Cool game!
The moving to jump higher part was interesting, made it so you couldn't easily sneak by everything and have to move somewhat erratically which can lead to mistakes.
I really wish jump wasn't also bound to up. Playing this on my controller, I accidentally jumped when trying to move back and forth to gain height a lot, making the game far more punishing than it already is.
mice/rats are rude, they're so small, but still take multiple hits. Getting smacked down with knockback sucks but it is part of the main challenge here and rarely kills you once you get high enough, so it's not too bad. Were it not for the controller issue I'd maybe have finished it off, but the boss did seem to have a lot of health, and I'm not sure if it resets.
weapon swings and general movement feel good, most enemies seem a hitpoint too beefy for my tastes, but are otherwise fine, and your swings can go out fast enough to compensate for the hp, so it's not too bad. Good sound design and effects on damaging, feels satisfying to slice through enemies.
Enemies respawning on the floor you're standing on is rude, but with the design of the game they kind of need to respawn at some point otherwise you'll be climbing back up an empty tower. The flashing is a good indication, I'm just sometimes not focused enough on it.
Not a huge fan of the lack of one-way collision on the sides of platforms, it just feels awkward and not intuitive. I'd remove it, or at least make the box for it smaller (leaving more room to go through) and layer it with another 1 way across that part (assuming it's tileset based)
The blue lines across the screen were interesting, mostly there to break up the zones and maybe checkpoint you? Nice bit of QoL.
All in all pretty nice! Might give it a redo if the controls get changed up later, but I had fun!