What are the licenses for these art assets?
A tutorial points here and suggests it's "CC0 Universal 1.0" but on this page it just says "completely free to use". Confusingly it also says "Purchasing these assets grants you access to them".
I lifted the curse but now have memories of dying in Sonic 1 platforming coming back.
Using magic/kicks to ride "enemies" as platforms is an interesting idea, I wonder how that could be incorporated with them attacking you.
As you say the game is too hard. I think replacing 1 block platforms with 2 or 3 platforms would make it easier (and put the focus on the unique enemy riding parts).