I was really nervous going into this one. I've been hearing it's difficult, hard games don't play well with me, and I'm not very good at this type of game. I was both wrong and right to be worried.
I should note also that I have basically no familiarity with the inspirations of this game.
The tutorial is a little long, but it serves its purpose well, and I was surprised by how witty the dialogue was. I was never able to get the dodge-and-run to work and had to skip the tutorial there. I'm not sure if I just couldn't pull it off or if it's a bug.
I do wish there was some sort of tutorial for enemy types, though. I was confused when some of them blew up and damaged me, and I still have no idea what the hell the green thing does.
Nevertheless, I got into the groove fairly quickly, and really enjoyed it once I did. The game just plays well. Movement is fast, fluid, and tight. Attacks are just as good. Slowing time and unleashing a bunch of shots, then watching them connect in normal time is probably the most satisfying thing in any game in this jam. I found the dodge mechanics a little complicated, but spamming spacebar worked pretty well and zipping around was a joy. Everything feels well thought out, well executed, and well balanced.
Then, a few rooms in, I died. I'm still not sure what killed me. I thought I was successfully dodging attacks, but it's clear in retrospect that I wasn't, and in fact was taking a ton of damage. I think if there's one flaw with the gameplay, it's that it's sometimes not clear where damage is coming from or that you're even taking damage. I did figure out that the little heart effect meant you lost health, but it's easy to miss those in the action.
I know checkpoints are coming, so I won't harp on this too much, but they weren't implemented before the end of the jam and they're not in the game at the time of writing. Having to restart from the beginning just plain sucks, and basically killed all the enthusiasm I had built up in one fell swoop.
I've touched on this already but the graphics are fantastic, they're all quality and the animations deserve special mention. I don't think any of it is particularly sophisticated, but it works fantastically well with the gameplay. The sound design, too, is consistent, and works great for establishing a pulse-pounding, high-energy atmosphere.
The one other thing I have to complain about a little is that the theme implementation is pretty lame.
I think I'd love this game more if it was more forgiving. Even with no checkpoints and difficulty a notch or two too high for me, though, it was still a ton of fun while it lasted. It's certainly going to be a real treat for folks with different preferences than I, and worth checking out for everyone.