Hi, just gave the demo a go (one run through the caves), found it a bit easy. I'd assume getting more fossilmons would make the game easier for metaprogression but easy enough at the start.
Traits weren't really explained, hovering them didn't do anything. I had 30 crystals most times but didn't get how it worked.
Exploring is nice, but its a bit annoying to dig through one rock, then another immediately behind it partly obscured by the black fog.
I don't really know what was going on with thorns. It should only do 5 damage but its like enemies were taking a bunch of damage off it. Frequently a bunch of 0 damage numbers exploded off an enemy.
It's a neat idea though, keep it up.