It was a little bit better for playability and I got further, but ultimately I still had the same problem unfortunately.
I think it might be because there's stuff going on across the whole screen and you kind of have to look at everything at once rather than focusing on the center of the screen. That means my eyes are constantly darting about and it kind of fries my brain too. To be fair all shmups might be like this, I don't really play them much. I mostly play first person shooters which are pretty much designed around your field of view.
It's a hypothesis but by no means scientific.