Fantastic demo! The gameplay, art style, sound design and music capture the 90s aesthetic pretty much perfectly!
The beginning sequence of the game sets up everything really well, both in terms of story and gameplay. I like how you introduce the mechanics of the game one at a time, making sure the player can get used to each aspect of the gameplay before moving on to the next.
The platforming is nice, but I think it would be better if you could grab onto vines while falling/flying. It kinda feels weird to me that you can only grab onto vines when you're on the ground, and if you try to walk into them while flying or falling, nothing happens.
The combat is pretty solid. I love the note progression that play when you strike an enemy with the sword multiple times, really creative idea. I'd love to see more of that kind of stuff.
During the boss fight, the boss would sometimes get stuck because he wouldn't go around the holes in the arena.
Probably my biggest complaint about the game is this: during the beginning of the game, I was a bit confused by the items I was collecting. Since I hadn't yet gotten the bombs from Louis, I had no idea what those green things were, or why I was picking them up, and this is true of many of the items in the game. I'm not sure what's the best way to go about fixing this, but I think the player shouldn't be collecting items if they have no idea what those items are until a later point.
It's cool that the world is semi-open and you can freely explore each area. The doorways that transition you to new locations all look more or less the same, which could make things a bit confusing. It would be nice if approaching one of these doorways will pop up some text that tells you where the door leads to. For example "ENTER SHROOM HALL" or something to that effect. This would make navigating easier, and it could also add another level of world-building to the story.
Speaking of story, I really like what you've got going so far! It reminds me of the Redwall novels by Brian Jacques. The character designs are interesting and the little sounds they make during dialogue are a nice touch.
Besides the addition of a cool intro cutscene, I couldn't really find much difference between this version and the pre-jam version.
Great work! This game is incredibly well done!