Lovely stuff! Ok I dig this, and I gotta tell you why.
Well, first off I gotta list some small issues, but only because I think it could be helpful and informative.
For me, the list of controls was so much that I had some tiiiny trouble figuring out what's what. But it came to me in about 10-15 seconds!
Upon boss death, particles and enemies remain. Damage was not generally the issue - however, when I would use my sword attack to defeat these enemies, a power would be selected before I could read what I got. Luckily the powers are so jammin' that I didn't mind when my health was halved and this little bee guy was hanging around.
1st. Boss optimal strat is to jump in place and wail on him from the right platform, ignoring his attack pattern.
And that's pretty much it in terms of issues. I may have had one or more else, but I forgot them as I typed.
So, with that out of the way, please allow me to admire what you've got going on here:
The way the character slides in the same direction as he slashes, AWESOME! Yes this is for me, I love these small precision implements.
I was hesitant to accept things like "faster attack, weaker damage, less range" but when I did, WOW!!! That felt great. It's like, when you spell these things out, it doesn't sound like an upgrade, but it's like exchanging bowser for fox in SSBM. Felt fantastic, looked almost as great as it felt.
The boss hitboxes were NICE and PRECISE!!! Especially the towering bug creature's X attack. I dodged it by going in between the X slashes without really going out of range, and that felt GOOD!!! I won't pretend to know exactly how you've set it up, but whatever you did, no complaints from me.
Speaking of - the art style was fantastic. Immersive. I did notice here and there little tricks you've employed to ease up the asset process, but each and every time, they fit. Zero complaints. Heck if someone told me you guys decided to upgrade things, I would be skeptical - I would think "are you sure you can top this?"
Excellent work. I would love to someday play a full game that feels like this.
Oh btw, great work on implementing the theme :]