I just played one of my worst games in a long time, making a ton of stupid mistakes, including accidentally dropping a bomb on the bucket and skipping a bunch of easy points and mistiming my bombs just enough to get killed by basic early-level enemies. I was also one letter away from CRISTAL almost the entire time (the only 'L' I saw the whole game popped up just long enough to taunt me as the last enemy in the level fell off the screen). The saws in 46.4 were kind enough to put me out of my misery.
However, I also got the big crystal on the first fifteen or so levels I played and had some great item luck (including two

s, a

on 11.2, a White Bean on 11.5, and a couple of coefficient 4 point items).
By the time I got past to the first boss, I was about 250k ahead of my usual score and had only one life left.