I reached the boss a couple of times, never with enough remaining lives to properly fight back.
I think I played 3 games in the jam proposing this mechanic and they're all super fun. This is probably the most polished one, also the one where you need to use the mechanic the most or you'll get overwhelmed, you really can't ignore it.
The game feels good with all the right speeds and fun sequences to navigate through, they offer the right difficulty for my taste, including the boss fight whose patterns are exactly the kinds you want to find with the mechanic the game is based one.
Very cool game!