Challenging but satisfying. Just some of the good points. I'm really impressed at some of the visual effects you've managed to squeeze out of a little pico-8 cart. Explosions, ship trails, all that looks great. The background parallax is a great way to feel the speed. Collisions are really good. The speed of the game is spot on. It all works well together.
Some little things that need some tweaking, at least in my opinion:
- The screenshake is good screenshake, however it is a bit over top. Either the range between character bounces is too large, or the shake lasts too long, it is sometimes overpowering. I think some minor tweaking to the timing and range could fix this easily.
- The sound effects for launching a rocket and dying are these short beeping noises. They really stand out against the great explosion and shooting sound effects.