I never played the 2021 demo (didn't hear about the game until this Next Fest) but after watching footage of it, I personally think it looks a lot more interesting and inspired than this 2023 demo.
In particular, the fact that in the 2023 version the looping is strictly the left and right sides of the level makes me feel like it has way less importance/prevalence as a game mechanic. Sure, you make use of the loop to move through the level, but in the player's frame of reference they're still moving in a completely mundane way. There's no puzzle-like "ah-ha!" moments because every part of one side of the level connects in a completely obvious and predictable (to me, at least) manner to every part of the other side of the level if you just take a minute to look over the single plane where they connect to each other. This one-dimensional looping is still a neat idea and doesn't add nothing to the game, but it can't carry a game on its own, and without it this is unfortunately just a kind of mediocre 3D platformer, at least based on my experience with the demo.

I also don't understand why, in this version, the functionality to toggle the looping even exists. The walls created by doing so directly impede movement through the level, and I can't see any benefit they offer. Is it for performance reasons? Were there players who reported having trouble grasping the level as a single area without having the ability to close off the sides?

I also want to mention that the demo ran rather poorly on my PC. I was getting just 30-40 FPS on medium settings with a Ryzen 5 3600 and a Radeon 5700 XT.