Maybe I was too harsh in calling it a downgrade, I didn't mean it as a hate but more so just sharing my opinion. The main thing that set this game apart for me was not so much the gore, I can live without that, but mainly it was the visible way enemies reacted to bullet impacts, you could immediately tell where you struck them and see that it affects them, which was awesome and added variety to the gameplay. Now they just tank body shots as if nothing happened until they suddenly drop dead. Some minor things that I also didn't really like was the platforming parts. And I will agree with you that the atmosphere is great, but maybe there is too many of those electric monsters at once in some parts, I think it would improve the atmosphere if they were more powerful but there was less of them. Regardless I am a fan of your work and have purchased Final Response in the past to show my support and to be able to play the old build, and I hope this project turns out well.
I see, it is a bit hard to create proper hit animations in 2D (this issue is being solved in 3D), but there are still some reactions to bullets (different ones for legs, chest and head) with a longer knock back animation if you hit enemies either quickly or with a powerful weapon (like magnum or shotgun). Previously in old versions it depended where you hit them, sometimes they ignored bullets but most of the time enemies fell to the ground and had to get up, on paper this sounds great, but it introduced some gameplay issues as the enemies didn't have much chance to fight back, so I decided to go with a more classic approach. I'm still planning to improve enemy reactions to attacks and adding more animations but I will be approaching this topic carefully so that the gameplay and difficulty won't suffer.
When it comes to ammount of enemies on screen I did some experiments like you suggested - less enemies, but harder and tougher but the testers said that the game got a bit boring and the enemies were bullet sponges so I decided to make them weaker but increase thier number. It is pretty hard to balance this type of enemy, but I got some ideas planned for future such as introducing new enemy type that would work in synergy with current ones.
Also I just want to say that I'm still here, I still care about the project and I'm willing to improve it, hopefully you might find the upcoming version a lot more enjoyable.
Anyways thanks for the support, I appreciate it very much.