Nice game. The controls are a handful - or three rather - but once you get behind it, the game plays quite nicely. Though the game definitely has its ups and downs. What makes matters worse is that the first two maps are really hard with how the game progresses. First, when you have no equipment and points in the skill tree, you get bullied by all the slimes until you've gotten a good grasp of the controls and some good gear. I tried my luck in harder maps before I beat the first one to get some better gear at least, which somewhat worked, but it doesn't feel nice to scrape some leftovers wherever you can get some just to be able to beat the first level. (Maybe I'm just bad on a skill level though, so I'm not really upset about it)
The second map is... weird. It's a maze, sure, and with the instruction to collect the keys for the bossfight there's some direction to it, but the layout really is annoying. Some passages you can't take because you either miss a little bit in jump height, or you're just a little bit too tall. So finding and memorizing not only the layout but also the paths that are viable is quite annoying. Here I noticed that the healing items only replenish your bursts when you're completely healed, otherwise they activate straight away. So a single hit from an enemy can keep you from stacking bursts. In the middle of a fight it might be useful that they activate instantly, but for every other purpose I think giving the player the choice of when to use them would be better. And then there's the bossfight... this could be me being too unskilled again, but I really struggle with that boss and only ever gotten a draw where we killed each other at the same time, even with level 3 and 4 gear.
Third map is my favourite one of the four. Really the opposite of map two with how there is only one path. The cysts on the walls are a bit annoying, but that seems to be their intended purpose. This map tests your patience though as there are a lot of monsters with little room inbetween, so I had to spend quite a long time just waiting for digestion. Especially after I had to decide on a xp boost for either slaying or eating enemies. I think it would be nice if digestion sped up over time, like normal speed when you've just eaten and then faster and faster the longer you do nothing, or massage your belly. The boss here was a bit weird. The first time I had beaten and eaten those dogs before I realized they were the actual boss. After that I tried to figure out their moves, but now I think you're better off not thinking about that at all. The more you think you understand how they move, the harder the fight seems to get.
Fourth map - is a map. Nothing really stood out. Which is not a bad thing really, as I find the enemies and map design are a good combination. Haven't beaten the boss yet, but that one really boils down to energy management and mastering the controls. Speaking of which - they feel like really unintuitive. I know there were lots of games that used similar keybinds, but I can't remember playing any of those. To me it felt like you were trying to map a controller onto the keyboard without reaching a satisfying setup. I think this game would really benefit from adding controller/gamepad support. Everything just feels like it's a ported console game.
I hope there'll be lots of levels in the future that allow me to unlock more of the skilltree. I feel like the game could use a story that connects the different levels, but not necessarily so. Right now it's about doing whatever you want to and getting stronger through that, which is totally fine, although a bit unrewarding. With either a story or an unlock system (or potentially both) clearing levels and beating bosses would serve a higher purpose rather than just average loot and a bit more xp than common enemies