...okay...
...I'm... not sure I like this game.
...let me start with the positive though.
The spritework is pretty good, for one (a few gripes with animations like the shooting animation aside). I like what you chose as the player's first upgrade, that's a pretty solid pick. The intro sets up a pretty intriguing premise. Scientists who are basically being trained to be powerful warriors? Yeah, that's an interesting idea! I do like the song that plays on loop for the game, it's quite catchy, energetic, adventurous, yet somewhat atmospheric, everything I could want it to be honestly!
Also, I like the idea of the bait ability. Luring around creatures from the environment to do your dirty work is a pretty fun idea. More games should do stuff like that one.
...
...however...
I originally wrote a longer wall of text here, but it felt a little too mean given I don't like, hate what you've done here enough to warrant it. I've opted to replace that and summarize my thoughts on the negatives as...
Okay, so, this game claims to be oldschool difficulty and no tutorials, only to have a control tutorial, an intro with a lot of text mixed with art that feels closer to 1994 than 1986, item descriptions with lots of text that explain how they work, and then seems to punish you for experimenting with missiles in the way those older games actually wanted you to experiment by, as far as I can tell, never giving you a way to actually get more if you run out and can't find a missile expansion item, since enemies never seem to drop them.
And far as I can tell, that means my last experience with this game was seemingly softlocking myself, because I ran out of missiles and could never figure out how to get more. Suffice to say, I kind of gave up, since I wasn't having fun and I'd rather spend my time playing the other games in the jam at this point.
I beat the yellow devil in Mega Man 1 without the pause glitch, by the way, so don't misunderstand, I'm the sort who can love me some oldschool difficulty. Problem is, this game is not oldschool difficulty. It's not as clever as oldschool difficulty often was. It's just poorly designed and tries to excuse itself by calling it oldschool difficulty.
There are cool ideas here though! Please, find time to make a better game to use the idea of the bait in. Maybe also make it slightly less finicky next time though. But seriously, it's not a bad idea. There's good ideas here! There's good things here! I wish I could say I liked this game, I just... I can't. I'm sorry.