Pretty clean! A way to speed up the game globally may have alleviated a bit of the tedium of restarting when I was so close, but I suppose that that's just my impatience speaking ;)
It's wild how just placing the player in a different starting position and altering their control scheme to something like this can have such a profound effect. Nice stuff! I'd have liked to see more interactive elements, but discovering the quirks of the movement and bouncing along to the little backing track was *chef's kiss*.