[Vicious_2003]

I rented Gaiden a few days ago. After the first 5 chapters I was ready to give this game tons of praise. It was truly excellent up to THAT point. BUT. Ive reached a point that has me throwing controllers left and right. Im at a save where every time I load, 4 black Ninjas regenerate. So ive got to fight my way through tose guys...then 5 more black ninjas, then 3 more, then 3 regular gun soldiers, and then 3 or 4 of those giant red satan beasts things. All that with one small health, one large health and a butload of energy for my fire attack. How in the blue blazing hell is that even possible. The black ninjas alone are hard enough. All they do is have one or two confront me and one or 2 throw exploding ninja stars at me over and over and over and over and over again (Wich is incredibly cheap). How can they expect you to dodge shurinkans and kill ninjas on the ground at the same time !?.

Is there some sort of technique I could use to beat this, should I have more health at this point ? Have I made a huge mistake by not knowing how to use my fire atack to this point ? Please help me so I dont have to file this game under "Too difficult to matter" along with Contra : Shattered Soldier.