I can't say I liked it. I loved Anubis (aside from c*b stuff) but this requires more polish.
- First enemy in the game requires like two hits, has a very complex pattern involving pausing and running at you, and the way to defeat it is also relatively complex - you have to wait until it runs at you, jump over it, then it will pause mid-run, then you gotta hit it in the back while it's turned. ...Why? First enemy in the game should be something simple.
- Your attack feels terrible. It's weak, it's slow, it's got a small range, and it has a disgusting feeling pause after the attack. Like no lie, it feels viscerally wrong, it's a severe game feel issue. I know that Castlevania whip is also slow, but it somehow felt way better - probably because the hitbox of the whip is on-screen for entire duration, while here the attack is only active for a short while, and rest is static cooldown that completely freezes you in place - you don't deal damage, but you can't defend yourself either. Also I'm pretty sure that CV whip (attack notorious for being slow and unresponsive) is still faster than your current attack. This kind of attack would make sense in a deliberately-paced beatemup or fighting game, but in a fast platformer? Literally why?
The sword attack in Anubis didn't have this issue either, it was responsive and fun.
- First boss.... what the fuck? Okay so he jumps around the screen and throws fireball. That is about the pattern... of Bowser from SMB3. Okay uh... why is the FIRST boss of this game have the pattern of FINAL boss of another game? Don't you think that's a bit ridiculous? Hell, he's harder than Bowser - Bowser usually died in like 5 cycles, but your attack is so weak you might take longer; in addition to that, hitbox of himself and his flames are proportionally bigger than Bowser's. Again - why is a buffed final boss the first boss of this game?
In addition, this boss is a bit busted. Mega Man has plenty bosses that jump around the arena, but in this games you can either manipulate the AI to never get stuck in a corner, or you have enough time while he jumps to get under him, usually by sliding. But you can't do either here - if you get stuck in a corner, you eat damage, because he jumps so fast and so low (at least sometimes - it's inconsistent), and you move so slowly, so there's no good way of getting below him (unless his hitbox is unclear and not corresponding to the sprite - but if that's the case, that's already a problem). Yeah it might be 'technically' possible to avoid damage, idk - but why is this situation even here? Why I might be randomly presented with a situation where I have extremely low chance of avoiding damage? That is the furthest thing from 'fair'.
Like this a badly designed boss. His pattern is simplistic, sure - but that means nothing if only means of avoid damage is obscure or absurdly hard. You don't want to force player to learn an obscure trick to avoid damage from the boss - for example in a Kaizo game, you probably wouldn't put a shelljump in a bossfight. Here, why are you asking me to learn (entirely by trial and error) a really precise way - and only way - of avoiding damage? And the boss is designed that if you don't learn it, you literally can't beat him, because you will get cornered in every cycle - and you have very little health. Oh, I supposedly have 75 health (with the upgrade), but I lose like 20 every hit. If it's so necessary and obscure, teach it to me - you can't ask me to do trial and error to learn this vital piece of information! Give me a tutorial! Maybe have a round of a weaker version of this enemy with this exact pattern appear before, so I can learn the timing? I'm not asking for much - I'm only asking for the game to teach me it's rules.
All of this is part of a bigger issue - difficulty curve is lopsided. The game begins really hard at full blast. But that's not how difficulty curve should go! You can go really high - if you start slow. Again, not an issue in Anubis - it had a full blown tutorial section to start things off, and then things took quite a bit to ramp up (and because you could control where you go, you could control the pacing yourself). But here you're just thrown 0 to 100 in deep water immediately. Like even insanely hard games like Contra or Alien Soldier waited a bit before unleashing their full power level.
Final point are quality of life issues. Like currently using communicator is surrealy obscure, and you don't have to take my word for it - several people in this very comment section have asked how to answer the communicator. It also doesn't save frequencies which just absurd - like, every MG game after MGS saved used frequencies for a reason. The reason being is that having to write down frequencies is annoying, time consuming and is not actually fun gameplay.
If you still want to do that because you're so committed to the oldschool vibe - maybe give me in-game notepad? Like an actual in-game TXT file I can edit (with a keyboard, or on gamepad with a text input window). Deus Ex had that, it allowed me to edit my own notes for later, that was cool and it'd solve that problem - you could have your cake and eat it too, you would give player the oldschool vibe of making your own notes - but you also wouldn't require the player to actually bring out a piece of paper. And also - why is the animation for using savepoint so slow? If I'm using savepoint, I probably just died and want to get back to action, and this is just annoying.
Like there is things I like - the story seems interesting, I really like the dialog and the codec conversations, the gameplay in general is fun, especially jumping, and exploration is nice, and I love the art style, and I really appreciate I can play your game that features adults... I just hope the game can be polished up to live up to the potential.