Great work, this was fun to play and it fits nicely with the NES tradition of vertical space shooters. I was feeling pretty good at that halfway point -- alas, an illusion! I played to the end end and had fun. In level 1B, the long strings of blue enemies (and maybe also the single red ones?) kept coming down and encircling the screen while I was fighting the boss, which i assumed was just a step-up in challenge that forced you in closer to the boss and required quicker player movements/reactions, but when the 2B and 3B bosses didn't have that, I realized it may have been an accidental overlap of game phases. But it actually worked really well! Nice job on this game.