Great project as always.
I could definitely see your balance changes to the first stage, allowing it to lean more towards the reactionary and less towards the memorization (though memorization has it's own dedicated fanbase of course).

Powerups seems to suffer from a screen coordinate lock that is completely independent from the actual background. What this leads to is a powerup that spawns in an obtainable position but then ends up in a wall or floor or ceiling because the background has scrolled up or down and the powerup hasn't changed y position to compensate (this was all Stage 1 issues upon entering the ship.)

I enjoyed Stage 2 for the most part and it absolutely gave the impression of a city under siege but a lot of the time the enemy waves felt extremely chaotic (sometimes in a good way, sometimes bad) and it started to lean back into the memorization camp of shmups. This isn't a bad thing though, because stage progression should be harder, but the jump from what you made Stage 1 into with your rebalances going into Stage 2 is almost jarring.

Again, great project and I look forward to seeing where it continues to go!

I suck at these types of games, I died constantly and got my first game over pretty quick. The game looks great, the transitions between screens/menus are really flavorful.  Good music and good variation of enemies.

Don't have much negative to say, I just happen to suck at these types of games. The only really notable thing was when I entered a sort of corridor area and I had to avoid collision with the walls. In that area there were a some (at least one, I died at this point)  vertical drops where the enemies were coming from the bottom and scaling it upwards. I died from colliding with an enemy, but with the screen pushing me forward and no ability to shoot up or down this seemed like a pretty dumb way to die. 

Great game, very beautiful style.

Pretty good! I'm not a shmuper but I had fun! Arts great to look at, especially level 2. In game sounds are solid, but the music stands out. I'm pretty sure level 1 got easier since the last demo you posted, which is great! The indoor sections and boss gave me some trouble, but I figured it out. I wish the walls didn't kill me. Level 2 kicked my ass though, I straight up have no idea how to deal with that many enemies and bullets, especially if I mess up beforehand and don't level up my gun. I've tried expertly timing bursts, but there are just so many bullets! Maybe I should git gud????

Random nitpicks: 

• Jump guys should telegraph their jump attack with a squat
• The hit flash on the turrets shouldn't make all of its sprite white, just the "turret part"
• Cluster bomb attack is hard to see because it blends in with the background too much
• Level 2 Boss 1 should have more telegraphs on its attacks, his attack sounds should be louder are more differentiable

Looks fantastic. Feels good. Just hard enough. One of my favorites this time around.

All around a very impressive demo, everything I've seen is finely polished and the game plays very well. 

However I have to admit I do have some trouble noticing where my character is, despite dimming the background and making the bullets pink. I think they would read better if they were the brightest color they are when strobing.

Aside from that, I've found speeding up to be kinda counter intuitive as someone who's only experience with shmups are Touhou and Mushihimesama, you get used to it after a while but I'm still not too hot on that choice.  And there are some enemies which you can't really shoot unless you absolutely master the movement, which kinda feel annoying, but aren't that awful.

What a great game. I too didn't ever feel the desire to use the speedup button but I can see how a better player would. The difficulty is very nice. Too hard for a shitty schmupper like me to 1cc first or second try.  Very nice, mate.

Just finished playing, well, I'm pretty amazed.

My only problem was that on my keyboard Z and X were switched due to the German layout.  And of course crushing my shmup self-confidence, but you earned it.

(Also don't tell the other devs but you earned major bonus props for having a custom executable icon)

I loled at 'meme' screenshake strength.

Goddamn, this reminds me of a few years ago when I was outright obsessed with shmups. This game kicks ass, looks and sounds amazing too, honestly would say it's one of the better looking and playing indie shmups I played, and I'm comparing it to stuff like Blue Wish Resurrection and RefleX. The only suggestion I'd have is to have a speed slower than the slowest you have right now, and to have 'speed up' and 'speed down' as two seperate buttons as an option.

Wow, this is pretty polished and i would've thought this is a finished game from everything i've seen.

I'm not good at these kinds of games, so you may disregard my gameplay notes. I thought changing speed would have more impact on the up/down movement, so this function seemed somewhat redundant.

I also realize that 1-hit-death is a conscious choice, but as a shmup non-experienced i've found it a bit too hard (yeah, i should git gud at that bursting thing, i know)

Overall real great experience.