When things really get me thinking, I tend to fail to respond in a timely fashion, but it just sits in my brain nagging me, nearly 6 months, later, finally, here is some follow up I started and should have sent at the time in case anyone else bizarrely stumbles on this:
Regarding character collision, I didn’t mean to collide with the characters, but to utilize the different collision layers.
For example, I might have my layers like this:
ground player_body player_weapon player_hitbox enemy_body enemy_weapon enemy_hitbox
The CharacterBody2D’s will go on player_body/enemy_body and mask with ground, generally having simple shapes. Then, sensibly, the player’s weapon goes on player_weapon masking with enemy_hitbox. This way the terrain collision stays sane and isn’t affected strangely by animation but I’m free to do more complex damage shapes.
With it explained, the metroid door homage is cool but I think needs different packaging. Something like an evil eye and the door, or a creature like a spider drops in front of it.