Just played through it. So far it feels like a prototype, but it's alright.
Animations are pretty great. Both on the main character, enemies and the goo boss. Backgrounds also look good, especially in the town area at the end. Can't really comment on the music, since there isn't any :3
I really like the ledge grabbing, and overall controls seemed fine. There are a couple of things that started to stand out later on:
- Jumps are very committed, which I'm usually not a fan of, but I don't really mind if there's a reason for it and right now this game isn't at the point where I can say if there's a reason.
- Also jumps have a couple of frames of start up when the pony crouches before leaping. That bit of delay before jump adds to the feeling of stiffness. I know animation-wise it's more realistic that way, but in games I prefer maximum responsiveness over everything else.
- I don't really mind the lack of crouching, but I would like to have some sort of response to down button press (even just moving the head 1 pixel lower). Without any reaction it feels weird.
- I'd prefer the strong attack to be not on "forward+attack" but on "up+attack" or a separate button entirely. It's too easy to do it accidentally.
Level design seems okay. Right now it's hard to judge based on just one introductory level. Hidden areas were a nice surprise (even though there's little point to them right now).
There are also some features that make me wanna ask: "why is this here?" - like health bar and damage numbers, coins and crates. It feels like this game wants to be a metroidvania where eventually your health will grow, your attacks will do more damage, your coins will be spent on something in some kind of shop, and so on. But right now it's just a straightforward platformer and all these things add nothing to a straightforward platformer. Also the fact that you still take a lot of damage when you block leads me to feel like this is something that player should want to improve and it's sort of a motivation for the player to look forward to all the upgrades that will happen, but right now it just makes blocking pointless.
So, the combat. The combat has one problem. And here comes a pretty long paragraph about it. It's not a rant, just some feedback and I hope it'll help to make the game better. So: there are no moves that can cancel attacks. I think is a pretty big problem, since attacks have quite a bit of recovery and get stuck in attacking animations for awhile. Backdash in Castlevania/Bloodstained and rolling in Souls/Borne games cancel your attack into evasive maneuver which leads to way more fun and fair feeling combat, since you can react to enemy's attacks and avoid taking damage if you're good at it. In this game, because you can't cancel your attack and you're stuck in animations for so long, fighting feels very restrictive and you really have to play it super safe or you'll eat a bunch of damage that you can't avoid even if you see it coming. So the difficulty of combat here ends up coming not from your ability to react and response accordingly, but from how well you remember for how long you'll be stuck in the recovery and will you be able to move in time. To beat the goo boss I had to just do one attack, then run away, then run back in, do one attack and run away again, otherwise I'll be put into a position where taking damage depends not on me, but on enemy's AI and my guess work, since even if I'll stop attacking as soon as I see that boss is telegraphing her attack - I don't have enough time to get unstuck and jump or move away. That fight was not fun. If I could've dodge or cancel my attacks in any way, by ducking or jumping, or rolling, or anything, it would've been a pretty alright boss, but with this combat it's either feels unfair when you eat a bunch damage you see coming a mile away, but stuck in a recovery or it's boring if you play it super safe like I described above. (also this goo boss can move all the way to the left corner of the arena, which also leads to unavoidable damage).
It's not like you can't make a combat system without ability to cancel moves, but it only really works with "one attack" combat systems, like in old Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden games, where you have just one attack and, yes, you do have to remember how long your recovery is and you do have to account for it, but it's the recovery of your one and only attack, so it's not hard to learn it and account for it. When you have combos and multiple attack types - remembering recovery timings becomes a nightmare and it just not a fun time.
I hope that helps :3
It's a neat game so far and I hope it will continue to improve.