Not a bad idea, and certainly enjoyable to play. Something about the graphics is charming to me too.
The controls are a little stiff, though, and that almost negates the charm. It takes a while to get into how the controls work. Maybe making them more fluid would help. As of now, all the attacks seem a little stiff, and it gives me the impression that Gardini is an amateur at sword fighting or something. If that was your intent, that is fine, but if so maybe work in a way to get faster/quicker rebound from attacks, so it feels like Gardini is actually getting better.
You do have some annoying bugs, but nothing too bad. I could find decent ways around all the ones I encountered. Probably the most annoying was how getting hit once dazed you a bit, but you would still very quickly take damage. This would accumulate very quickly, and give you a lot of damage for individual slip ups.
(Hints for other players: if the game gets the bug where it stops letting you move, push space, go to the store, and then return to the game. That always got me unstuck! Hope that helps. And when bouncing off of enemies, you can control which way you bounce off of them! Just hold the arrow keys and try it out, you'll see what I mean.)
Overall, a good game, and a lovely job on your part. Just do some more polishing, like working out the bugs and smoothing out the controls a wee bit, and you'll have a nice little gem of a game here.
I gave you 3 out of 5 stars for a fun idea and a fairly functional game, but an execution that needs a bit more work.
