This was a lot of fun, I got into a rhythm at the end.
I feel like there is such a good base for a game here, there's some interesting decision making on who to attack with, whose bag is just complete junk so you need to flush it. I would end up leaving one guy alive to do a little inventory management for a lot of the early game.
After that it got a lot easier(As you've stated) so I was just blasting through but that was also kinda fun.
I imagine this is just something you didn't have time to implement but being able to check what's currently in your bag would have been great, doesn't need to be ordered but just a list and amount.
There was also a visual glitch where the back two slimes would get caught on the road when traveling but they would catch up once the battle started, but aside from that it was a really smooth experience. Great work, top 5 entry for me.