Suuuuper well-polished, congrats! I think one of my biggest issues or annoyances is not being able to shoot up like in contra, that's my biggest gripe. If the game is going to be you get hit once and die to move on, it would be nice to have as much advantage in being able to fire as possible.
maybe another thing to consider for future builds would be a difficult setting. would be nicer to have more than 3 lives haha. but those are small details.
overall fun and really well done!