visual - i think character design is definitely a strength of yours (my favorite part of the other submission was the enemies' visual appeal), the area/arena is something that can be explored eventually but the genre depends on cute monsters, and that was delivered on.

story - i think the tone this game is going for is great and can't wait for more updates to capitalize on a lot of the ground work laid here. type chart is fun flavor and could be pretty compelling when all is said and done

gameplay - (on difficulty 3)  i accidentally went big doggo (highest damage with self-sustain) and lost the run to too many sanctum visits (i did save when it was looking grim, might revisit), Grimjaw is the best of the encounters (if it is 4/4 monsters in rn) so the trade-up mechanic didnt make sense to me until the run was lost imo. i feel like a wisp to start to basically force the player to find this is more in line with the gameplay goals. as is, engaging with the mechanics early seems suboptimal until at the very least you end up doggo rolling, which wasnt the best experience for learning. but there's a lot of solid progression that you can engage with at any moment (i also think two team slots to start would do a lot for figuring stuff out, but understand why that might be too hard to counterbalance with encounters especially early)

music - no music i feel is the let down rn, sanctum doesnt feel like a separate area from the explore zone, and music is another way to help help the player wrangle with that.

theme - im gonna level my dog forever and then my dog got sick QQ, not strictly a fractal, but i enjoyed it being someone who gravitated towards this jam, and think it's a reasonable way to get this more eyeballs OvO

(i'm probably gonna come back to this when i can appreciate the short-long term mechanics available, and may add smth to this comment then)