Bit hard to rate this one considering how much of it is still in a prototype state, but there's some good ideas here!

Character design on display is pretty cute~

Some things felt rather unintuitive, like the tree branches not being able to platform on. Not sure if they're supposed to be or not? If not I'd consider outlining them with the darker shade of brown on the tree, and/or just raising them higher up on the map in general so they can't feasibly be reached. The skunk enemy also seemed very chill and didn't move, so I assumed it was an NPC I could talk to until they did damage to me, maybe they're supposed to be but got changed in the time crunch?

On my first playthrough I just used the AK at first since I thought that was maybe how you were supposed to attack after messing around with the controls, as a debug tool it's maybe a bit too accessible, to the point it just seems part of the expected control scheme. After taking down the bunny I thought 'oh, maybe I wasn't supposed to be able to attack yet'
I did beat the game after without it, and it went well despite some hiccups. The bunny boss was well made, the attack pattern and telegraphs provided a good challenge while feeling fair.

I still don't fully get how you're supposed to go to the right area without taking damage. Maybe bouncing on a frog or mouse enemy? Or maybe the aforementioned branches were meant to be jumped on. If it was the former, then the lack of a screen transition nearby to reset the enemies makes it a bit troublesome. I just ended up damage boosting, seemed like the best course of action, which isn't a great feeling as a player when you're not sure there is an expected alternative.

The pickup/climb ability was cool! I liked throwing stuff about and bouncing it to do damage to enemies, and the apples healing you but also being able to be grabbed and thrown if you were at full health already was a nice touch. I noticed you can platform on them, so maybe you're supposed to use that to get across the spikes on the way back? If so it's a bit rough since it's rng whether the mouse drops it, and the jump is very precise.

Took me a little while to figure out what the climb ability did (I thought maybe it was what allowed you to jump on those branches, but it was not) Turned out to be a wall jump, which worked fine once I knew it was that. Some indication when jumping against walls either animation wise or slowing the player's descent when pushed against them would make it more clear, but I assume this was just a time constraint thing. Never enough time to add everything you want, the way you'd like it to be, in a jam setting ^^;

The map screen and transition effect look great! Not sure if the NES can do it in that kind of motion but seemed to be emulating a mix of tile swap and screen scrolling, very interesting for sure, and the character art here is lovely too. The icons for the various power ups look great and I can imagine the sun changes to the moon or something later, though I haven't had the timer tick down enough to tell. Presumably it will at some point if it doesn't already, which is just a very nice extra bit of detailing.

There's a solid and charming game that could come out of this for sure, best of luck if you continue with it o/

Funny gags and genuinely great art and music. I enjoyed the gameplay too although I was stuck in the beginning area for a while until I figured out how to use the gun. I think maybe a text box telling players how to use that would be helpful since you have to press a button and a direction on the d-pad simultaneously. Overall great work!