I am not sure if this is a bug, or what, but when playing the non-postjam-fix version of the game on a GB emulator, I'm finding the "keepaway" sections of the game randomly unresponsive. Sometimes onion moves the pot immediately, and sometimes won't respond at all. This makes these sections very difficult. I may try the postjam fix version (which I didn't notice at first) and see if that helps.
Yes, it is most likely that the movement is being locked before you have time to move to a safe direction. That window of safety gets smaller and smaller fairly quickly.
I imagine we probably should have had some sort of visual indicator to show the player when they are beyond the locked off point because it can definitely feel like it is a UI response bug.
You have to be pretty quick to get past the second foe (the first foe, I think, is fairly straightforward) and it gets even tougher beyond that.
It's definitely tough though. Probably the toughest game we have ever made. I wrote the code and I still find it pretty challenging. But, yeah, like Poly said, figure out which is the warning phase and which is the attack phase and use that warning phase to avoid being hit and do it fast.
If you are still having problems, let us know here and I can give you a technique hint I use to make it slightly easier.
Aha! So... I was today years old when I realized that there is a warning phase and an attack phase. I thought the intent was just to react quickly and avoid everything coming from the edges of the screen, and I thought some were "fake" attacks and some were real and you had to react on the fly. Now I see that there's a pattern recognition element. It looks obvious in hindsight. Much easier to manage, now, thank you!