Hmm.. is that in general for movement, or do you feel like it feels like this due to some of the enemy placements being at inconvenient areas?
I do think some of the enemy placement could be a little better, but that is a good point that increasing general area of movement could actually help with this as well. I'll experiment with balancing things a bit, though movement likely won't end up too "free", as I still do want to keep the nature of a rail-shooter in that arcade style.
My only real 'rail shooter' experience that I can recall is the original Star Fox on SNES, but I remember that in that game the 'zone' for movement was large enough that you could slightly pull the screen in the direction you were going to give the player more space (I would say roughly a quarter of an extra screen's worth) while flying through the main level and only focusing back down to a single screen's worth of movement when it became time to fight the stage boss. Adjusting the levels to take this into consideration obviously means more work, but it would also mean that the player has more breathing room to work with and gets a better feeling that they're actually flying, and allows for more varied placement of enemies, items, and secrets.
