Really basic and rudimentary shmupping even for 1990 but damn it has a low-proxy vibe to it that I like. Shooters are the one genre Nintendo's always been really hands-off of, and playing it you can see the design tribulations they went through trying to figure out what it should be and how it should complement their early GB catalogue. You got shit like a final stage miniboss rush even though minibosses don't start appearing until the second half. The boss design starts at Gradius 1 levels of simplicity, and then spikes up to some absurd Toaplan-esque fights that just spew aimed bullets at you from all sides (and the final boss is embarrassingly easier than both of them). I thought the game was gonna roll with just one background song because stage 1 and 2 use the same theme for some reason. Things like that make the total six-stage package incongruent within itself, but it's cute to me bc you get a solid timeline for when the designers changed their minds on certain things. Fun game theory.

I also played this with the dark palette like Vee, and it's all the better for it. Lovely ambiance, those wireframe-like city buildings and such.