It's great to see a complete rework of the Story, I am currently in Forest World, 0 keys collected so far. The new levels look great! This makes it definitely worth replaying all of Story Mode. But now I need a pause …
Anyway, a lot of interesting stuff.
I see you have added a lot of new textures, I like them a lot. The new forest overworld looks great. I also like how the new ice caves look, even if they're a bit difficult.
I noticed a minor graphical bug in the forest overworld: The first bridge has a darker water color than its surroundings. This doesn't look intentional.
But there is also a serious downgrade: The overworld no longer shows you the level records (max coins / enemies / best time). Nor do the level icons have the special animation when you completed a level with all coins/enemies/time beaten. This info is now ONLY shown directly after you completed a level. It also appears that the optional time challenge has been removed from all levels as well.
As a completionist, this makes me very sad.
I don't understand why this feature was removed, it greatly increased the replayability of the game, I often try to beat the levels with all coins/enemies/time.
I noticed you added the “air flower” into the main game. While the concept is interesting, I have yet to see any level where you actually NEED the air flower (even if it's just for bonuses). Or maybe I have just missed the secrets. xD
I can confirm the level lag, but only in a few levels. For me, it's in levels where a lot of stuff is going on in the background. Most levels are fine.
Bug in Story Mode: When you return from Forest World to the first world, the crystal cave level is marked as incomplete again, and you cannot pass through it (unless you replay it, I suppose. I haven't tried it yet).
Also, there is a personal bummer. I thought the German translation was already at 100%, and now I realized it's not finished at all! I see a lot of untranslated strings now. If I had known that, I would have helped.
Seems like ST will have an incomplete German translation for a while now … :-(
Minor bug: There seems to be an encoding failure in the German translation of the level name “... or is it just me?”.