Oh. My. God! Thanks a lot for the comment/review! You just made my day! xD
I'd like to address some of the points you made if you don't mind. First, yeah, the balancing. RPGM has quite a robust combat system actually, but it's a little too easy to get caught up on numbers, usually making things difficult by making them big, and balancing that out by giving the player bigger numbers as well (either on stats or skills). One thing I wanted to do from the start is make every skill feel useful all the way to the end, even Lianna's starting Embers skill, so I made sure every skill is distinct and has a right context to use. That said, it can be pretty easy to cheese some fights by spamming blind and stun effects, and stacking Mao with buffs. Some enemies (especially bosses) are resistant or immune to those effects tho, so I hope I'm keeping players from sticking to one single strategy.
In lore (the novel I never released and just decided to turn into this game instead) Jeanne is way more powerful than Lianna and Mao, so the solution to give scenes tension was usually to get her busy with other enemies (or hit her head and pass out lol) but I felt like it'd feel wrong in the having a party member so much powerful, so I stripped her of most of offensive spells, and only left her mostly as a support unit (until you unlock her lv9 skill, which still requires her to lose health to be used effectively). As for Shida (the wolf boy from the north), he feels so powerful partially because he was balanced around Huyuchi Village's second quest, which will be unlocked in chapter 12, and because some of his item slots are locked, so you won't have as much freedom in building as the main characters.
Keeping the player feeling broke all the time is also part of the intended experience, but it was a bit hard balancing that with the fact you should have enough money to buy better equipment now and then, and that you can just grind infinite coppers from some tedious ways (which I know some people might just exploit. I'd do that too lol). In the end I just tried balancing the experience around a player who finds half of the hidden treasures. If you explore too little, you'll have to be really good at the game or just walk around previous areas grinding, which may accidentally lead you to find the treasure you left behind. If you explore everything, you're rewarded get OP on most fights, and being strong enough to do the hardest ones, which you're usually supposed to run away from.
Making things out the way they are now took months of work tho. In the oldest versions getting rich was a bit too easy too. Looks like it all paid off in the end, from your experience. I'm glad. xD
As for the story, I worked really hard on it back when it was still a novel, rewriting some stuff several times, having a friend read all of it etc. It's only my second story of this scale, but probably the one I poured the most love in, made the most research about, and wrote with the intention of being a positive influence on the reader's (or I suppose player's now) lives. So I'm really, really glad you enjoyed it <3
As for the art, glad you liked it! ^^ (Also, cute is justice!)
And the curtain sound effect, wow I'd never notice if you hadn't mentioned it since I play on speakers! I found the issue and it was just me editing the sound without knowing what it does properly lol. It's gonna be fixed on the next update (tho I'm certain I'm gonna miss some curtains, since I'll have to edit them one for one).
If there's anything else bothering you, please don't be afraid to tell! This is my first game and, while I'm working really hard on it, I still have much more to learn. xD
Feel free to ask anything else about the project too, as long as it isn't spoilers.
And wow I ended writing a reply just as big as the original comment. I'm so sorry! xD
Anyway, I'm really happy you enjoyed my little game. There's still some content left to go, so I hope you'll stick around to the end. I plan on releasing both chapter 10 and 11 together in one update this month. I hope not to disappoint! (^^)/