The game’s pacing has become seriously exhausting — battles drag on forever, and unless this is aiming for a Soulslike vibe, it’s hard to justify. If it is going for that, then where’s the parry system?
I'm fairly open to criticism but you'll have to be a bit more specific if you're hoping for me to make any changes. When you say that the battles drag on forever are you referring to the overall volume of encounters being too high? Or do you mean specifically that individual battles take a long time to get through?
If it's the first case the PT more often than not features less possible encounters compared to the previous demo, as well as enemies being generally slower so you can avoid encounters easier. If it's the latter, you might not be using the mechanics as intended. Make sure you're using a Soul like the Fool or Magician and that you're leveling up at the goddess statues when you can. A lot of enemies are perfectly capable of being defeated in two turns or less once you know their weaknesses. While some enemies are designed to be deterrents to fight, such as the Golems or Puppet Miners, most of the ones in the forest are designed to have weaknesses that Red can immediately exploit with either basic attacks or magic from a starting class or free item (The chest at the broken bridge always gives you a ring with Thunder magic, torches can be made immediately at the witches house to give you access to fire skills, and a revolver can be found on the corpse where you first meet Hati to give you piercing skills.) If there's anything specific giving you trouble, I'd be happy to give you some tips on how to deal with it.