Thanks for the detailed feedback about the physics and stuff, that's the kind of feedback that's really valuable to me. I grew up playing NES Mario, so slidey careening characters feel normal to me, but I agree the balance between acceleration and deceleration should be tweaked, and maybe max speed reduced. Also, if you feel like you lose control when attacking, that's intentional. I adopted an "either move or attack" restriction, so if you start an attack you're committed to the same trajectory until it finishes. And you also have less deceleration when attacking on the ground, so that you don't lose too much speed from attacking. The attack hitbox only being active for one frame is due to the detailed stab animations, but I could probably fudge it for a couple frames without it looking too weird.