Galak-Z isn't like the usual bottom-feeding trash you find in the shmup category, it has actual production value with a story and animation and stuff. It also has some neat ways you can customise your laser cannon. Unfortunately, it also has a lot of flaws:

✖ Damage is permanent. Once your shields go down, you take damage. You have 4 hit points, so you can take 3 points of damage. Healing one point of damage costs 200 salvage, and you earn about 600-800 salvage per mission. In other words, if you barely survive you have little salvage left for upgrades, making future missions harder.

✖ Every mission seems to take place in the same big asteroid environment.

✖ The cursor is always 'forward' for movement. It's also used for aiming. It's also easy to lose track of during fights. It doesn't work for me and many others.

✖ The game is visually confusing. There is too much going on on screen. There is the quest indicator, the cursor, your engine temperature, etc. The game randomly zooms in and out near enemies. It's also not always clear if you can pass "through" rock or if it is a solid barrier. You have to look at your map to tell. Placing the quest indicator near the edge and toning down the engine interface would've helped a lot.

✖ If you lose a mission you lose any salvage/items you've gathered and you have to replay it from the start, including all the onboard dialogue, unskippable launch animation and the mission dialogue. This gets old really really fast.

Between Galak-Z and their other game Skulls of the Shogun you get the idea that 17-BIT loves repetition and would be better off making games in genres more focused on the story and less on the gameplay.