I know jack shit about Macross, that's the blue singing lady right?

I like this, I like the ship transformations and their cool weapons. This has a similar challenge factor of Thunder Force III, you have to memorize both the stages and the ideal movement and weapon tactics to deal with certain threats. Great for about 90% of the run, has a handful of bosses that feel upwards of quadruple as hard as the stages they inhabit - 1, 6 and 7 respectively. Some real Gradius Syndrome here too. You can definitely learn consistent strats to get around everything, but the meandering pace and aformentioned trouble points mean I probably won't come back to this as often as I do with Thunder Force.