Rough around the edges

Music and sounds are fine. For a starting point it's not so bad overall. The animation is what needs the most work. It looks too rough to for me to discern any sort of style. It would look better if the characters could move more than their eyes and mouths.
After the X-14's show up the frame rate goes to shit until the replay button shows up at the end. Changing the quality does not help. If no one else runs into this problem then it's just my PC being diffucult. Otherwise, there may be something offscreen that's hogging system resources.

Also, why is he climbing a mountain?

Wonderfully terrible

Very poor animation. Compression ruined the song. It sounded awful. Yet somehow, this Flash was still hilarious and I loved it. Keep it up.

I for one like thinking while I play

Any reasonable person would have stopped reading these "rage" reviews by now but I hope you give me a chance.
<satire>
I'm 13, I don't like to think, and I beat your dumb game in like a minute. Everyone died in the end WTF? I did not bother to read the author's comments where you said this was a non-linear game in which the player is given ONE chance to play through. I also was too lazy to read the numerous reviews in which players listed all the tricky ways to replay the game. I even missed the review where your own reply plainly stated a work around to replay your own game.
Since I am too stupid to read any of that, I am stuck with a bad ending. I blame my massive failure on you and you alone. I'm going to take myself inflicted frustration out on you by telling you how bad this game is.
I know very little of game design but I'm going to point out that not having a replay button, ruins the game for EVERYONE. (Not just for me.) I have no idea why the replay button is missing because I have chosen to ignore all context. I will question your ability to program/design. After all, how could you have missed the no replay bug?
I'm going to pretend like I've played a thousand games with no replay options before. That way I can call you out on what an unoriginal idea you had. The no replay thing has been done to death. I won't name a single game to support this claim because everyone already knows I'm right.
I'm going to pretend that the retro graphics aren't really retro. The 8-bit look was not even intentional. The graphics must be "low-fi" because you suck at drawing.
I'm going to complain about this game's slow walking speed. I'll ignore the fact that it's slow to keep me from rushing through on my one and only play though. I didn't need any time to consider my actions or my options. I didn't take the time to relate any of the circumstances in the game to real life because, as mentioned above, I don't like to think (The only exception is thinking about boobs).
My long winded review took more time to type than I spent playing your awful game. I will RAGE some more and maybe make a few personal attacks. Even after all this effort I still have not bothered to check a previous review to see if anyone knows how to replay this game.
But really I'm just mad because I suck at this game and every time I try again, my crappy ending comes right back up, reminding me of my own failure. My young ego can't cope.
</satire>
There you have it. This was a great game and it actually brought up emotions when I played it. I had about as much fun reading the reviews as I did playing the game. Telling some guy, who waited an hour after the game ended to repay, that he should have waited 78 minutes instead... classic. I hope he went back and tried it too.

This game takes a step in the OTHER direction

I gave it a couple minutes and was fed up with running around aimlessly. However I could not bring myself to stop playing, and ended up being late to class. I decided not to write a review until earning all medals. I'm glad I did, the final medal ended up being exactly what I wanted out of this experience.

I give the graphics 10/10, the 1 bit style was something completely fresh to me. Making something so vivid when voluntarily working with, what I'd imagine is the most restrictive way to create digital images, is truly a work of art.

I'm not too sure how to rate the game play, maybe 5/10. The game play was exceedingly dull but the missing bits of story kept me going. I can see why so many reviews are love/hate. Having a game completely driven by story leaves a lot of people out of your audience (but I'm sure you were aware of that from the get-go). When playing this game, you'll only go as far as your curiosity drives you to go. For some people that's not too far.
At least interaction with the environment was relatively simple. I don't see any replay value here at all, that is, once all medals have been earned. I suppose that searching for all of the portals counts as replaying, since using one makes you start over.

I loved the home brewed sounds. I give the audio 8/10. Having more sound effects, like varying foot steps, would help with immersion. Having more sounds is one of the only ways I can think of improving here. I'm not sure if I would have been able to the finish the game if not for the mood created by the droning wind and exotic sound effects.

What you have created was exceedingly engaging from start to finish. Newgrounds could really use more games like this.

The one issue or bug that I could never work around was the opening NewGrounds logo. If for any reason focus shifts from the game to any other program (This happens often on my PC) the game auto pauses and I can't un-pause it until I refresh the entire web page. Once the logo fades this is no longer an issue.

P.S.
As for people looking for hints, most everything you need has a path leading to it.
When searching for all the hidden signposts, make sure that you start at the beginning. The first signpost is NOT hidden. A sound will play when you find them all, order does not matter.
You will need to interact with the search lights (or "stars", whatever you want to call them) more than once.
You need to study the complete diagram.
Make sure you've checked the map "end to end".

P.S.S. Typos are typos, and I make them. Deal with it.

Good job

If the "s" key is held down there is no way to lose. Other than that good game, albeit a little repetitive.

Missing one very important thing...

All good techno must have a deep bass pounding for most of the song. I think you know what I'm talking about...

I liked it

Try taking the triangle down a lil' in volume, It's all I cound hear.