A quick overview of my thoughts on the game, both good and bad. Spoilers abound.

• The time system is brilliantly implemented at first, but the fact that there are several events where you can be too slow early on without anything telling you otherwise isn't fun, especially when many of those scenes feel right out of a traditional RPG.
• Aura is annoying, plain and simple. The constant thud sfxs during conversations and her sometimes inconsistent character are bad enough, but her very nature clashes with the game world. It doesn't help that completing quests out of order can make her come off as stupid (for example, learning about the Sweet Memories drug and their connection to Arwin before visiting his mansion for the first time has her immediately dismiss the refugee's missing wife despite the fact that she has been shown to know that Sweet Memories can mess with somebody's memories). She also refuses to learn that self-sacrifice isn't a good trait despite telling Mammon that her sacrificing her freedom for the prisoners at the begging of the game would have had no guarantee.
• Combat is an RNG nightmare, and save scumming is almost a necessity to make any progress in Hard mode to the point where avoiding enemies is the right thing to do especially seeing as you get no rewards for combat to begin with. Damage rolls, turn order, and enemy targeting have screwed me over more times than I can count.
• Resource management is well done for attack items, but I've constantly been having to experiment with how to ration the extremely limited healing items and complete lack of healing magic.
• Companions quickly fall behind Aura due to their slower level-ups and worse stat gains yet battles with them are designed with them being alive in mind even with the enemies scaling more based on what Aura's stats should be like.
• Willpower slowly going down and needing to be managed is good at first, but the curses you get as you progress through the story begin to feel more and more like you're being punished for using certain mechanics instead of being encouraged to work around the curses. As a side note, I find it annoying that there is nothing telling you that the willpower lost from using an item cannot be regained that day especially due to the fact that Vitality potions are almost a requirement in some scenarios.
• Several high-level foes either require stupid high stats or the Star Knightess to get past on Hard mode despite the game's subtext implying that they will be merely tough. In fact, bosses in general tend to be more frustrating than fun.
• Aura's home world feels underutilized (which is a bit of a good thing seeing how much I dislike her), often only having a single new scene play each time the player spends corruption. The way the first few days work similar to the Persona series but that is quickly dropped.
• The writing is good, the story is not. Nothing particularly interesting happens in Roya and I often found myself holding the Ctrl key even during scenes I hadn't seen before. Me watching a scene in Aura's mind or anywhere in her home world was about three times as rare as me just skipping it entirely, something I normally only do on repeat playthroughs.
• The custom pixel-art i very well made, even if the stock assets clash with it at times.

1. What timed events are you referring to? The only things I can think of that have time pressure are demon generals <100 days, Belphegor <80 days to save merchant and arguably clearing the festival of greed early to get reading proficiency before Aura starts to suffer reading debuffs.

2. I think a lot of characters are meant to be annoying to some degree. Is this is a good thing or a bad thing? I don't know, but the characters are all on such extremes overall that I believe the message within the characters is that there's a bit of truth to both sides. Obviously Alicia and Richard are much worse, but there's a balance for Aura to find. A lot of the library club are outright dismissive to anything they consider less-than, but the same goes for the cheerleaders. Richard is awful but starts to become a more interesting read around the festival, and then again once he starts entering real-world events more. It's funny and ironic that the brainwashing on Aura is actually having a negative effect on his interests.

3. I've made a few posts on the RNGness of the game before, I think it's pretty heavy on it to be optimal, but 'to make any progress on [nightmare] (I think you're on an old update) feels excessive. Progress is still pretty consistent if you spend time preparing for fights first, however as someone who almost exclusively plays on hardest difficulties, know that this is the type of game where [nightmare] very much feels like a ng+ mode. Play a corrupted run on normal/hard first, unlock all the scenes in the clear room and all the skills (probably barring the 2 at the bottom from the nephlune church since drugs are very strong on a corrupted run) and then go in to hard in ng+. Do a pure run, get as many ng+ points as possible before taking on nightmare. Avoiding non-human/oid enemies is very much intended though, that's part of the fun is sneaking around them and preserving resources. The game teaches you this on day 2 with the spider-queen. The party mentions going straight for the boss!

