a very cool game, i think it is a good idea how you made the background get darker during the more intense parts of the first fight it made seeing the bullets much easier, during the second stage the ice bullets were blending in a little with the background.
I like that the characters look cute but are kind if violent lol an interesting contrast
the hit box for your character is much smaller than the sprite which I think is good in this kind of game but I had a hard time judging what would hit me, I think if you made the character darker but gave them a bright necklace or something where the hitbox is it would be useful
it took me a little bit to finger out that the spinning cube was a shield but once i did it was very cool and i liked using it
also nice to see a fellow high iq SDL2 chad!