Fantastic art, the sprites look adorable and I love them! And I like the idea of corrupted levels for failure, even if inverted controls is a bit harsh. (I just gave up on "directions" and just went forward after that.) The references were also really fun, I loved seeing the Fuwamoco Ambulance as the reason the road is so dangerous.
The secret items seem to be buffs for the particular level your in, so they really shouldn't be required to prevent corruption, but others have mentioned that already.
And the environments were really pretty, but the platforms didn't really stand out from the backgrounds well enough, there were a few times I made a jump and hit something unexpected, although generally it saved me. And there were a few leaps of faith directly into lava or traffic because you couldn't tell where you're landing.