Hello again! here's my feedback after playing through the new demo version starting with psy-fire. Nearly all of these are personal opinions about the feel of the game rather than concrete bug reports. Most of this concerns version .53 except for one incident which I will point out when we get there. Get ready, this will be kind of long.
Good:
Game feels a lot bigger now. Seems like we're starting to see the foundation for the full game, which is pretty cool.
The wider variety of skills makes the gameplay more varied than "save up for energy claws every time" which I like a lot. I like that that mana potions are cheap but kind of awkward to use mid-combat. The flow ended up being "use skills to survive but you're in trouble if you run out" which is as it should be in my opinion.
Starting with two accessory slots is good for the demo, it gives a lot more ways to customize with gear. With one slot I felt like I could only use the scarf or later the belt and nothing else because not dying in a 1 character party seems pretty important.
Fake Attack is much better without (I think) being overpowered. There are a lot of situations now where it reduces the number of turns needed to kill an enemy which wasn't the case before, making it a useful option if you pay attention and experiment. Also like saving up to combine with Energy Claws against bosses or other tough fights, which I never did before.
Energy Claws costing 25 TP is balanced and fair and makes a lot of sense. I know it's the right kind of nerf because I feel really sad and disappointed about it while also still using it pretty often and surviving the encounters without a problem. So, good job.
The difficulty feels more in line with the "moderate" goal now than before. I didn't realize that I had forgotten to use food for the plant core and ???? bonus fights until after they were both completed. I had used other preparation items though. The fights are still challenging but feel less like you will lose if you aren't at the theoretical maximum level of power the game allows, which I think is about right.
Speaking of the ???? bonus fight. I think the things you did with the game engine, especially the extra party slots, were creative. In general you seem to avoid simple boss design, which is a decision I agree with for a game like this.
Adding a powerful skill based off of defensive stats for a character that mostly scales off magic and attack seems like an effective way to make build decisions tougher and more interesting.
One lucid potion and two fights where you might really need it seems like the right kind of resource rationing. I genuinely like being forced into those kinds of decisions.
Neutral:
It looks like once you buy your stats you can't reset those purchases ever, which seems constricting but also really makes the player think about what to buy. I felt a bit nervous because I didn't know what would be important later. Ended up doing just fine though. Guide writers will make "THIS IS THE OPTIMAL STAT SPREAD! USE THIS OR DIE" guides for people who can't make up their own minds no matter what, and so the cycle continues.
No indicators for how your personality is being affected by your decisions, or what kind of moves might become accessible. This will give the online guide writers something else to do and is generally a time-honored video game tradition so I can't really get too mad about it. In my own playthrough I had no trouble unlocking extra skills by the time I needed them so this didn't really hurt me.
"help the original GM destroy all anomalies" seems like a main quest disguised as a side quest which is pretty funny.
I miss being able to sprint like before, though that probably made the plant timing minigame too easy. Being able to at least sprint in town would be nice. Overall not a big deal though.
Could be improved:
It might be better if the advanced potions required loot items from more advanced monsters rather than just a lot of red/blue goo. The way it is now, it's best to skip the crafting recipes for early potions because they're cheap to buy already and you'll need the goo for the really strong consumables. Either that or walk around auto-killing a bunch of goonies which I wouldn't describe as fun gameplay.
In addition, if there are loot items that you explicitly intend to be sold to the shop instead of saved for some later crafting recipe, something like "not useful for crafting" in the description could be good. Unless you want it to be a mystery, which I admit has been done in games before. (shoutouts to anyone afraid to sell their gold slime)
If you're implemented the code for those super expensive accessories in the stat shop, it might be good to give practical access to them somehow so we can make sure there aren't any bugs with them. Maybe as a reward for surviving the ???? bonus boss or something.
Was the "weaknesses only" artifact intended to take damage from the burn status? Right now it does. Also, when it was in Aerial Mode my psy-wind didn't do anything (that happened in version 0.5, not sure if that was changed.) This is understandable because a potential 4 damage in one turn might be too much but it was a bit annoying to use a weakness and get punished for it.
That's it for now, I really like the way you're developing the game. Looking forward to finding out where things go from here!