Astral Worlds SAGE 2017 Demo Review

I suppose there isn't any better place to post a "review" of sorts than here in the comments section, so here we go.

First of all, this game was a bit of a hassle to get working properly. It doesn't detect keyboards right off the bat or the keys are mapped incorrectly or something, so you have to use a controller just to get the keyboard controls mapped correctly. It doesn't detract from the game experience itself, but I feel like something as basic as properly mapped default keyboard bindings shouldn't be something I need to fix myself.

Now, onto the game itself. I get an extremely Freedom Planet feel from this demo. I'd imagine that this is an intentional thing, and it's not a specifically bad thing either, but it definitely makes the game feel less unique.
Nari's special move (the fireball air dash thing) is a very useful movement option for gaining speed, but for platforming it has such a set distance that it becomes tricky to use. I specifically had trouble with wall jumping with the special move because it really just doesn't seem made for wall jumping.
It might also just be me, but the attack animations overall seem to emulate what the Freedom Planet attack animations looked like, specifically a mixture of Lilac and Carol. Even something like the running animation seems to emulate Lilac's running animation.
Now, onto the spritework. In my personal opinion, it has a nice style in general, and the environments are nice to look at, but the player sprites being so tall and skinny comes off as a tad uncanny to me. It looks alright most of the time, but at some points (slow jog sprites) it looks really strange.
​​https://i.imgur.com/D4bwXmb.png
Maybe it's just me, but I dunno something just comes off as strange about it. Although what I'm trying to point out is probably conveyed better in motion too.
While random, the sprite that stood out the most to me were the little collectables found all around the stage. They look very polished and are nicely sprited.​​ Not sure why out of everything they stood out to me the most, but they did.
https://i.imgur.com/4aVYMms.png
The little animation that they play is very noticeable, simple, and loops well which are all important aspects of a platformer collectable imo.

Overall, I think this game has potential, but at the moment it needs to find a sense of identity. In it's current state, this is an attempt at emulating Freedom Planet, and I don't think this project will get very far if it continues to just be an attempt at "another Freedom Planet".