I totally agree that the time expended on animation did worth.
Just to sum up: I love the cinematic style and if you allow me to say I think that maybe tha case in here would be just some slight tuning on level design.
Totally allowing any feedback… how are you supposed to make things better if not hearing other ppl thoughts on them? Some fine tunning on the level can help for sure, and moving for a 2 state jump mechanic to a 3 staty probably will help as well… now you have “no landing” or “heavy landing”… I am thinnking on adding a “soft landing” with lower recovery time and keeping part of the horizontal momentum (maybe a roll landing?), also grading a bit initial boost so the minimal length of a jump is reduced significantly… Still needing to go through many things before fixing on those, but I keep them in the high part of the list. thnx for the feedback!