Thank you for the feedback, most of the pixel art was refined when I did a third pass; the first stage I simply used red/blue/green placeholder blocks for visible collision masking, the second stage I made subjectively ugly level art to piece together how I wanted things visually, and then the third stage I remade the pixel art with the spare time I had to make it look somewhat decent. Between the second and third art passes I spent a whole day finding creative commons - 0 licensed sounds to use in the game so im glad that the efforts I took paid off. Sadly I didnt have the time to do the story I wanted to do, but theres a limit to what one person can do in a 7-day game jam, especially when its their first game jam.
Once again, thank you for the feedback.