Balloon Joe forgave Mr Needle, I ended with 8800 points.
It was great! The music is top notch, the art is top notch, I love that you went with multiple, quite detailed backgrounds yet what's happening on the screen is always perfectly clear. I'm also fond of the "pew". The game is pleasant to control and fun to play with no dead time and the appropriate speeds for everything. With the detailed environments, 3 unique boss fights and the cut scenes you also have quite some content here.
You arguably played it a bit safe with the overall difficulty, the game could probably be at least a tiny bit harder.
Thanks for sharing!