* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Rave music. On the NES. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbdDW3aSCyM Period.]]
* GameBreaker: The S-type option, which targets enemies. It's possible in several segments to rely solely on S options to do your bidding, earning points for not firing the main weapon and using your main weapon strictly for {{Smart Bomb}}s. In fact, it's so broken that in Score Attack and Time Attack, the game refuses to drop an S powerup.
* GoddamnedBats: Some of the enemies in normal and hard modes explode into aimed suicide bullets. In the special mode [[HarderThanHard Zanki Attack]], [[NintendoHard ALL enemies explode]] [[MoreDakka into no less than]] [[FourIsDeath four]] [[BulletHell randomly aimed suicide bullets]] [[DemonicSpiders when destroyed]].
* HilariousInHindsight: The [[BlandNameProduct S?GA-and-Nint?ndo]] TakeThat EasterEgg is a two-for-one deal: This was back in a time when SEGA and Nintendo were bitter enemies rather than the former happily producing games for the latter's platforms, and the game has since been given Nintendo's blessing to be officially released on 3DS Virtual Console, even though it's impossible to trigger it.
* SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome: The entire game can be summed up as this, especially how the game maintains its fast speed with all the awesome visuals and [[DeathInAllDirections 30+ enemies]] and [[BulletHell bullets]] going around.
* NightmareFuel: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoMDOl0f3AU "D.A.D."]], the Area 1 theme in hard mode. It has a part that sounds like PsychoStrings and overall just sounds more menacing than normal mode's tracks, warning you that the game will ''not'' go easy on you in this stage set.
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