Hello! Thank you for writing your thoughts in such an organised fashion. It's very helpful to us when people dedicate time of their day to lay down what they think and how the story can be improved.
Keeping in mind I don't want to spoil future events in the story, I can offer a few details that will contextualise some things.
Regarding the fact that the player character (PC) doesn't do much beyond being a decent person... Yes! That's absolutely true and intentional. It may sound weird, but that was our intention. There's a reason though, and it goes to how we wanted to portray the PC and his growing relation with Asterion. It's because, assuming the player hasn't gone out of his way to be mean, the PC will be consistently characterized as a thoroughly ethical person above all else. That's one of his defining traits, alongside with being a good manager/leader.
This is why there is such a thing as a "bad" route. The branching point is whether or not the PC is ethical, whether or not the player will choose to perpetuate a cycle of abuse or do the bare minimum to be a decent human being. We felt that without this the story as a whole would be incomplete, and if the player has the choice to refrain from seeing what's in the bad route that would make his choice to do the right thing make impactful.
throughout the game it feels like the protagonist gets a lot of back patting just for not outright abusing him. It makes sense coming from Asterion, but there are times when the protagonist's behavior doesn't really seem to acknowledge the low standard.
And you are right! Do keep in mind, however, this is part of the PC's arc and the plot as a whole. As the story progresses — and I am including the next build here — we will see the PC's actions shifting a bit from "just being a decent person" to "going out of his way and making sacrifices to do what is right". This relates to the growing friendship between the two of them — as the PC thinks more dearly of Asterion he will become proportionally proactive and invested in securing his well-being.
About the last two points you raised, I will refrain from saying much now but I will assure you we take them into consideration. About Asterion's sprite in particular... That one was one of the first sprites we did and we do know it might not look as good for a number of players. But before we make any decision on it we want to get build 0.4 out to see if player perception will change.
I hope this addressed some of your criticism. To a certain extent these are issues we already estimated and planned for, but as we go along we keep tweaking things here and there so we are on the right course and your points absolutely help in figuring out how to fine tune the story. Thank you for your time and I hope you'll enjoy what we have in store.