The elephant in the room is map size. At the start, its super cramped and hard to move around but it does open up near the end. Not only is it hard to move around but the camera wont like that in 3rd person so i would suggest you try to expand on level size overall.
In the knuckles path, it does feel cramped also but not as much as the start.
It being your first level is impressive mainly staying consistent with theming. But you do have alot of work ahead of you and im curious to see what you do next with this/ later projects.
