Z - Shot
X - Beam
C - Trance

Shoot stuff, dodge bullets. Seems simple enough, yes?

X (Beam) acts differently between Classic and Burst modes, but in both modes it gives you focused (slower and more precise) movement. While using Beam, all items on-screen are auto-collected. Thus, an easy way to auto-collect items is to, while firing with Z, quickly tap X to make all items home in on you.

Trance is a powered up mode, and can be used when the Trance gauge (located on the right) is filled up. You can also check its progress with the text to the right of your ship, which displays a numerical value of how much your Trance gauge is filled up, and reads RDY when it's ready.
Trance acts differently between the modes but in both modes, it does the following:

• Cancels all onscreen bullets on activation
  
• When you kill an enemy, all the bullets that it fired get converted to star (score) items
  
• Hitting bosses gives you a constant stream of star items
  
• Allows you to take one additional hit while it is activated

The score multiplier is at the top left, and as it appears gives a universal multiplier to all incoming score. How this multiplier increases is different between modes. Each stage starts the multiplier from 1.0 - it does not carry over between stages.

Grazing is where you move your ship close to a bullet, and gives points according to the meter in the top left. The graze counter increases per bullet grazed, and the score for each graze is likewise increased. Graze carries over between stages, unlike the score multiplier.

There is also a TM multiplier below the graze. This acts as a second point multiplier and is awarded at the end of a stage, and appears to be based on how many trances you activated in the stage, as well as how much meter you had left at the end of the stage.

Dying will reset all three of the above back to their starting values, as well as emptying your trance gauge to zero, so be careful.

The game allows you to customize your ship to an extent, depending on how many points you have available to you. You have a hard cap of Ace rank though, so you have to decide how to spread it out:

• Focus: Increases focus shot type
  
• Track: Increases homing shot type
  
• Wide: Increases spread shot type
  
• RDS: Increases number of hits you can take per life
  
• Lives: Increases how many lives you have per credit
  
• Continue: Increases number of credits you have

X (Beam) acts as a regular 'focused-fire' type mode seen in many other shmups. It homes somewhat, so you can focus on dodging while using it.

Getting high scores requires you to increase the point multiplier in the top left. To do so, you need to collect the diamond-shaped items dropped under the following conditions:

• Killing regular popcorn enemies at point blank
  
• Hovering close to bosses while firing
  
• Trance mode's bullet cancelling activation (This only works during the stage portion - against bosses, bullets turn into star items instead.)

In addition, during Trance, the score from grazing is multiplied.

Scoring entails memorizing the spawn points of enemies and point-blanking them, as well as cancelling bullets with Trance activation at strategic points where there are a lot of bullets on-screen.

X (Beam) shoots a brief laser that cancels bullets and converts them into diamond point multiplier items. Its charge meter is located next to the life bar, and its state also be seen on the left of the ship, displaying RDY when it is able to fire. When it is still displaing CHR, using X will do nothing.
The beam can be fired if the bar is only partially full, but will last longer the more the meter is filled.

Destroying regular enemies regardless of distance will cause them to drop circle items, which go towards filling the meter. Hovering close to bosses while firing also cause them to drop a constant stream of circle items.

Trance now converts bullets into star items on activation regardless of whether it's against a boss or not, but continue providing the boost to graze scoring. It also temporarily increases the score multipler by 4 times for the duration of the Trance.

Scoring thus requires use of beam to cancel as many bullets as you can, together with strategic use of Trance for short, huge boosts to score.

There's a TLB in this game.

To unlock it and the acompanying achievement for beating it, simply 1CC on Hard or Extreme difficulties. Either mode is fine, any upgrade spread is fine.

It's rather difficult though, so good luck.