First of all, I absolutely admire the vision and ambition of the game! While the rest of the review might seem like I had a lot of issues, I think that's kind of a given with a project of this size. There might have been plenty of nitpicks, but that's because the game attempted to achieve many different things and mostly succeeded in all of them, but fell short here and there. Overall, I think the level of polish and execution is very impressive considering the scope and the timeframe!
The art style was very cute, and I loved the variety of characters and enemies! I immediately thought the trees looked like people, so it was really funny when I found out some of them were actually enemies in disguise. That said, I feel like the overall look of the game was strongly hindered by so much of the level being taken up by empty space, which really drew attention to the simple graphics. I think the game also suffered from not using true pixel accuracy, which resulted in some things looking weirdly out of place (this applied mainly to the font and the "smeary" enemy projectiles).
Overall, the controls were very solid, and zip-zooming around with the dash was a lot of fun! People have already mentioned the issue of falling into pits too easily when dashing, so I'm not gonna harp on that here. When using the analog stick to move, the character also really likes to face up/down even when it feels like I'm pointing the stick sideways, which often led to missed attacks.
And again, as people have mentioned, the combo attack often hurt the player more than it helped... though as I found out, by pacing the attack just right to never actually trigger the combo, I was able to do better overall damage without the risk of accidentally running into enemies. (Still, I never used the melee attack again after unlocking the ranged abilities.)
My only major roadblock was that I had to look on Discord to figure out I was supposed to kill enemies to progress in the mountain area, because to me, the obstacle with the counter looked more like "collect X of this weird-looking thing" than "kill X of any enemies".
The second boss was definitely the major highlight of the game for me and helped motivate me to keep going. I absolutely loved the attack patterns and how dynamic and fast-paced the fight felt! My only issue was that it felt like there was very little time to actually hit the boss... until I realized I could just stand to the side during the "bullet hell" phase and get tons of hits easily with the aforementioned "slow attack" strategy (hitting slowly enough to avoid comboing myself into taking contact damage). Once I figured that out, the fight was over in only a couple phases.
The third ("mechanical eye") boss would definitely have been a big challenge... if I hadn't gotten a glitch where I somehow became unable to take damage, which obviously made the fight much easier.
The difficulty definitely took a huge nosedive after getting the disc ability. It felt like it became the solution to every puzzle and every enemy encounter from that point onward, and it kinda trivialized both combat and farming. It was sure as heck cathartic to use, though!
The final boss looked cool and felt suitably climactic, though it was again made pretty trivial thanks to dash and the disc, and overall, I think the bird boss had far more interesting attack patterns and would have made better final boss material. The presentation of the fight was also held back by the size of the boss and the arena, which meant the boss was barely visible much of the time. Still, the design of the boss and the music were amazing!
One big disappointment was that I couldn't go back to the main world after entering the final dungeon, as the gate requiring the three feather items was locked again and I couldn't open it from that side. This was annoying because I had missed the final bunny somewhere (and I even have an idea where), but I locked myself out of finishing that quest by thinking it was gonna be somewhere in the last dungeon.
All in all, the story might not have entirely landed with me, as I feel like it got a bit overly pessimistic towards the end and kinda contradicted its own message, unless I somehow missed a secret ending? I did get the keepsake from the shadowy person, but that didn't seem to have any effect. I also feel like I didn't really understand most of the references and easter eggs, having neither been part of the gamejam long enough, nor active enough on Discord. Still, it was definitely one of the strongest attempts at a solid story-centric entry I've seen in a gamejam, and without sacrificing the gameplay either. Overall, exceptional work!
SPOILERS:
Okay, so after some more consultation in the Discord, I did totally miss a major secret that happens to solve my biggest problem with the story! I think some bigger warning about the point of no return would definitely have been nice, or just letting you go back through the final gate normally, because the game will absolutely feel incomplete if you miss that. Still, that was definitely a really cool way to tie the loose ends together, and elevated the story and the game for me a good couple points, so great job!