Rude mf falcon punched me and cost me my no-death run
And with that, a repeat 1CC of GG Aleste II: Lance Bird (a.k.a. Power Strike II in Europe*) on Normal, this time with a new personal best time of 19'37"27, and 31st place on the Switch leaderboards. First time playing in months, allowing me to approach some troublesome parts with a fresh mindset.
If you're like me and play with slowdown off, this is surprisingly short and snappy for a shmup, especially by Compile standards.
* which is confusing because there's another Aleste-series game called Power Strike II that was released in the same year also in Europe, but on the Master System and it's a different game.

