History YMMV / BlazingStar

* SpecialEffectsFailure: While the parallax scrolling effect in stages 2 and the towards-the-foreground scrolling in stage 6 look absolutely cool, the fact that they are actually pre-rendered videos is exposed should a player be sent to the continue screen on those sections; all of the sprite layers freeze in place while the continue and fighter select prompts are present but the video continues its looped playback.

* GameBreaker: Despite being classified as a "Difficult" ship with seemingly weak firepower, the Peplos ship actually has the ''highest'' damage-per-second of any ship in the game, if one is not averse to ButtonMashing to get the super-rapid-fire effect or using an autofire controller, and can ''shred'' bosses before their attack phases become a threat. Furthermore, because it's always at full power, you don't have to collect any power-up items at the start of the game or after dying and respawning.

* GameBreaker: Despite being classified as a "Difficult" ship with seemingly weak firepower, the Peplos ship actually has the ''highest'' damage-per-second of any ship in the game, if one is not averse to ButtonMashing to get the super-rapid-fire effect or using an autofire controller, and can ''shred'' bosses before their attack phases become a threat.

* MemeticMutation: "YOU FAIL IT! YOUR SKILL IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH, SEE YOU NEXT TIME, BYE-BYE!", the origin of the FAIL (and "EpicFail") memes.

* SequelDifficultyDrop: Considerably easier than its predecessor ''VideoGame/{{Pulstar}}''. It ditches the checkpoint system in favor of simply respawning the player in place so that they can keep going and finish the game, instead of wasting continue after continue on the same section. Furthermore, no longer completely depowers you, only reducing your shot level by one out of four (except for the Peplos, which is always fixed at level 4 in exchange for being weaker than the rest of the ships). Finally, while the first game suffers from [[CameraScrew foreground objects obstructing the player's view]], no such hazard exists in this game. Of course, a player looking to 1CC the game is still going to have their work cut out for them, and those that don't care for a 1CC can still expect to feed the game a full-course meal of credits; arcade games are designed to be NintendoHard, after all.

* HilariousInHindsight: The pilot of the Windia ship is named [[LightNovel/SwordArtOnline Leefa]] (though this Leafa has a slightly different kind of name spelling).