People are more flexible there than you might think. A friend and I started trying to beat NES Contra without killing anything (it does force you to in parts),

People are more flexible there than you might think. A friend and I started trying to beat NES Contra without killing anything (it does force you to in parts), and after Googling it later, it seems quite a few people had the same idea. There are "pacifist" speedruns on youtube.