For reference I only used the default palette and played on normal difficulty.
One off notes as I was playing:
- Always thought it was cool how you have classic and modern soundfont options for the music.
- The green projectiles that the bird(?) enemy shoots are hard to see. Things important to the player like projectiles that can hurt them should always have an outline imo. I also think it moves really fucking fast but maybe that's a skill issue.
- It looks like the fountain can only be used once, but if you leave the room and come back its sprite will reset like it's full again.
- After dying, the setting's menu reset the soundfont option to "Modern" even though I had it on classic. The classic music was still playing like normal though.
- The orange flower and butterfly enemy having the same palette tripped me up. When I first encountered the butterfly I ran into it thinking it was some sort of item. I'm still not really sure what the orange flower actually does honestly.
- I don't notice much of a difference in speed from sprinting. From the game's itch page it says I should be moving faster if I hold C after twirling.
- Powercut doesn't seem to be visibly different from the regular attack. Looks like the range is the same as the regular attack so you're better off just spamming the regular attack instead of wasting time charging.
- Continue seems to be bugged. If I try to continue after a death the screen transitions to a new room but the player does not respawn. Pressing buttons will play sounds as if they are there though, as if they are hidden somewhere.
- There really needs to be some sort of hit feedback. Even the NES zelda would at least knock enemies back when you hit them. Right now enemies will always perform their attacks uninterrupted which can make it really hard to attack and then dodge incoming attacks fast enough.
Thoughts on the overall gameplay:
I think the rooms is this game are far too cramped. I'm not sure what sort of resolution you are working with but you might want to consider shrinking the player sprite (or their hurtbox at the very least) among other things so we have more room to play with. Twirling feels unwieldy because it travels you so far with very little control. Since it's suppose to be this game's dodge roll maybe shorten the distance it makes you travel and allow the player to steer it slightly instead of being set on a straight path. The randomly generated props in the rooms are more of annoyance than anything else cause they have collisions and make the rooms feel even smaller.
It felt like I didn't really have to bother with the other weapons or items. As I mentioned before the regular attack already has decent range and you're able to spam it pretty effectively.
Aesthetics are nice but I personally didn't vibe too much with the gameplay. With a few small changes here and there I could see it being a lot more fun though.