Thanks for giving my game a go!
New Game instead of Load Game when there's no saves sounds like a good idea. And I could probably implement it pretty easily! I'll get right on that.
Looks like I've got to look at early-game balance again- there's supposed to be a lot of materials for Pepperflasks. As far as the elemental Formulas go in the first cave, the bats resist Earth and the Rock Mimics resist Fire, while most bugs are weak to Earth. They're helpful because of the extra effects they come with, but they're not strictly necessary in the Earth Cave, especially since Super Pepperflasks are a thing.
Coming up pretty soon, there's one dungeon that will basically showcase each element that's coming up soon, and you'll also get an easy way to see what elements will be useful in a given situation after some conversations back home in Orvas.
Speaking of which: I should probably set some dialogue that tells the player about the Quest Journal (which wasn't a feature until much later in development) and suggests that Brill goes back home to Orvas. While I didn't leave too many roadblocks in place in case the player wanted to try exploring and fighting things nearby, it is a generally good idea to go back home to Orvas and spend that Sil you got. Don't worry- you'll find a use for that spare Simple Shield pretty soon.
Brill's return point changes after leaving the Earth Cave for the first time, so she shouldn't accidentally warp past the Crystal event.
I'm not sure how that Sil text got messed up, but it'll be fixed in 0.3.5 P2. Sample in battle was supposed to go with mid-battle crafting, which was an early idea that was scrapped. I never really gave it a second thought, but it doesn't really make much sense, so mid-battle Sample will be disabled in 0.3.5 P2.