I think it might be better to have a assist mode for those who really need it and instead have main levels and hard levels. The main levels are basicly the story levels you have to play and the hard levels are bonus levels that you can play if you want to, but you have to complete maybe a specific task to get them.
Just so you now, I got to dream three.
Then when you get the deflect, it feels a bit useless. It has a very short room for error(you have to activate it excactly at the right time or you will take damage) and when you have a lot of enemies against you at the same time it just becomes easier to attack them head on and take some damage. So a way to fix it and at the same time balance it would be to increase the time the deflect is activated and then have a longer recharge. But check with others and see what they think.