Thanks for giving it another run! Yeah the hitbox on the stage is kinda weird, still trying to figure out why the health pickups just pass through it sometimes. At the very least, health pickups move towards the player when the stage ends so it's not a total loss, but I'll definitely take a look at that. Glad you liked the banana, the buff to it makes it a lot more impactful at the start of the game.
Stacking orbitals to do a ton of damage is definitely a valid strategy, though I am considering making it harder to stack the passive spells when no enemies are around (currently you can cheese the game by stacking passive spells during a "chest" wave).
The way you play sounds good to me! Most of the gameplay is meant to just be shooting and managing the active spell while dodging. The passive spells are intended to be ignored a tiny bit by most players, but more intense players will probably play around them a little more.
Thanks again for the input!