Thanks for the feedback!
A hit animation indeed could be added, maybe a blink or similar. There is a death animation, they turn to dust, but it takes a while to kill an enemy with the lowest power laser.
For the engine, did you switch gears with L/R? Try pushing at speed 3 or 4.
This is definitely a "slow" game, kinda like Harvest Moons or so. Not for every player's taste. For perspective, see my other comment (and KungFuFurby's) on the game page; it's only at a meta level really.
Oh yeah! I caught on to changing speed with L/R, although admittedly I completely forgot to look at the controls on the actual game submission page and instead just simply went impromptu. Also, as far as the solar panels go, I'd have to figure out how exactly to figure out how well they charge, since I know I can upgrade them in theory... and my method of waiting for them to charge the slow way to deal with a dead battery ran into a problem when the dialogue kept coming up (leaving me to auto-fire the B button) before ultimately deciding to abort anyways, partially because I didn't know how quickly it would actually charge... and partially because if I were constantly under attack, it wouldn't work too well anyways depending on the charging rate.
