Enjoyment 3/5: while I REALLY wanted to love this, there were several issues that tanked it completely - the game-breaking bugs mentioned in the execution section. I love how the attacks form a fluid combo and how flow-ey the fighting is. That said, the enemies felt interchangeable and didn't present unique challenges.
Execution 2/5: when I first started the game, this was sitting at a solid 4. The only reason it wouldn't be a 5 is because when I was playing, my mouse was not locked into the window, and kept dragging over to my second monitor while I was fighting, which caused several issues. I also had to manually reset it to the centre every few seconds. However, when I unlocked the dash, pressing E did nothing. Upon restarting the game, I found that choosing to continue instead of make a new game would freeze the program, meaning I had no choice but to restart. I left off here.
Sensory 5/5: the game looks absolutely gorgeous. The retro pixelated environment fits perfectly with the vibe, the music, the sound effects, and even the way the character looks. Combat and movement both felt responsive and controlled, very graceful.
Metroidvania 4/5: fairly standard metroidvania. The only thing that keeps it from being a 5 is because it felt like there was usually only ever one direction to go, so it didn't feel very non-linear.
Relevance to the theme 4/5: the retro style combined with the clean environments made the game's visuals add up to more than the sum of their parts, which is very impressive.
Overall, I wish I could have enjoyed this more. I'd absolutely have another go if the bugs were fixed.