I revisited this for the first time in probably over 20 years. I had beaten it on all difficulty levels back when I bought it, and it took a few days to get to where I again beat it on all difficulty levels. This is one of my favorite shooters.
While you'll likely die very quickly until you get the hang of it, once you do get the hang of it, it becomes very manageable, even on the hardest difficulty setting. You get 5 lives and infinite continues, with no option to change this. Continuing does restart you at the beginning of the level, so you can't simply keep continuing at the point you lost your last life at to breeze through to the end. There are 10 levels and two end bosses, with the end bosses being continue points. This is nice, as you don't have to play through the final level every time you run out of continues against the end bosses.
The Power Up system consists of shooting down aircraft that drop power ups to catch that gradually make your standard weapon more powerful. There are also four special weapons -- bombs, shurikans, homing weapons, and laser beams. The special weapons zigzag horizontally across about a third of the screen as well as somewhat slowly moving to the bottom and then to the top of the screen before disappearing, giving you a good amount of time to collect it. The special weapons have four power levels, and to increase their power, you have to catch the same weapon. The nice thing is if you have the Level 2 shurikan and then pick up the laser beam, the laser beam will be Level 2, rather than reverting to Level 0. The special weapons appear in a set order and the cycle does not reset when you continue. When you die, and your craft can only take one hit, your standard weapon is downgraded somewhat and you lose your special weapon, with the special weapon popping out of your destroyed craft to re-collect. When you do regain your special weapon, it's back to Level 0. All of the stages are very doable after continuing when you start back at the base weaponry.
The only negative is, at least on my copy that I bought new, when you beat the game, an Omake option appears that supposedly has a handful of pieces of artwork to view. Unfortunately, this feature doesn't work on my copy, as it displays a black screen and completely locks up the console.
If you don't have to continue (something I've never been able to accomplish, even on the easiest difficulty), it'll take about an hour to beat. Unfortunately, prices for SegaCD games have spiked to where this game goes for an unreasonable price. I bought this on clearance at the tail end of the SegaCD's life. Even if I had paid full price when it was released, it would be well worth the price.
