First off: I loved it, the story was great, there were some really high adrenaline scenes the dialouges were witty ect. ect. ect. However I think there are some things that need to be hinted out -->NOT BECAUSE THE GAME IS BAD BUT BECAUSE I THINK YOU CAN DO MUCH BETTER<--
1. The Upgrades were very different considering if they actually helped: For example The projectile speed is useless compared to damage upgrades since obviously the number of situations in which high bullet speed is needed (in fact only when fighting against a very small target) is significantly outnumbered by the situations in which more damage is needed (about any given situation) But still this difference between the uses is not sufficently shown in the prices of these upgrades.
2.I know it is propably just experimental but having the upgrades shattered everywhere across the map is making rational and logical upgrading (what do i need first, how should i spend my money) rather difficult as you never exactly know where the upgrades are, what kind of upgrades you can afford ect. And pushes you into buying anything that is offered to you given you have the needed money. Although it would take out some of the realism i would rather reccomend you to stick with the old fashioned Menu-upgrades On that account i would like to note that i liked the idea of getting upgrades for mission quite well and also not always getting exactly what was promised in beforehand of the mission as i think this to make the game more realistic without throwing the balance off.
3. Normally this kind of 2d shooters are "bullet hells" given a large number of bullets a big screen and an agile character. Here although the screen was - in comparison to the ships- quite small and the hitbox of your ship quite big. The Consequences:
- There are quite few bullets on screen at a given time creating the impression that everyone on the screen is pressed together like having a gunfight inside of an elevator and you don´t feel like your full attention is actually required for dodging
- You have little time destroying the enemys as they pass relatively fast and since most of them shoot straight forward making you simply avoid most of your enemys ending up to kill almost nothing in many mission which makes you feel extra stupid when your mission was to kill everyone to begin with.
- Those previous two things make you feel somehow clumsy as the number of bullets is decreased in relation to other "bullet hell" games but you still get hit
- Also there were at times big problems with those objects that would block the entire way. Of course you can survive them when you have enough defense/firepower but generally i dislike situations in which the upgrades are neccecerially required in order to pass the mission.
This was a problem obviously arising from the mixture of rpg which relys on the protagonists strenght (if you can´t defeat it lvl up) and bullet hell which relys on the players strenght (learn the patterns and develop a strategy).
I repeat: I do not mean to tell you that your game is bad... it is not! And i liked it very much. Sorry for the bad English.
Greetings from Germany