Alright, after giving it another chance I seem to have reached some kind of ending now (though after beating only one more boss, Rust) so here's some more thoughts on it:
- Rust is a much more enjoyable boss that actually felt like it was designed with the player's actual moveset in mind. Felt challenging but fair. I wouldn't call it outstanding necessarily but it was good and if it were the first one I'd fought I'd have had a much better first impression of the game.
- Neither the game nor page description mention that you have the ability to... quintuple jump? I wasn't counting how many exactly you get, but its some excessive number. This is a pretty unintuitive ability to have at the start of the game and really warrants some explicit mention somewhere. Would've probably made python a bit more manageable, though I still think it was a really poor choice to make it the first boss.
- I don't think I care for the chargeup mechanic the player's weapon. It didn't feel like it added a whole lot to the combat and mostly just felt mildly awkward? The fact that you couldn't turn it sharply without releasing the button was mildly interesting but I don't think the charge contributed to that in any real way.
- Oh my god please tone down the weapon noise. I am so tired of hearing a million lasers going off every millisecond and drowning out every other noise in the game. It does not need a full volume sound for every individual laser when it is firing this fast.
- Do not like the level design mostly consisting of deep vertical pits designed so you cant climb back up, especially when theres missable content at the top of them. Its another design choice where I really just cant understand what the goal of this was. Aside from making half the content needlessly missable it also just makes the world feel repetitive, uninteresting, and kind of just nonsensical? Like I can't really tell what the setting of the game is meant to be.
- The platforming I attempted felt really bad. Even more than the bosses I fought it really feels like it is not taking the player's high movement speed into account. This is a player controller that feels suited for leaping around a wide open racetrack, not trying to precisely navigate cramped tunnels.
- The visuals in general are solid enough, I like the limited palette, its very appealing. Music also sounds pretty decent, at least when I could actually hear it over the endless ear-shattering drone of laser fire.