Excellent work, Xanderwood. The entire aesthetic was very well thought out and implemented from the art to the design, story and music.  I was motivated to keep pressing on just from the amount of world-building you squeezed in so early on.

I appreciate the dojo for learning the controls before jumping into the thick of things.

I ran into one bug on the second boss where he just wouldn't give me any new stars to throw (DMd you footage on Discord). I thought the music matched the scenes really well and I loved the SFX, but I think you could have balanced out the audio a little better. Especially for the first boss, those small enemy deaths were really loud. Great sound choice, just too much volume.

I think some ways you could improve the player experience without major changes would be to make things a little more forgiving. Slightly larger jump. A smaller hurtbox on the player and a much bigger hitbox for the meleee attack would help. I noticed the melee never seemed to connect above the player, so Boss 2 wasn't as fun to take out the minions as I had to line up on their sides.

Also maybe when I take damage give me a reprieve, don't let the enemy hurt me again for at least a half-second or second so I can recover to safety. Sometimes I'd have full health, then jump on a minion and die because I just ended up taking damage three times. And on Boss 2 maybe falling off the platforms isn't an auto-death, just damage me and put me back on the platform.

The melee attack is pretty, but for the sake of immediate feedback on the input, I'd cut the first frame or few frames and go straight to the smear frame where the damage is. It would feel more responsive, snappier and strong overall. Wouldn't look as nice, but I think this is one area where you sacrifice the art for the feel.

Overall this was a blast to play and I was hoping that "Do Not Enter" room would be a final boss! It was still a treat to see you promote your other stuff in a clever way, but the fact that I wanted more fights tells you this was an excellent game. Well done.