BigBossSNK:
The reflector is easy yes, but first few times I beat the China stage I didn't use it except for on the boss after I lost my first ship (otherwise it would be too much of a hazzle to regain the energy stock). Going through the whole stage while using reflector awards a LOL from me because that would be very very boring and non-intuitive

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And about that, Mr. Gamemaker! Some comments:
The second ship is a little too powerful on the china stage, even without the reflector.
Altough I at first didn't use the "release energy"-weapon, when I tried using it I found that it was too powerful in clearing away everything on the screen, so if I want to play against the boss I use it on the stage to make it almost impossible to die on the regular enemies in the stage. On the other stages, I didn't find it too powerful because you get less energy there.
I actually haven't tried the first ship much on the china stage yet

, will have to do that now, but I want to say that I think it's a nice idea to have these two completely different ships.
All in all, I liked playing on the China stage but the randomness in how the enemy moves in the other stages didn't suit me, since it takes away many strategic options and just makes me fly around avoiding (or, sometimes, not avoiding

) the projectiles until I can get a clean shot and bombard the ships lol..
Sometimes, depending on how the enemies choose to move, the Thailand/Korea stages are very easy, and sometimes they make it very hard for you. But, "luckily", with the reflector you can turtle up for a while and win the stages that way if you want to, but since it takes too much time there is no prestige in that, it's better to just start over to get a better completion time I think. But it's good for those who really have trouble and really want to beat the stages, so the shield is a good mechanic imo.
Aside from the game play-aspects, I also like the graphics and the music more on the China stage.
One thing that annoyed me is that it takes a long time for the ship to reappear after dieing, and also after game over when entering the main "menu". A "restart" or "back to menu" option rather than just esc-key = quit game would be nice too, but maybe there is more to it and I just haven't found the right buttons to press?

Two more things: I really don't like how the text in the lower right corner makes it so much harder to see the bullets and the ship, and I _really_ don't like how you can't shoot bullets and fly down and to the left at the same time... Maybe many keyboards can handle that, but it IS a classical problem that shouldn't exist in this day and age! Easily solved by adding an option to change the buttons to the players choosing, which I personally would like to see very much.
To conclude with my personal opinion on your game, I think that it is too much "arcade style" for me. I want a little more planning and having to study the patterns to be able to beat it, and although I also like bullet dodging I didn't find that aspect here that exciting except against the China boss which I did like a lot, EXCEPT for the randomness in how he flies of course :] .
Also, I don't feel the longevity of the game when I play. I've had a few hours of playing and that is fine, but the way I played it didn't evolve very much after I first found out how I should play, and I feel the game doesn't have a very advanced balance or difficulty curve. All in all, I think you've done a good job on many aspects of the game, but unfortunately I'm not sure if I'll give you my vote this time. You've done good but can do better!
Best of regards,
/Bob
EDIT, BUG: On China stage with the attractor ship, one of the bigger ships (that is on the far left, with another to the far right, (right before four small bullet spraying ships appear, and after those ships four rocket launching ships appear) that shoots out "coloured" bullets left two behind when dieing. This happened to me twice, but only with the attractor ship. They are hanging to the left of the screen, and are still lethal I assure you

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