FraGMarE

Oooh, i enjoy all your omnivore enemies.  I can see these being twin mini-bosses or something.  I like the glowing effect too.  Do I spy a hint of space junk in the background?  :)

I love this, even though I'm not quite sure what it is.   Almost looks like some sort of grotesque, H.R. Giger-ish, bio-organic structure in space.  Reminds me, a bit, of the background in level 3 of Gradius III.  Perfect for 2d shmupping!  :)

This looks fantastic!  The shading on the rocks in the ground and the rocks in the background is my favorite part. 

Added a little more AA work to the rings.  Helped a little bit, I think.

I love this font!  It reminds me a lot of the some of the old fonts in a lot of Sega Genesis/MegaDrive games from circa 1993.  Especially the set with the fire red color scheme.  Very well done, orb!

"But why are only three of the jets working?
Is it a way of turning the ship?"

Those aren't jets.  They're an array of massive laser cannons.  They basically fire a symphony of laser blasts at the player ship(s) while the smaller purple turrets are hounding the players with bullets.  The tiny red lights on each of the cannons will light up briefly right before it fires, so it gives the player some kind of minimal warning beforehand.

"The stars are a bit repetitive and could use some work."

Yea, the stars are actually sprites (and the boss is really made of background tiles) so they must be used sparingly, otherwise you get flicker if you have too many sprites on any one horizontal line.  See, On the TG16/PCE, there is a trick you can do that makes sprites appear to move behind the background tiles, which is what I'll be employing here.  There's no way you could make a sprite as large as the lv2 boss without gettting massive amounts of flicker and/or slowdown.  Especially if you consider all the other things that will be happening on the screen (player ships firing, bullets, missiles, options, etc.)

Hehe.  For some reason, this reminds me of the part in the opening cinema of MUSHA/Aleste on the Genesis where the Captain and the rest of the mech squadron get blown away by the enemy firepower.

http://hg101.classicgaming.gamespy.com/aleste/mushaintro.png

Totally.  Fucking.  Incredible.

The contrast between the side facing the light source and the shadowed side is phenomenal, and the detail in the surf is jaw dropping.  5/5 + Fav'ed.

This is a truly awesome shmup sprite.  Kudos for the immense size and detail!  I especially like the little veins protruding through the wings and upper appendages.  Very nice.  5/5 and faved.  :)