Blazing Lazers is totally beatable. That last level is a pain in the ass, but if you've saved up enough flashing orbs and can grab a power up or two by using Esteban's aforementioned skills (it's not hard after some dedication), it can be done. I still can't beat it every time I sit down and play it, but I'm probably at about 50% now, which I never thought would be possible.
Interestingly enough, yesterday I tried playing through Blazing Lazers and crashed and burned. However, today, I set up my computer to stream to Twitch and managed to play through the whole thing in s single credit! (The only way it can be finished, I'm pretty certain.)
http://www.twitch.tv/videos/138970713
The game doesn't actually start until about 12 minutes in. I was tinkering with settings before that.
Nectarsis and Sunteam Paul were gracious enough to pop by and provide a bit of running commentary.
Nah, you can beat Blazing Lazers starting with nothing but a pea-shooter in any given stage...at any point in the stage.
It just requires a different strategy than "destroy everything" which is possible when you are powered-up decently.
I started doing this with NES Gradius... and the "make it work, even with no speed or power ups" mantra has served me well on some games.
Blazing Lazers is much more forgiving than other games that kick my arse when I lose powerups (R-Type, Mr. Heli, Dragon Spirit, Raiden, etc.)