Hey! Thanks for taking the time to play the demo and give this really extensive feedback
The demo on itch is actually quite old. I have not released an updated demo as the last 6ish months I've largely been focused on mid/late game content that I won't be putting in the public demo. That said, I know I've done quite a bit of optimizations on memory management/loading resources since then - this might clear up those issues you had around performance.
As for bullet visibility - I've actually put a quite a bit of time into it. I do try to strike a balance between good looking graphics and bullet visibility. I think there's a lot of bullet hell games out there that don't look that great because of it. Everyone can be different, someone people might have a hard time vs others won't. Because of that I tried to include as many options as possible for people who might have issues - not sure if you poked around the options menu. Basically, you said "take the graphics down a notch" - you can do this yourself with options. Firstly you can dim the background - you can even selectively disable background elements. You can change the color and style of the bullets. You can change the color of the bullets per level (this feature might be buggy in the demo I have now, but it's since been fixed - just not updated in the demo). There aren't too many styles of bullets right now - but I plan to add more . You can also turn off debris particles and/or explosions altogether.
Really meant to accommodate multiple types of players. There are players that might play more casually - maybe credit feed a little, maybe play on a lower difficulty and will want a nice visual experience vs players who want to score chase and optimize on the highest difficulty.
As for the TV sitch - not sure if you say TV if you're sitting on a couch playing it like a console game - honestly I can't play bullet hell games like this. A lot of these are designed around Japanese arcade cabinets where you sit down directly in front of it. From what I've seen the most popular options are either PC(or console plugged into a monitor) or the Nintendo Switch (handheld). Often with vertical shmups like this - it's put in TATE mode (which SF also supports) and rotate the screen to a portrait orientation.
Artstyle/gameplay inspiration - you nailed it pretty close on the head. My goal was to make a game with more "western" art style with Japanese gameplay design.
I didn't intentionally set out to make "Amiga inspired graphics" but I did grow up playing DOS games which are similar so I think it naturally came out in my art style. Design it meant to be a little manic, little bit bullet hell. Not quite as fast as bullets from Psikyo/Raiden games but also not slowing moving thru a screen full of slowly moving bullets.
Glad you noticed the bosses. Each stage has two midbosses and depending on the rank one or both of those midbosses might be something different. Bosses are also completely different based on rank. Basically each stage has at least a possible total of 3 midbosses and 2 bosses. Bosses have unique sound tracks as well (although lvl 1 I think I got 3 bosses -one of those is not unique). I think the game will have an upwards of 25 unique music tracks. I started making a shmup because it was a creative outlet for me and drawing cool spaceships was my favorite part - everything else is work - so the game will end up with around 250 unique enemies (i.ve got a castlevania style bestiary of all the enemies you've encountered - not in the demo now, but it's a feature I have).
Thanks again for the feedback - I really do appreciate it - especially more constructive criticism. I know hearing "wow this game is so awesome" *feels* better to hear- but actually hearing what issues people have is actually more valuable in the long rung.