Really cool game! I love metroidvania, even though I only played the old school Metroid GBA and the early Castlevania games, basically not (yet) playing hollow knight, or atleast I only played very little, the issues I state are probably solved in Hollowknight, it seems to be in the same vein, but as I havent played that game much yet, I dont know man.
However, the game looks great! Sounds great too! The main menu transitions are slow but fine, the death menu transition is a bit long too but again, not much of an issue.
Movement feels unatural. there is a slowing down / airbrake effect when the button is released but when you press the other direction it immediately goes that way instead of yknow, slowing down first then picking speed up in the other direction. A lot of games use dash for this quick direction change, using it for normal movement feels really unnatural. Gravity seems a bit too high as well in my opinion.
The spitting enemy is weird. It shoots where you are, which feels a bit weird. In my experience and opinion, enemies in these types of games should be predictable. Like, attacking in one direction, or pattern. In this case it would be shooting side to side. Or atleast only in 8 directions. Shooting in ANY direction where you are and you only being able to attack side to side (or i guess up and down as well with the mid-jump attack) feels kinda bad. Especially when contrasted with the other enemies, which do nothing. The flying wisp is cool to block off platforming things, but the standing or floating enemy just feels unnecessary.
I guess its because its a demo, but it feels extremely weird without it, but a core part of the metrodivania experience is exploration. There is none here. You do platforming and slaying enemies in a linear fashion, which is fine, but in my opinion exploration (and a bit of backtracking) is all part of the experience, and the demo in some way should include that.
The boss is cool. I couldn't defeat it after a few tries but its well made. The arena is a bit simple but it does the job, the wisps are unnecessary there though. Health is fine for the boss, a few of his attacks (mainly the "homing scythe throw" thing) are not that well telegraphed, but others such as the pillar strike is good.
The dodge is weird. Its fine, does its job well, but I do not know if its the level design, the enemy design, or whatever, but I did not find a use for it. With the boss, its good to like evade the pillar attack, but outside of that, its basically just a platforming tool, instead of a combat dodge, as in combat, its just simpler to smash attack and be done with it. But maybe thats the intended combat.
Good luck with the project!