Gulkave

From MobyGames:
'Deviating slightly from Compile's usual vertically scrolling fashion, Gulkave is a rather orthodox horizontal shooter. Flying across – or inside – a parallax scrolling landscape, your spaceship must singlehandedly take out eight fortresses. In your way stand enemy spaceships that either try to crush you or fire at you, as well as some asteroids thrown in for good measure. For each hit you take, your ship is not destroyed. Instead, you have a power (barrier) bar that decreases gradually until you finally lose a ship. At the end of each level, bonus points are given according to your remaining barrier. Losing a ship means you lose all your weapons upgrades as well.'

The MSX version features two extra stages at the beginning, which makes it 32 stages long. This video features two playthroughs, one on default difficulty and another on the 'secret' Hard setting, the only differences are the amount of enemies, their bullet speed and of course a different ending text in Japanese that also replaces the staff roll.

0:00:00 - Start
0:00:38 - Stages 1-4 (Easy)
0:10:52 - Stages 5-8 (Easy)
0:20:01 - Stages 9-12 (Easy)
0:30:25 - Stages 13-16 (Easy)
0:39:38 - Stages 17-20 (Easy)
0:49:28 - Stages 21-24 (Easy)
1:04:19 - Stages 25-28 (Easy)
1:14:23 - Stages 29-32 (Easy)
1:21:50 - Easy ending & credits

1:23:00 - Stages 1-4 (Hard)
1:28:54 - Stages 5-8 (Hard)
1:34:14 - Stages 9-12 (Hard)
1:40:14 - Stages 13-16 (Hard)
1:45:28 - Stages 17-20 (Hard)
1:50:53 - Stages 21-24 (Hard)
1:59:11 - Stages 25-28 (Hard)
2:05:13 - Stages 29-32 (Hard)
2:09:43 - Hard ending