wireless signals create interference that causes the game to lag. Without that tip we would not have been able to complete this run.
Loopy - The capture device is what made this run possible. We can't thank you enough!
cpadolf - That TAS was very helpful.
Hurblat, Heidman, DK28 - the Contra Conference Crew - thanks to all of you. It was a fantastic week!!!

The weapons route of this run is really complicated and I'll focus on this for the rest of it. The weapons in this game are decently balanced. They have strengths and weaknesses in different places. On top of that you can share weapons.

Machine gun - consistent damage and the way it stacks is very helpful in stage 2
Fire - Fire is useless in base stages, but does excellent damage to enemies with smaller hitboxes and the final boss
Crush - Absolutely wrecks base stages, also does much higher than expected damage for enemies with large hitboxes that move and splash damage
Laser - Its damage is based on the size of the enemy hitboxes on side scrolling stages and it does strange amounts of damage for base stages, but it is quite a lot)
Spread - Does great damage while point blank making it useful for stage 1, but nowhere else

Stage 1 - the goal here is for me to get upgraded crush that I'll eventually split in stage 2. I need upgraded fire. Zallard gets spread for the boss and machine gun will be very useful in stage 2
Stage 2 - Due to wireless transmission issues, Zallard can't make the climb with me. I pick up a crush upgrade and flame upgrade. Zallard tags back in at the bridge. I give both of my crushes to him and then start using my fire. Zallard picks up one laser. We need to do this so we will both have weapons to use on the snipers and boss. Once the boss is defeated Zallard gives me a crush.
Stage 3 - Having split the crush in two, each of us now has crush and this causes the base stages to get wrecked. Our next goal is that we both want upgraded crush and laser. Zallard gets the laser here.
Stage 4 - I swap out fire for laser here. Submarine gets wrecked. That dodge...
Stage 5 - I got a little greedy picking up laser, but it's fine. Our weapons are now set up until stage 8
Stage 6 - We alternate between crush and laser depending on the hitbox of certain enemies
Stage 7- City is normally a challenging stage, but we can cheat a few things. The tank doesn't get to do anything and the sniper in the monkey bars just gets wrecked.
Stage 8 - Double laser owns. I die in the cycle based room, but Zallard splits up a crush which gets us mostly back on track. Not quite as good for not having double laser on the boss, but still fantastic.
Stage 9 - This is just tough. So basically we both want double fire to be able to one cycle the final boss. It doesn't work out that way, but we lucked out.