I immediately caught on to the homage and anticipated my fate, but I didn't quite expect the game to hold up a sizable difficulty to match. After a few losses, I had begun to master the precise trigger-and-sweep movements that makes the laser the only weapon you need for the rest of the game. The Eater of Stars also took me a couple of tries, until I learned that the laser is still the most effective weapon when used in even quicker bursts to snipe the vulnerable segments from afar, while simultaneously clearing the path of incoming asteroids.
The game is such a convincing clone of another famous Nerve beater that it could probably pass for a legitimate spiritual successor. The momentum and object density are as hectic as ever, but a chunky pool of health counterbalances these design elements. The weapons feel fine conceptually, but throwing bombs is so much less reliable than lasers and the pacing gets somewhat fumbled before the boss.
Sinistar is probably only as famous as he is because he yells at you saying he's going to eat you, and you'd be so lucky to make it far enough to encounter him anyway. Here, I enjoyed reading in a meta-narrative about wiping out all the smaller bugs for an enormous bug to get lured out. I may be a sucker for Terraria, but I think The Destroyer is one of my least favorite bosses, and so I appreciate the OHKO on the worm's segments instead of a ridiculous health bar that you have to whittle down on one remaining segment that you can barely hit each time. -_-