Just a suggestion: possibly reset lives upon stage completion. Going into a new stage with extra lives is one thing, but getting through one by the skin of your teeth then having to reload/force a game over before making a serious attempt on the next is a little annoying.
3/5. I'm not going to go into any philosophical discussion here, but as the grammar selection and typos began to ramp up closer to the end it began to detract from the experience.