I think this is a good start, but it doesn't feel like there's any way to avoid being hit. Like there isn't really enough time to read an attack and react to it so you just have to spam attack and hope you kill the monster before they can hit you. Also I lost a lot of lives to the spikes because they're pretty hard to see against a black background so it would be really helpful if you made them brighter. But I think the dying and upgrading loop is really cool especially since you load into the same room every time so you can learn the map bit by bit as you get better and unlock more abilities.