I LOVE mix of huge pixels, ugly sprites (yeah, the player one) and beautiful detailed backgrounds. That encouraged me to explore every single location in this game.
It looks like you had to cut down score of this project. When you go to the left, the world is getting worse and worse until you hit invisible wall. When you go in opposite direction, there are quests, caves, deep caves (I LOVE IT!) and, suddenly, an opportunity to seal gates of evil and save the world again.
I think this game has potential. You should develop it further as exploring beautiful world was very fun and entertaining. You should definitely work on unfinished locations, player controllers and maybe sound effects. What a pity there are no dynamically changing music in this game. The mood would be amazing!