Easily rivals any of the best 8-bit Compile games and several of the more respected vertical shmups on the PC Engine, in my honest opinion.
Wipes the floor with Mega Drive's Dangerous Seed in terms of visuals and gameplay. Also vastly superior to Darwin 4081 (MD) and Super Real Darwin (arcade).
And to me this is the absolute maximum you can extract from the DCSG (SN76489) in terms of balancing out solid sound effects and music, without ever sounding annoying or empty.
Absolute masterclass in sound design and the compositions would make you believe the sound chip has 5 or 6 channels at times.
Pixel art is equally AAA and absolutely delightful, the way that it never allows the game to have solid black empty backgrounds and look repetitive, generic or boring. Amazing, inspiring really.
This is like SMS' M.U.S.H.A. but also pushing the hardware with absolute balance so that it never overdoes anything, SOLID and POLISHED to the max.
10/10 and then some.