Thank you for your feedback and I'm glad you enjoyed your time playing. I've already made changes to the aerial combat and combat in general (animations, timings, general feel etc) to make it feel less stiff and more satisfying. If I may, what did you feel was off about the dash/backdash?
As for the story, yes, I wanted to showcase the gameplay and overall structure of the game in this version more than the story if I'm honest. And yes, at the minute it's not explained in as great detail as it could be but I also want the game to be quite mysterious in that you'd learn a lot more from the world/NPC's through play and exploration than you would directly being told. Unfortunately, as you pointed out, the limited time definitely is a factor here as I wasn't able to fill in the blanks with the lore and world building at all really, with only a few interactions that helped with us.