I really appreciate the detailed and thoughtful feedback! These are very fair points. I made some art updates after you played it (but didn’t get to the virus/upgrade, I had intended the structure by the shield to be statue with broken off pieces that you collected but the virus was better than the grey spheres).
Really though, the end summed it up well, I should have just started with the dash stuff and not bothered with any of this preamble, it was just stuck in my head the idea of getting upgrades, but then losing them for different-but-overall-better upgrades. I love it when any game has you revisit a space with new understanding so the world feels rich and deep but I absolutely should have started with the best part first.
Thanks again for playing and the feedback, I really want to work on this one more, if not simply to actually do the part I meant to do in the first place.