Thanks for the detailed feedback.
Sadly, I'm very aware of a lot of the polish issues but the backlog for this project has been brutal. The problems with the enemy AI in particular keep piling on too. I've never seen enemies whiff attacks myself but other people have and that's concerning. Also, there is a timeout but it's not working correctly and that bothers me.
Implementing a save system was particularly important because at least this way the player can restart the level if something goes wrong.
The combat is a little faster than last time but I need to make a setting for it at some point because I do want to have large battles later on.
You also correctly predicted that I wish to implement gamepad controls at one point. Aiming the attack areas is way more precise with an analog stick.
Finally, thanks for the comments on the UI. I never know what to do with that.