Hello Martin,
Wow, this is just simply among the most exhaustive, thorough, and honest reviews of Meteora so far. You really nailed it and dissected the game with very high quality, and I thank you sincerely for that.
It has been a pleasure to read your review. I mostly agree with all your points, and I will address here some of them that I believe deserve some discussion.
It is true that the game design and level design are heavily inspired by the games having defined the root of the Metroidvania genre. There is no checkpoint: if you die, you spawn in the last savepoint. So yes, when you die, sometimes you lose some minutes of gameplay.
Also, as the level designer of the project, I openly declare that I my levels usually lean a bit more on to the hardcore Metroidvania half of the genre, and less to the non-hardcore half. This means that I ask the player to focus on the game: I ask him to test his orientation, his spatial awareness, memory, and to try his current abilities. He should think critically in every single room, both the first time he enters the room, and the subsequent times he comes across with new abilities under the belt. Your criticism is totally valid.
Assigning Melee to "Y" was a difficult decision, but you can acquire long range shooting attack at the beginning of the game if you explore some rooms. This shooting will be used a lot by the player and it is assigned to button "X".
Thank you for your kind words on the "pros" of the game, specially on the level design aspect. The whole team is thankful for your great analysis.
I hope you get to finish the game. You still can acquire some abilities such as the shooting, also surfing on those wind tunnels and even Teleport! All this is followed by a Boss battle.
Hope you have the time!
Keep in touch,
Cheers