This was really neat. The idea of your character's health determining their strength instead of EXP is a cool idea. Very simple gameplay loop and obviously there's not much to it right now, but I liked it. I will say, the character's movement speed is REALLY slow, but that might be intentional. I also noticed that if I camped or opened a shop, then exited, it'd prompt me to open them again immediately afterwards, even if I didn't press the Z key. A very minor annoyance, but something to keep in mind.
I'm looking forward to seeing more of this. Good luck.