Do yourself a favor and put in on easy or very easy. I dunno why so many H-game devs like to think they're the next FromSoftware and make things frustrating, not even necesarily hard, but this is one of those games. If the gameplay was actually fun, that'd be more excusable. If you didn't start on easy or very easy, stage 3 will break that will, far apart save points with bullshit 1 hit kills make for a really frustating experience.
You have to level up a lot to unlock what I think should honestly be basic ass abilities like dashing and jump attacks, but the reason for this is there are level up items throughout stages that you are meant to come back for later once you've unlocked certain abilities to reach them ie double jump.
Anyway, in a sea of pretty mediocre to bad sidescroller games, I'd actually put this one slightly above mediocre despite what I've said. The game is saved by a lot of different enemy types (though only 2-3 per stage) so there are a lot of different animations. Some are meh for sure but I found enough good ones for it to be just ever so slightly worth the slog. Art I would say is above average for this type of game. No game over CG, which I think is a demerit for this type of game, especially when the animations are just okay on average. There are instances where there are game over in-game animations like bosses, and as you progress if you get a regular game over, you will see things get progressively worse for the captured elf princess.
In closing ITS AIGHT.