Yes, the pattern matching is important. There was a sequel to Contra on PS2 (I think) that my friend and I found pretty hard. We learned the patterns of where to be and where/when to aim. Then, we kicked butt. We turned it up to the hardest setting and didn’t really need to adjust much. So, it ended up being really easy at that point. We loved playing that game after we learned the patterns.
Yes, the pattern matching is important. There was a sequel to Contra on PS2 (I think) that my friend and I found pretty hard. We learned the patterns of where to be and where/when to aim. Then, we kicked butt. We turned it up to the hardest setting and didn’t really need to adjust much. So, it ended up being really easy at that point. We loved playing that game after we learned the patterns.