I finally found my way back to this after many months of meaning to play through. I did it! Got to the 13th island, and that little gem spree was really nice and fun :D
This was delightful. It's just pure, simple video game packed with small joys and moments of surprising nuance. Took me a bit to realize how small my hitbox really was. I feel like my recent foray into Touhou gave me some training for Jellyfish Archipelago, and not just for the more obviously bullethell-like levels!
The level with the jellyfish walls (11 I think?) was the toughest for me. That's when I made the hitbox realization. I also found it was easiest if I took a path that required the least amount of stopping, which started by going left, and took a pretty twisty path through the middle and back again... How intentional was that? It was brilliant regardless! Very cool use of the jellyfish as insta-kill walls that don't block other jellyfish, too.
Oh and this level is extremely John:
