Artwork was immersive and clean. Well done.
Audio did its job, no more and no less.
Gameplay involved taking a set of people according to their stats to achieve a success rate high enough that you don't miss too much in the masher part of the cycle. Items exist that create sacrifices to consolidate these stats.
In my own playthrough, I did not interact with the items as I felt they were too risky. Once I got to Azure Cave (9 success rate pips), I could not get through with 4/9 success rate, and so that's where it ended.
Each encounter has a major stat (shown) and a minor stat (not shown). In the starter set for mercenaries, you can always get 4 pips of success rate for 3 mercenaries.
If I were to play again, I would interact with items as soon as I could in order to consolidate as much as possible into 3 people, one for each stat. Would this necessarily result in victory? No, but it would get me a lot closer.