Thank you for your thoughtful review! <3
There's quite a lot of New Order lore to be uncovered throughout the full story, so without giving too much away: the goblins see people with mind-altering powers as a natural part of their world, but their powers are frightening to others, and they are normally kept under very strict control. Our protag begins by violating quite a few New Order principles, but their relationship to morality past this point is up to the player (and there are certainly many morally-gray decisions to be made).
It's great to hear you enjoyed the music! (I'll pass that on to our composer) The extras menu (including audio player) wasn't fully implemented in the prototype, so that's definitely something you'll see changing haha
We're overhauling a lot of the art and UI for our next release (looking to preview in next dev log), but everything will remain mostly grayscale with deep shadows, so it's always interesting to hear what impression that makes. Unfortunately I can't answer the question of why goblins seem to see in grayscale without spoilers, so I'll have to leave that to the imagination for now. ; )
You're likewise going to see some alterations to the character designs, though I think you'll find the new look will make them even more distinct.
Thanks again for sharing thoughts. We'll be keeping that good feedback in mind as we proceed!