Thanks for the feedback man. I know that I had back-stepping as a animation task (I think it just got pushed down the todo list), but I can defiantly see people being confused/annoyed by that.
On the note of combat I had considered lowering the speed of the first enemy, I could also make their "sword lines" a bit more clearer. Maybe that could help make the combat a bit more approachable.
The parallax problem will take some research to figure out. Thanks for pointing it out.