My problem is that you ripped the sprites from the original game. If you had listed them as external assets and just said that you didn't have time to replace them with your own, that would be a whole different story. I liked the intro and was excited to play until I saw the sprites. I double checked to see if you had listed them. You didn't.
This isn't a lack a character on my part. This is about you passing things off as your own, that is blantantly not yours. I believe you did the opening cutscenes which got my excited to play. But just slightly modifying existing sprites doesn't make it your own. I wish you could acknowledge that.