I decided to try out every game on PS Plus, so gave this a whirl. I'm not really a shmup fan but the gameplay wasn't awful, pretty smooth. I just don't care about or understand the appeal of half-naked anime children. Gross.
I truly believe that anyone complaining that this remaster isn't a better version than the original simply didn't play the original. The weapon wheel and map are nice QoL upgrades and the framerate and autosave is a huge step up (post-patching, of course).