Thank you for playing!
Yeah the maze is kinda linear but way easier to traverse with the map, if you find it.
You are correct with the soft lock possibility , but initially I had it so you could do it with the keys as well. I removed that risk (I think) but I couldn't figure out a good way to layout the maze with regards to bombs before deadline. Might make adjustments for this post jam. However the game is kinda short so if it happens, a restart of the game is doable.
For the boss I tried to balance the health to make the boss fight challenging yet doable. I wanted the players to feel some accomplishment when finally beating it, this is also weighted with how many coins players find and this is where I ended. I might change that as well later on.
In early development I had shops all over the maze but it didn't feel quite right and player wouldn't know what to spend the coins on, so my solution to that was to place the shop right before the boss and have a save state before player spends the coins. In this way they can pick another tactic each time they fight the boss to improve their chances.