The art in this game is pretty decent, and the lore works well. The pirate sought immortality, but became trapped forever in a loop of slaughter.
It would've been nice if there were greater stakes, even if that only came in the form of a 'high score' that you could lose when you die.
Even if there were a high score, there would be nothing stopping the player from repeatedly dying to try to get their preferred character. Perhaps the more powerful characters could only start spawning later into the game, so that you need to actually try if you want to use them in a run.