Great looking game, but I think the combat leaves something to be desired.

Here are a few things I think could use improvement:

- Contact damage. In a game where one of two methods for avoiding damage is dodging through enemies, contact damage is super annoying (it does make sense for some enemies like bats and such). It also makes it impossible to climb up a ledge without getting hit if an enemy is standing right on the edge.

- The first hit of the whip combo has too much knockback. If you space the first hit, it will knock the enemy and the player back so much that the second hit misses (the 3rd hit still usually hits). This feels really bad and punishes the player for spacing well. The 2nd hit definitely needs to be extended or the knockback from the first hit removed so that the 2nd hit is guaranteed to land if the 1st hit connects.

- Enemies being able to turn around mid-swing is jank. Especially bad with the big guys in the lava area, the ones that slam the ground and produce huge pillars of fire. They can seemingly turn around at any time during their wind-up, making them essentially impossible to dodge regardless of if you slide through them or dash over them. This affects some other enemies too but not as badly.

- Not specific to only combat, but the fire dash is extremely delayed. The gap between pressing the button and doing the action is huge. This is especially bad when trying to dash while falling, it's very imprecise.

Also please add button remapping to the game before the full release.

All that being said, I like the game. It has a ton of promise. Animations look great and the art is fantastic. I feel like the focus is a bit more on the platforming than on the combat so hoping to see more tough platforming challenges in the full game.