Super fun speed running platformer. Really need to brush up some skills for this one!
I really liked the idea of the overall game, being able to select up to 4 different powers to use throughout the game was a pretty smart idea! I think this should be a bit more expanded on though. You don't get a clear idea what you should be doing right at the start "sorry I failed to read the directions" so selecting multiple guys at first wasn't the first thing that came to mind.
The idea that I could use a combination of boost throughout the level. Explaining that to the player when they first start will make someone who plays for the first time more willing to sit down and try different combos then just straight giving up 'because darksouls' Once I discovered that there was more then one combination to be explored, i had way more interest in trying to venture through and didn't mind the difficulty as much.
This brings us to a bit of balancing and maybe some things to consider when doing elements for the different characters. The triple double and two long jumps felt fine. The bullet time though, felt really off. And this could be to add to the challenge but didn't really live up to what i was hoping.
Its very difficult to time when to activate it due to the nature of its slowing down to "whatever speed" instead of instantly slowing down. I think if it instantly slowed down it would be more useful and a bit more predictable. Also ended up several times where when it sped back up, id instantly drop which was a bit of a problem if your slowdown stops in-between the pillars. you will die. And because you slow down slowly before being at slow, you cant predict when to start it so you don't die at the end......this was a bit...wordy but I hope you understand.
then the cleanup!
Everything else was super nice but I think there's a few QOL things that could be addressed.
Instead of your tutorial text popping out from your dude, have it be directly big in the center bold in your face. I actually had a bit of trouble reading the tutorial text while trying to avoid death. another way you could deal with this, is if you want to have text pop up, have your self go into the bullet time mode and keep it slow until the player pushes another key or for about 2-4 seconds. whatever feels good for a reading speed of someone who is 5.
The text boxes at the top representing which power i had was a bit confusing at first, I thought that was the key I had to push in order to activate the power. and this brings us to key placement.
It could just be me on my keyboard but having J and K as your A and B button is a bit odd. hand placement just feels tiny off and I keep finding my self to pushing K and L which i think are more commonly used for A B when using AWSD layout. So for me shifting one letter over would add just a huge hand comfort positioning improvement.
Lastly is a bit harder of something to accomplish. but this could have gone the extra ++ if it did not use any scale modification of the sprites. I feel like having him squish and sqash as you jump or dash really takes away from that GB feel you have going. I think you can accomplish the same thing with either another frame or having him flash a different color as he dose an action.
For the shadow that gets casted off him, i think that should just be a solid dark or light color that would best fit the background. It only needs to be a representation of your character, doesn't have to look like it. and doing this without any alpha blend techniques i think could really give it that extra push.
Hardest but last, If you could figure out how to rotate your character without rotation, i think it would look better. what I mean is, Instead of a full 360 degree range of movement, Lock it so it only faces 4 or 8 ways throughout the rotation. that will give it a much more retro feeling when you have objects rotate if you don't want to draw the rotation.
overall super fun and really well put together!