This is nice but there appears to be a large number of stages in the game so when it gets to the point where I have to go through 20 stages to unlock 21, likely die, go practice 21 for a while, start over from 1, likely fail to get back to there first run, maybe have to go back to practice to brush up on whatever is crossing me up, start from 1 again, make it to 21 again, hopefully not fail on 21, unlock 22, fail again and start over… I just got weary typing that all out. I still got enough left in me to deal with some hard games, but you gotta at least give me something beyond “you died, start over from the start”. Even those crazy hard shmups often give you an extra continue every couple hours. A friend of mine tried playing through it last year (my fault, long story) and dropped it on day one after twenty or so lives and little if any progress, hence I worry years of familiarity with the series might be obscuring how difficult/approachable the games might be.
I shoulda wrote this before arguing on behalf of the Aki wrestling games, now it reads like an attack and I can’t figure out how to tweak it not to be 
It is possible all of this is me trying to avoid considering that Bubble Bobble/Baba is You battle for as long as possible.