levi
Still fresh, damnit!
I'd say the reduced shield bounce was the main thing. I was clearly dying less often than normal as I managed to keep all my weapons fully charged for quite a lot of the game.
Probably also helped that I took a few breaks from the game during my playthrough. I do prefer the shield bounce this way too - makes it a much more useful powerup. I generally ended up dying once at the start of the later levels when I got overloaded with too many small rocks in a small space, but after one life I'd generally cleared out enough of them (using the new beam weapon) to make it survivable.
Probably also helped that I took a few breaks from the game during my playthrough. I do prefer the shield bounce this way too - makes it a much more useful powerup. I generally ended up dying once at the start of the later levels when I got overloaded with too many small rocks in a small space, but after one life I'd generally cleared out enough of them (using the new beam weapon) to make it survivable.
