[Shmandala DEMO] 2 Loop Clear (Score: 1,777,203)

The game is promising. But the demo has issues that I've seen beginner shmup devs have done over and over and over again. Good lord, have they asked a veteran player's feedback while in development or not? The game feels like it's more interested to be a quirk chungus game than a proper good shmup! You can shoot and bomb. I don't mind such simplicity at all, but the first immediate problem is when you shoot you slow down. No exceptions. No spread shot, just focus shot. The game promises fast pace yet the game forces the player to SLOW DOWN!? It actually can be seen in the trailers but now that I played this myself,. HORRIBLE! This is what, 3rd time I've played an indie shmup that works like this? This is 2026! KNOCK IT OFF! There is no good reason at all to force me to slow down when I shoot! Follow Psikyo control scheme or something! You guys have played Batsugun, right!? The enemy HP is also of concern. It's too thick! On its own maybe it's not so bad, but this game PUNISHES you for letting the enemies get away. Like, DIRECT SCORE DEDUCTION! Feels bad, man! What, "collect the power ups, you scrub"? I did; and the enemy HP is still thick enough to get away! I've even pointblanked but doesn't seem to improve my DPS! Then there is the triangle choice power up items. As we may know, the real right way is to go inside the circle then get them all. The circle room is small. Okay. Meanwhile the enemies still assault you left and right. I am expected to bomb here, right? Meanwhile the bomb duration is so, so short! Its power is not that great either. The game wants you to grab all 3 items at once, but the stage design hates you for doing this. Nope! The item also still moves and doesn't stop moving when I'm inside! So if you're too late from the movement routing of the item, you'll miss out the other 2 items. The enemy bullet color is questionable too. Some colors are fine, like pink and green. Then the game has brown. Guess the color of the player ship. I've identified brown as a safe color in this game. You wanna trick my brain that the brown bullets doesn't exist??? Even worse, this will BLEND WITH THE PLAYER SHIP! Good luck weaving tight spaces of these BROWN BULLETS! Oh, have I mentioned this game's Gradius Syndrome? In 2026, you power down to Level 1 when you die. Great. it's one thing if it's a checkpoint game and the power down effect is pared with significant rank down or the DPS is competent at low level, but not here! When you die, get ready to see your score tank A LOT because you lack the power to shoot them all down! To be fair, it's far from the worst shmup ever, but I don't wanna recommend a demo that is hasn't reached "good enough" yet. It has fast enough pacing but bogged down by the SHOOTING controls, and the enemy HP is too thick to support its own selling point. Dev, if you're reading this, it's not too late to adjust the game to be more in line to your marketing blurbs. TL;DR: Don't slow down the ship when I shoot, lower enemy HP enough to make 100% destruction rate comfortable, curb the punishment from the Gradius Syndrome / give benefit of dying like a notable rank down, and DON'T USE BROWN BULLETS! Having a 2nd loop with counter bullets in a demo, of all things, is cute. I'll give it that.