The first impression is really strong on this one. The title screen is a standout, and the animated backgrounds are great. As far as controlling the character goes, I liked the way that Down immediately makes you slide.
The music track can get a little repetitive. I'm not sure if this was just my ear, but it sounded like it hitched slightly when looping.
Overall the one stage that's here is cute enough. The scorpion enemies are fun to take out with the gun while it felt like there were a few places where the turrets were placed so that you just had to wait for your dynamite to recharge. Sometimes the parachute bombs would spawn in such a way that there was no feasible way to avoid them, which was minorly annoying
The real sting is that there's no invincibility upon taking damage. This is very unfortunate, as you can get caught against a corner and juggled to death by an enemy with very little recourse. That's not too big a deal in the stage, but it did make the final boss of the game quite annoying. There were multiple times I would simply get trapped between two turrets that he would spawn and killed that way,. So it took a few tries and I'd say it tanked whatever fun I was having. Still! It's just a small matter of pushing thru to the end.
Overall? Great look. I didn't talk a lot about the sprites above, but there's a lot of them and they're very handsome. The character's moveset feels pretty okay. But the game is sorely missing a post-hit invincibility window! All in all, nice work. Also: Controller support worked great!! That's huge!