Great game! I absolutely love how the game looks and just the whole vibe, but I had some problems with how the game played:
- My main problem, the death system. The whole point of a metroidvania is to explore. You explore to gain new powers, then explore more to find new areas with them, but with the death system in this game restarts the whole game, punishing you for exploring, as you waste time.
- Speaking of time, my next problem, the timer. I genuinely think that the timer could have been a really nice addition, it just had a couple of problems. My main problem with it is just how short it is. Even after I figured everything out and where everything was, completing the game still left me with only about 10 seconds, and there's not much you can do about it. The golden utensils are there to help, but the 5 seconds you get simply aren't enough, because almost all of those 5 seconds are used on just killing it.
- Another problem I had was the movement system. Jumping felt really floaty and unsatisfying, because you didn't have much control over it. It probably comes down to personal preferance, but I don't quite like how the jump will keep moving even after you let go of a button. Sprinting also felt a little weird, because it worked quite nicely on the ground, helping to save some of that essential time, but it for some reason didn't work in the air, which made jumping feel even more unsatisfying. On a somewhat unrelated note, sprinting for some reason seemed to cancel my animations, and I'm not quite sure why. It didn't make me enjoy the game any less, I just wanted to mention the bug just as some general feedback for the future.
- Another problem I had was the level design. The timer in the game made time an essential resource, but the level design was quite confusing and directionless, making you waste a lot of time just figuring out what to do. What made this a bit worse was how some sections would just outright be a waste of time, as they would just have pointless enemies that you need to kill, but are placed in a way where they would never kill you.
- My last, and final problem, is the hit invincibility. Whenever you get hit, the invincibility you get was really short, making it so that if you ever get on top of an enemy, or inbetween an enemy and something else, you just die without anything you can do about it, making you restart the game.
All in all, despite my problems and how much I seemed to be hating on the game, I actually quite enjoyed. Great job on making this game!