Thanks so much for your feedback!
Could you elaborate a bit on the floaty movement? It feels pretty tight to me, but I'm testing with a gamepad and mechanical keyboard. Do you feel the character stops too slowly? Lacks air control? You're absolutely right that it's an important thing to fix.
As for the other points, I definitely see where you're coming from. I think a couple of them explain themselves as you find upgrades, but the opening is definitely confusing.
Sure! I think the easiest way to explain it would be that "it feels like you control the camera, and the player character is tied to the camera by a leash." So basically you've got a quick, responsive camera tied with long player animation cycles. The stopping speed is fine, as is the air control, it's simply the amount of time that you're in the air is too long and too even...generally platformers might have different character velocities based on whether they're jumping or landing, and while I can't exactly examine your code to see what your jumping/falling velocities are, they feel pretty much the same to me. If they're not the same, they're not different enough to effectively notice.
This problem (long animation cycles) on its own might not be that big of a deal if your camera didn't accentuate it. Your camera is very quick and accurate...something which really should be a positive. But here the effect is that by pressing keys on the keyboard, it feels like you're moving the camera: it always beats the player to whatever the next position is, making it feel like the player character is playing "catchup" with its own camera which only adds to the general floaty feel.
Sorry if it feels like my criticism was harsh, I know what it's like to spend so many hours of your time on a single project only to have it criticized the first chance people get xD
I like the changes in the player's jump animation, it does feel less floaty, but what I think you can do to make it even better is increase the upward jump velocity by a bit. It'll make the initial jump feel more springy. I got a lot further in the game this time, and while I really like how expansive the world is, it feels very linear--not that I'm complaining, as linearity is something I enjoy--but idk how that works in a metroidvania.
