Good:
- Lovely presentation. The art is charming, and all works together very well.
- I really enjoyed some of the jumping puzzles. Getting to the double jump was fun!
- The controls tutorial was inspired! I love that there's a practice room (although it's a little confusing that it tells you the attack button, but you can't use it).
Bad:
- I understand that you maybe didn't have time for a checkpoint system, but letting me keep my upgrades when I died, or putting in some way to heal damage, would make it much less frustrating. I don't feel like permadeath is a good fit for Metroidvanias.
- It felt very linear. I never had to backtrack more than a couple of rooms, and never really had to think about it. To my mind, the main appeal of a Metroidvania is exploration, and there wasn't really any of that (at least as far as I saw).
Overall, I really like the feel of the game, and wish I could play more of it, but there are only so many times I'm willing to replay from the beginning.