You’ve got a lot of good elements here for a full game! It’s obvious where the inspiration came from, but that’s not a bad thing! Learning and emulating good games is how it’s done! I could say that enemies are the most missed thing so far. I’m sure they will come in time. I suppose for the short term, polishing the movement and upping the game art would help most. Adding more things to do would be good too. Like low level/dumb enemies that drop something (some sort of money? Healing potions?) would be fund to beat up on while traversing the levels and they wouldn’t take a lot of time to make the AI for.
Being the designer of our game, I can tell you that even though our game is a top down space shooter, the design was heavily influenced by Hollow Knight and Super Metroid. I do wonder how gamers and other developers perceive that type of twist for the genre. Would you mind playing our game, rating it and leaving a comment letting us know what you think? We’d love it if you did!