The little dust on the death animation looks like it takes too long to disappear, it just stops in one place for too long.

The animations seem to be a little to independent of each other, it looks like every body part has a mind of its own...

And the caveman's hair changes color...... odd.

Here's the portrait of the general. He is so heavily shadowed over the eyes to symbolize that he is the player, and the player could be anyone.

Something i notice is that all of the comments on the images are about how things do or don't fit in. One problem with making a game independently is that you know what is there, and what is what. If you don't overcome this thought, you'll never get a visually "perfect" game.

Look at your projects as if you were a critic, what would you do differently? What is really happening? Is it too hard to focus on? What is good about it, and should i continue that?

When someone looks at something for too long, it changes. This change makes what you are looking at more common and natural to you. For people who have not seen it before, this is not what they see.
The pixel work is nice,  very retro, and with motion involved would probably be a lot easier to follow.

And one last point, i think that it is the black edges that are trailing the character and enemies off. The black seems as if it were another obstacle, instead of just plain sky. If the point is for them to be in the foreground, then it should be more emphasized, otherwise they seem to attempt to blend themselves into the background.

I have tried to fix a lot of the problems, but i think there are still some more to be worked out.