I had fun once I got the hang of it. The attacking was kind of hit-or-miss for me, though, so I ended up just running and jumping past most enemies. The end boss was well designed and took me a few tries to beat. Reminded me very much of NES days. Overall, a solid effort for a prototype.

If you ever expand on this, it could be worthwhile to ease the player into all of the different moves (I only discovered that there was a dash move by reading the comments here). I'd also love to see a bit more variety in terms of obstacles and enemies, as well as a visual hint of how many hits an enemy had taken or needs to go down (e.g. show an enemy taking damage).

Music was fitting, as expected!

Rating games using the Judge categories just for fun

Gameplay

Solid, old-school gameplay. The dash attack felt pretty awesome to use. Everything played pretty tight and precise, except for one thing: When you get hurt, the shake plus the controller vibration plus the big white circle around your character can be a little bit disorienting. One of my deaths happened because one of the laser enemies hit me 2 times in a row while I was confused at the hurt effects. Still very enjoyable. It is a shame it is so short

[15/20]

Presentation

Awesome old-school looks, awesome soundtrack. I previously said the hurt effects were kind of disorienting, but the controller vibrations were actually a neat touch. Some parts of the art still need polish however, like the death and hurt effects. The dash and air attack look superb!

There was no story to be found, but that is a non-issue for a game like this

[15/20]

Engagement

Gameplay is solid and has the "fun factor" I think good platformers need. It certainly draws players in so they complete the level. I think this category loses out a bit since there is not much more to see after the first level

[15/20]

Potential

Expand this with more levels, more enemies, more bosses, polish the art and you have a really great game here. While I think the dash mechanic is awesome, I still feel this needs just a little extra originality to stand out. The Ninja Gaiden influence is pretty obvious and you already have pretty fierce competition in the indie market in the form of The Messenger

[17/20] -> Doubled to 34

Total: 79 (4 stars)

I felt.....nostalgic T_T

Great job on this. Solid dose of nostalgia with cool music (as to be expected). Felt a bit fast, and controls took getting used to, but after an adjustment period with dozens of deaths, it was a lot of  fun.

Very awesome, I had a lot of fun with this! Definitely too short, I want to play more! You capture the feel of a classic NES game (right down to the awesome music) with all the necessary updates to make it a smooth and enjoyable experience for today's market. I really hope you continue with this project and look forward to seeing more of it!

Your instructions don't say how to jump. The first time I tried your game, it displayed in a borderless window in the middle of my screen. The second time I tried it (which was to check what the instructions were), it went fullscreen.

It's too short! Give me more! I loved it ;o;

I died lots, but dying lots to a jamming soundtrack was -great- Once I got the hang of things, I did much better! Managed to beat the boss on the third try! The only gameplay thing I found strange was that sometimes attacking made me do a dash forward attack and I would take damage at the same time as hitting the enemy. I died lots to that and eventually relied on jump attacks and standing still to attack.

All the same, this is just solid fun. The boss battle was great for a first boss!

Wonderful work, Scythuz! Congrats on submitting your demo~!