I streamed this with the dev present, so just for posterity:
- I like the concept of the game (Soul Blazer! I see youuu) much more than the execution. I might have been unlucky but it became really tedious.
- Presentation doesn't quite match the maps and sprites, and the mapping itself is very barebones and rough. The enemy sprites are cute enough.
- Skill descriptions really need a good round of polish as they are not clear.
- Some explanation of the mechanics of recruit/spare and how they handle KO would have been great.
- I'm not a fan of the spirits disappearing on death, since a few unlucky hits can leave you alone against the high level party.
- I feel like the game expects me to grind without making grinding really much fun. The combat is a bit slow and there are now easy "sweeping" combos you can quickly and mindlessly spam to get a few "levels".
- The fact that monsters cannot improve hurts it a bit for me. Some of them also feel brutally unbalanced, some creatures like the lady holding her head had absolutely no use for me, while others were extremely strong.
- There should be some way to quickly circle back to the rest spot, specially in the cave.
- I gave up after a couple pretty bad wipeouts that left me burned out, I was (I think) halfway through the big house.
- The icons make what's happening in combat very hard to read, especially the status effects.
- I would suggest making the animations snappier, I definitely felt like combat went by too fast. Additionally I did not have a good grasp on who was acting.
- I'd suggest making priority skills like quick buff/debuff/status have a speed boost to act quicker, otherwise the order of attacks can dismantle your strategy.
- I could not muster much interest for the story, the text wasn't exactly super engaging but I appreciate it stayed out of my way.
Overall I feel like this game suffers a lot from a lack of polish, which is harsh due to deadlines, but doesn't change it sours the experience a lot. Happily this all seems very fixable and with some more work should make a nicely enjoyable game.