Very Sworcery. I like it.

I gather the main focus is on the landscape rather than the character(s)?

I think its visual distinctiveness is totally cool and hope you aren't encouraged to tone it down.

I'm loving the results I'm seeing in this thread.

I haven't pixeled much in a while, but this prompted me to try something:

The controls are absolutely crucial. Make them responsive, and close to a standard layout when it makes sense. Test with the best controller available. Test it on fresh players. Not yourself, you'll get too used to the feel of what you're making.

Make an interesting mix of environments. Don't just change the background, give different levels different shapes, like open areas, tight tunnels, rooms, vertical stages, destructible stuff.

(Hm. Most of what I've said applies to all platformers. Most action genres, even.)

To give replay value, first just make it worth playing once. Place secrets (areas, items, routes) throughout the levels. Note that in this internet age, there is no such thing as a too-well hidden secret.

Don't care how many levels, make it last an hour if that's what you've got. Just don't add filler.

How difficult? More difficult that the contemporary norm. To start, every kind of enemy should kill me at least once. Don't bother spending time making multiple difficulty levels, spend your resources testing and refining one.

Good things? I liked the dodge move in Hard Corps: Uprising.

Bad things. I agree with Ashbad on scoring. I'd even go further: don't include it in your arcade game either (see Videogame Culture Volume 1 for a detailed, forceful exposition). Instead, give your player's actions consequences within the actual game world.

More bad things: long mid-game cutscenes (longer than a few seconds). Infinite leveling-up/grinding. Collecting dozens of useless trinkets (not fashionable anymore, thankfully).

The future of the (2D) shooting platformer? Integration with melee combat systems from beat 'em ups. Bringing in treasures back from the future (i.e. 3D genres) like analogue control, real physics models, online play (mostly interested in co-op, personally), character customisation, polygons, voxels, vectors, 3D sound, stereoscopics, augmented reality, dual-wielding.

The lust evoked would be different depending on the sexuality of the beholder, no? I think more visual examples would help, for me at least. Here's something with western comic dudes.

They look ridiculous. But are they really an example of the hypothetical case in question; does this generally appeal to heterosexual women comic readers? I don't know. I don't think that was the intent behind this... fan art, let's call it. It was drawn to point out, to men, something along the lines of the ridiculousness and gratuitousness of sexy posing, costumes etc. for women comic characters. Seeing these remixes (not these I linked in particular, but others in the same vein) and reading the accompanying commentary has made me more aware of sexualisation in media. But it hasn't made it look just as ridiculous or unappealing.

What was my point again?

Would a comic book with both the parody effeminate sexy dudes and ordinary sexualised women heroes be sexist? Is that even a relevant example? Buggered if I know.

I assume this was a rhetorical question?

Nope. Since you picked those out specifically, do you think they are particularly sexist?

Compared to his other works, lol.