Awesome little mini metroidvania with a really nice environment and objective storytelling. The dialogue helped a lot with staying on track and never feeling totally lost or wandering, I knew generally which way to go to get the next objective which was great. Loved all the powerups and environments. I think the very cool color palette of the whole world really gave an opportunity to make some of the enemies pop with a more red color scheme, they would have really been striking and clear. One of the ground smashers got me, kaizo-style, because I legit didn't see it at all blended in with the backgrounds. There were also some red herrings with the visuals, quite a few foreground horizontal lines that were not actually interactable.
Like in the beginning, the grass line going across feels like it should be a "Castlevania" staircase, where you can stay on ground level without going up the slope. Likewise, the dotted line platforms convey "this is a Down+Jump type platform".
After the softlock, I restarted to speedrun it cus I was really interested to see where the story went! Until...the boss. I think I discovered something about myself... i *hate* reverse control mechanics. Going upside down to fight the boss was really frustrating. It was a combination of issues: First it seemed I NEEDED to crouch to hit his vulnerable spots.. which means holding UP while on a platform... but if you're holding UP and JUMP you'll do a SLIDE (straight into the boss and take more damage... AND lose your vantage point so you have to wait for another cycle). I was not coordinated enough to do all that and gave up lol.