4. Regarding heals, if it wasn't for that you'd often have no incentive to end the day. Some days are big days, some are small days, where you use your health bar, get low on health, then end the day learning something or upgrading. Save your items for big days where you've used oils to get the most out of your resources. Again, part of the fun imo. Turn order and enemy targeting I'll massively agree on though. Made a post about turn order the other day, and 90% of the time enemies feel like they target whoever they'll one shot. Things like, I didn't guard with Charlotte so the enemies one shots her, or I didn't guard with Paul and John so the enemy uses Cupiditas and one shots them.

5. Weak companions. Intended. Try to not be fussed about them falling in battle, it's hard, but it's kind of part of the lore with Aura as the hero, and the characters themselves will eventually acknowledge they aren't equipped to fully support Aura. That said, allies become MUCH strong post-festival because Aura learns a new ability that empowers allies, which is one of the reasons they don't grow as fast. Also don't underestimate the slime skill. The slime is an incredibly powerful ally after a few good feeds, post-festival and post-bonding, especially once it learns fire morph or wind morph. (Lightning morph is bait, don't waste your time or resources on it.) Fire morph is fantastic for bosses, wind morph is necessary for underwater regions and storm with high magic is an absolute powerhouse aoe auto spell for regular encounters. It gains exp of about5% of the items value, so use expensive items like Ancient Woods on your slime.

6. I don't think willpower becomes difficult to manage until you're sitting at over 30-40 corruption, have true love's ring, and maybe even 'desire to be dominated by evil'. All of those together become problematic, almost requiring emerald teas to be functional on any given day, but if you get to Verdeaux and acquire 30 lewd knowledge (always make this your focus for higher magic attack and what I'm about to say) there's a book that means the first sex action doesn't end the day, which means you can reset your willpower on Hermann for example, get fulfilment+ 3 for example, and be better for it. +30% stats on any day you bang Hermann is great.

7. I agree about some of the bosses, I've never fought the demon generals on [nightmare], but as long as you make it to them before 80/100 days, just pop bloodshot eyes+ for triple stats for 15 turns on both you and your slime and watch them weep. Blessed flash bomb+s blinding them for 15 turns as well.

Regarding the writing, I look at this game more as a collection of character portraits.  Batman, for example, isn't a terribly interesting story but the indvidual characters are quite interesting.  Aura is meant to be a naive savior archetype and I think the writers have done well to portray her real reactions to the grittiness of Roya.  More could be done to show exactly what Aura is fighting so hard to protect, especially in the real world.  Aura does need to work on her communication skills but I hope those develop over time.  Again, I look forward to seeing how future demons are handled, as I think that is the best part of the game.  Showing how the demons exploit the weaknesses of the people to bind them to soul contracts and the creation of toxic environments is the heart of this game's storytelling. 

Yes the combat is challenging and I think it does well to show the challenge of keeping Aura pure in such a flawed world.  Yes the RNG gets annoying but it does punish poor battle planning.  Tactical Advantange evade is probably the biggest culprit of RNG madness though.

Non-boss combat is just another part of resource management. You pay in health, mana, or corruption to either unlock new areas, simplify passage, or to reach something worth mining with a risk of ending the day, wasting that limited currency known as time. /Arwin

 I believe the missing wife was originally supposed to be the new hire upstairs.

Lastly, how does not trusting an enemy demon to keep his word relate to being unwilling to take a hit for the sake of others?

Hunting animals for food isn't a bad thing, but that doesn't mean you go killing the entire forest.  Sex may not be a bad thing, but that doesn't mean you go giving it away to literally anyone that wants it.  Aura's mission is to prove that people are not driven solely by selfish hedonistic desires.  She fights these demons to prove that the people would be better off without them.   The world of Roya just sees Aura as a hot blonde piece of ass, and Aura is trying to help the people look at her for what she really is.  This is why I say Aura needs to work on her communication skills, she needs to work on teaching the people just how destructive these demons are.  She needs to do a better job of explaining the consequences of having the people give into their selfish desires.

The corruption path is about Aura backsliding and giving into what the people of Roya want, and in so doing lose her ability to teach the people a better way to look at virtue.  In real life this manifests in Laura becoming more materialistic and looks-centric, giving into what baser people want her to be.  I feel like the corruption path should actually be more punishing than it is, because if she gives in, she won't see the point of fighting anymore.  There should be some attempt at an intervention by her friends if she becomes too corrupted, both in the real world and in the world of Roya.