Wow, this is difficult. I actually really like how fast pace it is and how quick the movement itself can be, it feels pretty good to blast through some of the screens that allow for it.
The things that made it feel more difficult than it needed to be though were:
1. the small range on the weapon attack felt at odds with how fast the movement speed was. I generally wanted to maintain my momentum from screen to screen, but if I tried to hit an enemy while moving I would almost always take damage. This meant I had to stop and wait for the enemy to come to me instead.
2. I died more times from getting knocked back onto spikes than I want to admit, there should be an invincibility period after taking damage or just make it one hit death like Super Meat Boy. :)
3. With the amount of deaths and the pace at which they occur, it'd be nice to treat each screen as its own challenge and with its own checkpoint instead of starting back from the very beginning.
Those things said, it's a pretty good foundation for a fun and frenetic fast-paced hack and slash. I didn't really make it far enough to find out how much of a Metroidvania it is, though, and whether or not that affects the kind of pacing that's present in the early game.