The orthogonal movement was intentional. I am just a fan of it so tend to use it a lot.
Yeah the minigame was a late addition just to add something to actually do in the game. I wanted it to serve as a form of combat and have a period of time the player gets to attack back but couldn't work it in time. I was hoping to have the game end in some boss fight but ran out of time there as well and just cut the entire game down to much of nothing.