immediately got Castlevania II / Zelda II vibes from this. Overall I had quite a good time. The music was simple but catchy, I particularly liked the cave and temple music - I was nodding my head along to the tun but still felt that ominous dread. The controls felt good, jumps were tough but usually fiar. Collecting coins always feels good, and the chest coin fountains were particularly satisfying. I tended to skip the weaker enemies and just focus on whichever enemy would erupt with the most coins. :D
Some pieces of feedback:
- I really liked the Stone of Returning combined with the shop mechanic. It made it super convenient to go back, purchase upgrades, and get back into the action. That said, I think the design would have felt a bit more Metroidvania-y if the town had served as more of a hub zone that you returned to naturally rather than teleporting. As it was there was very little in the way of backtracking, especially in the latter half of the game (which, given its distance, I understand why the Stone was necessary).
- I don't know if it was a purposeful decision or not, but having variable jump height would have been nice. There were some rooms where I'd launch myself into ceiling fire or ceiling spikes because I couldn't control the height of my jump.
- On the wall grab, I think it still needs a little something. The character's jump is so high that waiting for velocity to slow down means I could be pressing against a wall for quite awhile before I'll ever grab it (and inadvertently jumping straight into enemies when I wanted to grab the wall below them). I think some secondary checks around time pressed against the wall or something might help with this - it's really just because of the extreme character jump height though.
Oh yeah, and before I forget, the final boss was a good time. Once I figured out the safe zones I made short work of him, and the ending cut scene / post-credits scene were *chef's kiss*. Very good job!