An excellent, well-rounded game worthy of a 10
Wow. Where to begin? What you have given me is one of the most spectacular free-roaming platformer RPGs I have ever played. Such brilliant games only come around once in a blue moon, and I don't give out 10s to games very often.
I'll start with the story. While it may be lacking, the fact that the game is a parody and you even bothered with a story is excellent. I liked the recurring nightmare idea, and while I felt the ending to be a bit weak, I'll be glad to see where it kicks off in the sequel.
Next, and this will probably be my longest part: The gameplay.
The sheer open-endedness of the game alone grabbed my attention when I started. I must've spent most of my game time just exploring the landscape to collect some of the many gems scattered about. There were many areas to unlock, tons of gems to collect, and oodles of trinkets and tidbits everywhere to hold my attention for well over an hour and a half. The NPCs were wonderful, and all had something witty to say, and the ideas for them were kooky and creative.
The leveling up mechanic was, of course, the highlight of the game, and I had plenty of fun getting my character up all of those levels. There's some sort of rush when you max your character out with full abilities. The recurring nightmare does take away all of your levels, but here's a nifty fact: It doesn't take away your purchased skills (double jump, dash, radar, etc.) It took me a good couple of days to finally max out my skills, though others might want to take longer to give the environment a good look.
The addition of medals was cool, but some of them glitched, and you might want to look into fixing that before adding them officially.
Each skill was unique and useful, and I felt you really did a perfect job with every bit of the level system.
On to music:
I felt that the music choice was very fitting for a game with pixel art like this, and it provided a great sense of atmosphere. Kudos to your musician.
The art was spectacular for pixel art, and the animations were very fluid. I can't wait to see what kind of things you'll put in the next game.
All in all, one of my favorite- no - my FAVORITE game on Newgrounds. Excellent job, you really outdid yourself, and I can't wait for any future games you might make.