The base game is quite fun, and I liked the theming, but there are still a lot of pain points getting in the way of the fun. The rotating and walking is very slow, making it really difficult to actually dodge the tongue attack. Whether you are hurt by the tongue attack feels inconsistent. You can only get one, maybe two hits off during half of the attacks, dealing a pitiful amount of damage. The knock back makes thematic sense, but doesn't play that well. Since you rotate so slowly, you cannot use the large movement to get around interestingly. When rotating, the gun snap flips to the other side, getting in the way of me hitting the boss multiple times.
I hope you don't take this to negatively. There is mostly a lot to get in the way of the fun game underneath, and I hope your next game will become even better.