Had a go at this when I saw it in your signature. I can tell it's a promising game, but I think it needs a few tweaks to really hit the level of polish you're aiming for.
• The powerups swirl way too fast relative to your ship speed, I found it tricky to time it and get a specific powerup, and because the powerup sprites actually rotate as they spin, it's hard to visualize what they are. I eventually recognized the lightning bolt as a lightning bolt, but I've still no idea what the bomb is, and I think the bonus is a green coin of some sort? The timing to get them is quite strict; you need to approach it as the item is on the right of center to get it reliably.
• Hyper meter is not retained between stages. If I get my hyper meter recovered just before a boss dies, I lose it at the beginning of the next stage, thus wasting it.
• Bombs don't appear to do any actual damage, they're just temporary invulnerability. I get why games that give you a lot of bombs often do this (such as Over Obj) but I still like them to do some degree of damage, more satisfying that way somehow.
• The game doesn't allow you to map some keys to the keyboard. Non-issue with Autohotkey though (I was using C for shot, X for focus, Z for bomb, LCtrl or Numpad 0 for hyper, game won't detect LCtrl or Numpad 0 so I used AutoHotKey to remap those to a letter key). Not a big deal, likely an engine limitation.
• The game appears to be packaged as a standalone folder, but the settings file that's created is either hidden away in a user folder (and there's no consistency as to where those are stored, I swear I've got like 5 different folders my user folder where games decide to put their own settings). Deleting and reinstalling the game retains settings, which makes it apparent deleting the folder does not do a "clean" uninstall. I'm generally of the belief that game settings should usually be contained in a config file within the game folder itself, but I guess user folders are used for multi-user installs...? Again, not a big deal, likely engine limitation.
Also some stuff that's already been mentioned:
BulletMagnet wrote:- I personally found the ship's default movement speed a bit on the slow side for my tastes
I agree with this, and it's probably my biggest issue with the game, particularly in a game with a focus/slow button. The default speed is way too slow for my tastes for some of the high speed spreads fired at you, particularly the ones where the spread in fired in a curve that forces movement. A speed config option similar to Dangun Feveron or some extra ship types to choose from might assist with this.
To Far Away Times wrote:but then that defeats the utility you get out of the visual hitbox, so I'm kinda stumped here.
I don't think you absolutely need a visible hitbox option (though one when using the focus shot would be nice) and there's plenty of good games that don't have one, but modern games without a visible hitbox work best when the ship incorporates a design that eliminates the guesswork. The ship sprite should make it totally clear where it is using visual elements to reference. If you want it to be where it is currently (apparently the upper third of the cockpit) then you should redraw the ship sprite so the cockpit is in the center of where the hitbox is, rather than off-center vertically. Games like ChoRenSha, Giga Wing, Battle Bakraid, and Barrage Tribe all work well because their hitboxes are clearly defined on the sprite, all of the ships in Dodonpachi do this with certain distinct coloured bits on where the hitbox is centered, and once you realize that there's limited guesswork as to their size/position. I think if you make the cockpit as the hitbox, you should make it so the hitbox is centered as much as possible on the cockpit both horizontally and vertically.
The other issue with the cockpit as hitbox is in this case, it's quite pale, similar in brightness to the surrounding metal, and the blue "arms" of the ship stand out a lot more. A heavily contrasting colour that stands out more would make it easier to visualize when dodging and moving around aggressively I think. The ship sprite also rotates a LOT when moving, making keeping an eye on the hitbox tricky using cockpit alone.
BulletMagnet wrote:- I found the bright blue "clouds" that mark when your attacks hit an enemy a bit distracting
I agree, the glow/bloom/whatever it is covers up the enemy sprites rather aggressively.
BulletMagnet wrote:Off the cuff [a one time 50,000 point bonus] kind of pales in comparison to the potential point rewards of progressing the hyper bar instead
Yeah, having two score items on the powerups seems superfluous, and the meta seems to always favor going for the hyper or bomb anyways.
EDIT:
I've uploaded an unlisted vid to YouTube showing my current best. There's a couple deaths on stage 4 that showcase the difficulty of macroing attacks, how the cockpit/hitbox can't be seen when moving left and right, and the death on the boss where I thought I was gonna be rammed and then got killed by "memo or die, lol". Hopefully this helps you somehow seeing someone else playing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lAkmhVhxUc
Had a couple of goes at this, and offer a handful of thoughts: hopefully they're not too scrubby in nature, but you do say that the game is targeted at beginner and intermediate players, and, well, I am definitely one of those two things! 
