The theme is very consistent throughout.
I do not play many games in the genre so I do not know how [un]common the mechanic is, but I really enjoy the graze system as a concept. It has such a large impact on gameplay, able to influence the entire playstyle and even the player’s frame of mind, from panic to seeing a wall of projectiles to excitement at acquiring so much charging potential.
Some notes, possibly bugs:
On the second level regular attacks disappear. Considering the boss for the area looks like the protagonist and has a mic, this seems to be intentional; but when I activate the skill, the projectiles sometimes reappear and sometimes don’t. One of the two is probably an error?
Occasionally I take multiple hearts worth of damage from one hit. Sometimes all 5 hearts. There is nothing to indicate a special attack, they seem like average collisions/hits.
In level 2 some enemies spawn in the middle of the screen and immediately die (I’m supposing they’re falling onto the stage from above?). In combination with the multiple-heart-hit bug mentioned earlier, it can cause an instant game over if the player happens to be there. If we could have a telegraph of the drop/attack, like a growing shadow one second before impact as a warning, this would work great.