I really enjoyed the combat, once I got the hang of it. The trick seems to be to never use the second attack, and to always roll behind enemies.
I get a Dark Souls vibe from bits of the design, which makes me wonder: is the cheesing deliberate? I know From Software deliberately leaves in slightly broken stuff for players to exploit, and this feels similar. For example, you can bait enemies into hitting each other, and it seems to be possible to do massive damage to enemies on stairs.
My major complaint would be that this doesn't feel like a Metroidvania in any way. I never unlocked new abilities (unless you count the stronger healing items), and the branching paths were always dead ends.
Other things I liked:
- The art style is great.
- You put a health meter on the boss! That gave me the motivation to keep trying that fight until I beat it.
- The music is nice, and also unobtrusive. It never got annoying.
- Controller support :)
Minor complaints:
- Not much telegraphing on enemy attacks. It's quite hard to react, especially when you're just starting the game.
- I could equip healing items, but there didn't seem to be a way to use equipped items (at least, not on my Xbox controller). I had to open the menu every time.
Overall, good game, hope you can develop it further!