This is really good feedback thank you! I suppose I was focused on having one-handed controls I didn't realize it would be difficult! I'll be working on a patch to address the key remapping soon hopefully it'll be out today or tomorrow!
For balancing; the goal is to keep your party members alive generally. There is a revive in the first room and they can be purchased in the village and they will instantly revive a downed member, I'll probably add them in the overworld shop too that way it'll be more transparent to players. (There's also berries around the first level that can be used to heal party members I may just set it up so allies glow red or something when they're on low HP)
The healer healing outside of combat is a balancing thing they're already pretty overpowered if you have one on your team.
As for the levels they do directly tie to battle stats so giving a party member items makes them like you more and makes them stronger it's the same number. The heart is just used as an icon to show how close they are to leveling up which I might change if it's spurring confusion.
The bad end scenes were requested to return but losing in battle isn't the only way to get them, you can recruit enemy and merchant NPCs if you use the StrangeStone in your inventory and build houses for them. This will be fleshed out and introduced properly in v0.2 but the groundwork is in the game now.
All the campfire scenes being similar I can see between Nyle and Anubis (which was intentional) but the other cast I'm pretty sure has a unique flavor to their lines. I'll try to add more variation I suppose!
I do appreciate your response though I wish I had it sooner so I could have remedied these issues prior to release. I'd love to hear your thoughts on combat yeah the next update I'm hoping to flesh it out even further!