Thanks. I'm still figuring out how exactly to handle health. About a week ago the player had 8 hit points (re-presented by hearts) and enemies had a small chance to drop a +1 health item if you were missing any. Currently enemies always drop those white orbs which either restore health (if you are missing any) or give you additional score if you are full.
I'm still pondering if I should just make the player invincible (like in Wario land 2-3) and have the player drop some score items when they take damage, so actual dying would never be an issue but you'd have to avoid hits to get a higher score. Getting all S ranks will be a requirement to get the game's true ending.