There's a lot going on here! The main premise is obviously a cool idea, the way the story is structured is smart and even when moving backwards in time it feels like new info is revealed in a natural way that builds toward the ending in a satisfying way where everything really comes together. The end is nice and I got a kick out of one particular bit of it.
At first the high encounter rate seemed intimidating, especially coming off a bunch of low-resource management focused games, but I eventually realized that stats and items are generous enough to encourage being fast and aggressive with magic and attacks, and the escape rate is pretty consistent if you get stuck, at the cost of not getting any money. So that definitely streamlines things and lets you feel cool and powerful while doing them, while not quite slipping into it just feeling free. You did a good job making those later bosses feel more tense despite them technically taking place "earlier" in the timeline (which in a way makes sense since the characters have less experience - why wouldn't it be harder?)
All in all you made a very cool thing and I'm so glad you pushed through and got something in for the jam!!!