ZeroRanger was recently released and it's REALLY GOOD. The pixel art itself is just alright, but the cinematic presentation and manic pacing of the game completely elevates it to another level. The green-orange color palette works really well too on top of being very striking.
Gameplay-wise defeating each boss lets you pick between two upgrades, like side-shot/back-shot, homing laser/charge shot, and sword/drill which can hold off bullets. The stages are heavily designed around these abilities with enemies coming from every single direction and stage hazards blocking your path. The game is fairly generous with terrain/enemy collision as you have to get hit thrice in a row before you lose a life for good.
Scoring comes down to simply killing everything as fast possible and finding the secret medals, while speedkilling waves prompts bonus enemies to spawn which are worth twice as many points. It has a very generous extend rate so that even if you lose several lives, you still feel like you can make it to the next 1-up instead of having to reset after a single mistake.
I'd also go as far to say that you can actually get spoiled for ZeroRanger, as the experience wouldn't hit you as strong if you've already seen the full video on YouTube. Minor spoilers ahead:
The second loop is also fucking nuts in terms of how much effort went into it. New backgrounds, remixed music, enemies with more aggressive attacks on top of additional new enemy formations, and even additional boss phases. But the second loop can go full nuts from the start as you already have all your weapons from the first loop and really tests all tools at your disposal.
It's also great how the story (or perhaps presentation for lack of a better word given how the story relies more on visual storytelling instead of copious dialogue dumps) actually makes you want to keep playing through the second loop, instead of unceremoniously saying "IT WAS AN ILLUSION BY SATAN, DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN". If you want to get to the last stage of the second loop, you have to do it without using continues.
There's a free demo available if you want to try it out, I highly recommend it whether you're a scrub or eat 1cc's for breakfast:
https://system-erasure.itch.io/zerorangerdemo