How difficult is the game meant to be without upgrades? I've seen all the endings of two characters so far, I started with Elise; Sebastian was night IMPOSSIBLE for the first several runs, until I trial end errored a technique to avoid his predicitions. Meanwhile, having a bunch of upgrades from that going into Blanche, she seemed impossible to lose. Is there an intended order to take?
From what I've *heard*, every fight is beatable upgradeless. From what I've *played*, I've done it on every character but Elisa because of Sebastien (and I've played this game for dozens of hours :P). It's not *impossible*, per se, but I never have enough health leaving lvl2 difficulty to avoid getting smushed for long.
Next hardest is Lilac, followed closely by Blanche, and those are at least semi-consistently beatable if you put in work. And yes, upgrades are definitely a little strong per-level and lopsided in power, which is something that's looking to be changed soon in a future update.
Not the dev so I couldn't say, but there's not really an intended order so much as there is chronological release order, which is Blanche -> Fabienne -> Reine -> Elisa, plus the various Guest fights which are ordered chronologically from left to right.
If you want a personal difficulty ranking, despite being the most sadistic character bar none, Reine is actually the easiest with a little practice, closely followed by Fabienne, then Blanche, then of course Elisa :P