Forgotten Worlds is a passable shmup at its core, but there are things about it that deeply frustrate me. It features this mechanic where you can upgrade weapons and health for coins, which sounds all fine and dandy, but managing your health and weapons and coins all at once is total hell for some reason. It seems like some levels are weirdly scarce of coins, some had them hidden in certain places and in others I just could not find any. At the end of each level you can sometimes obtain a bonus surplus of coins, but I never quite understood the criteria for such and it felt like it was random whether or not I was given one. You will need a good amount of weapon upgrades AND health upgrades to get by, but it always feels like there's little to no room to purchase both.

I'm not a fan of that upgrades system at all. It's a total hassle, and honestly really fucking stupid in my opinion when Thunder Force II was released for the console the same year and its upgrades were simple as dirt and much better to boot anyways (and that game isn't even very good either). I actually had to run through the whole game twice, because the first time I reached the final boss the weapons I had were not damaging him at all. Or at least, I don't think they were, because there's no feedback. I really hate that. When I get hit the screen shakes around and I flicker for a bit, but there's hardly (or sometimes never) a signal that I'm actually damaging the bosses?

By the way, the final boss is crap even with sufficient upgrades. His two attacks aren't really telegraphed, whichever one he chooses is random, and one of them is insanely hard to dodge. Also, no continues, and even before him it's an absurdly difficult game. Have fun, asshole!