I demand to know who playtested all these mid/late-eighties shmups. Nobody? The world’s sickest and most depraved person? How could you try ALESTE, which has great fundamentals, and think, “yeah, its an awesome idea to just completely fuck the player over if they die even once. I love how annoying and impossible that makes it. Ship it!”

It makes sense in an arcade money-making context, like with Gradius, but in a console game? Just let me keep my dang power ups!