The game reminds me of an older generation of action-platformers that were about maximizing their short playtime through intricate enemy behaviours and numerous traps. You don’t see these designs very often because players are not used to interacting with a shorter, more difficult game, compared to newer games which are always longer and more forgiving. I was frustrated initially, but it was manageable when I changed my strategy, and enabled checkpoints on every screen.
I felt the physics work against the game. The high acceleration and low traction combine to make scenarios where you end up overshooting your jump and fall into an enemy’s attack. The physics model can be fun, but it should be tweaked a bit to prevent the feeling of losing control of your character, perhaps by slightly reducing the acceleration and increasing friction.
While the attacks were fast and responsive, their frame-perfect nature is frustrating because of the difficulty of registering if the enemy had died, or how close you were to killing them. Increasing the active time by a frame or two would provide a buffer against the necessary precision and the inability to react immediately to whether you had missed or not.
It’s good for how short it is. The continued dismemberment is not my fetish, but I can emphasize with its thrill.