Okay I've played this a little bit now and I have some thoughts:
I played this on a gamepad using a control stick, but also with a dpad.
First impression:
As a player I felt that I could accurately judge jumps heights that would be possible at a glance, I think this is excellent.
Usually in 3D platforming games aerial control is something to be managed
in real time with quick reactions to course correct mistakes. This throws that out the window while still being quite responsive. Everything here seems to encourage a commitment to your platforming. If you approach at the wrong speed you will fall. You have to manage when you are accelerating and control your sliding carefully. This is really cool, kinda reminds me of how some bits of riding the mach bike in spear pillar in pokemon felt. Hitting a wall giving a visual feedback and punishment is interesting I'm looking forward to seeing where you take that.
The only thing that i felt that was a bit off was accelerating from a standstill felt very slow/sluggish, whereas when I was landing from a jump it felt more right to me ? Applying different variable amounts of acceleration for accelerating with vs breaking your momentums coordinate direction could subtly improve the feel of that. I'm fearing that this may rear its head later if you decide to put moving platforms that you can walk on in your level design language.
Combining the drifting and jumping felt fun. Felt myself wanting to skate around some 90 degree turns and do some tight jumps. On the single block jumps I did wish I could prepare a smaller jump in advance, something like half the height. Having a way to do this either with a spell or by releasing the jump within an input window. As a more general note, I felt like platforming horizontally was easier to judge visually than into the screen. out of the screen jumping feel a bit less instant to process.
I can sort of see the game loop being multiple gauntlets of continuous platforming challenges with optional momentum blocked challenges that require the courage and planning from the player on a reentry to the area. Flip jumping is awesome also