I have to admit that Ginga Force has not aged well. It'd be a sick game if Score Attack was unlocked right off the bat. But the fact that you have to grind through Story Mode, and Story Mode is extremely unbalanced (especially in Hard), it doesn't make me want to play again.
By unbalanced, I mean the fact that enemies and bosses have huge amounts of HP. It doesn't help that your weapons weaken after use, making you at pretty much no power if you are focused on dodging. You are sometimes intentionally suiciding just to have your weapons back to power. Shitty design choice. Intentionally suiciding should give you a more deep advantage and feel like a more advanced strategy rather than doing it cause you have to just to have fun again. I also remember when trying to beat Stage 4, the only viable strategy for me to beat the boss without timing out (and this was with all the top upgraded weapons btw), was to literally point blank and suicide over and over. It's basically high rank Garegga.
Score Attack is rad though. Stages are more balanced, things die at a reasonable rate, there's nuance to the multiplier, there's a general goal you want to achieve in each stage. Extends don't really mean much, and you'll end up with like 15 at the end of the stage, allowing you to solve the whole ammo crisis by just suiciding constantly. I don't like that aspect, but it doesn't detract too much from the experience.
I'm glad Natsuki Chronicles addressed most of these issues and is overall the better game, but the whole extend idea is still present as well as some other jank I feel. The TLB in example can be completely invalidated by just pointblanking if you got enough extends, lame.
If there's a hidden unlock code like in JSS, let me know.