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I completed it, it was pretty nice!

I was immediately surprised and pleased by how the title screen set the mood. This is something I found again when the boss appeared. Really nice staging. I also liked the little narration framing the adventure. The visuals themselves are minimalist but grew on me, especially the player's animations with a special mention to the upward and downward slashes, which are very cute.

More environmental flourishes to dress up the big empty rooms would have been nice. Maybe statues from the lost dynasty? ;)

I've found the controls a bit difficult, especially because I couldn't get my Xbox gamepad to work. Going fast and jumping can be a bit disorienting an nauseating as the camera moves a lot. Terminal velocity is also very large, so falling from heights is not a pleasant experience. The wall-jump and wall-slide feels a bit too abrupt. It's also very easy to get stunlocked to death and enemies don't drop health so I quickly stopped fighting and simply avoided them. The boss's sprite and patterns were nice, though it just disappeared on defeat, which felt anti-climactic. It was surprising and a bit disappointing considering the attention given to its appearance.

It's also more of a pure platformer than a metroidvania. I don't remember being ever offered multiple paths to explore at the same time. Though I did get the double damage powerup simply by wall-jumping, which doesn't seem intended but provided a small bit of sequence-breaking satisfaction. I liked that there was two paths to the double jump, one way more difficult than the other, but it doesn't reward you at all for choosing it. It would have worked better if it had let you grab the powerup earlier than intended.

The game did freeze quite a few times (presumably to load stuff?) but most of the time (save for one big noticeable exception) it was during room transitions, so no big deal.

Overall it was a nice, short experience. The platforming can be a bit challenging and frustrating, but it doesn't overstay its welcome and it has good vibes, so recommended! Good job ;)

Thank you so much for the detailed feedback! That helps a lot.

And you are absolutely right. I could have spend more time on doing backgrounds and a decent death animation for the boss. And level design is something I definitely need to improve on. This was my first game where I had to design levels, so I was kinda expecting that they will not be ideal. But it really should not be possible to just dodge all the enemies as easy as it is.

Overall I am quite happy, though, considering that this is my first metroidvania.