Do I still recommend it, after clearing it? Yes, universally. Let not whatever preconceptions or prior experiences with the genre deter here, as Drainus is about as forgiving a shooter as they come, clearly designed for its context as a home game today even as it pays homage after homage to the arcade greats; it's a Ladybug game and they've always prized interesting and thoroughly explored play systems over brickwall difficulty in what they wish to evoke with their vintage stylings. You can take multiple hits, recover lost power-ups after the fact, save and resume progress, stage select and build an arsenal with the in-game shop and customization that trashes the opposition handily after a while of investment. Regardless of the game balance being in the player's favour most of the time, you still have to engage with it as you go and learn the nuances of the central bullet absorption and reflecting mechanic that everything is built around. It's not an Ikaruga-like "play the game this way and only this way" puzzle-like precision show, but a fundamental wrinkle on the meat-and-potatoes horizontal action that brings the game's voice somewhere in a liminal space between its various core influences (notably Gradius, but many others) and the newer schools of bullet heck and specialized play mechanic showcases, naturalistically incorporating design touches from the genre's other end like a focused movement speed toggle that displays the ship's hitbox for those tighter maneuvers.
Ladybug's practiced expertise at boss encounters has all these elements harmonize the clearest mechanically, while the stage portions speak to the virtuosity that is beheld any time one interacts with their strain of 2D pixel art--peerless in its articulation, detail and spectacle, with stage 1 alone ending up a feverish cacophony of high-octane thrills that could've been measured through an entire game's length but in here is just the opener. It's a confidence inherent to their house style, even extending to the light narrative contextualizing the action which in other genre works can often be immaterial at best and embarrassing and intrusive at worst--for the treatment here, the story's content isn't notable but the ease with which its dramatics flow through the narrative arc of the game is, and is to be commended for keying in on that precarious balance. There are three difficulty levels to start with and two more unlocking after a clear so those wishing to push the game further than the baseline are accommodated for, but the strength here is definitely in how thoroughly hospitable the game is to players of a wide bracket of skill levels without ever once acting self-conscious or apologetic about the deep affection on display toward the old and cantankerous pedigree. Ladybug at this point have nothing to prove and are far from novices at development, but that a game like this is anyone's first foray into a genre is wildly astounding, even if they've long courted the possibility that is more than realized here.
