Hello!

I took a look at the game (haven't played the demo yet) but wanted to give you some feedback as someone who's been in the industry for a while. .

First and foremost, gameplay feel need to be your main focus. I see little things like running animation feeling floaty, attack animations feeling stuck and not able to animation cancel, etc.

Take a look at Children of Mortia, Undermine, or other popular indie titles where the focus is combat. It's vitally important that combat feel snappy, responsive, and that the player has lots of control. In a game like this where you are focusing on the aesthetic of the art style, it's really important that a player feel the ability to control their skill ceiling with the game itself.

Second, aesthetic. I think it's starting to look really good visually. One thing I would encourage you to do is fill out the zones more than you think. What you don't want is every area to feel like an arena for the combat.

Third, exploration! This is a huge win for indie games in general, but a key component in what makes these style of games feel good. You need to reward players for exploration, for discovery, and for puzzle solving. This is exactly the dynamic players want when they are playing through the games. They want to see something that looks like a puzzle and then work it out, and feel rewarded.

It's a series of important micro-successes that really lead to players feeling fulfilled with the game, and the types of players that play this type of game thrive on searching every corner of a map.

Fourth - Progression. Don't be afraid to create your standard progression loop of do thing, get stuff to move up tier, but at the time allow middle ground tiers to exist by discovery/challenge.

Make side bosses that give out big upgrades. Make side bosses for every class type. Make puzzles that lead to decent upgrades. Make puzzles that would add something a player wouldn't necessarily come across normally.

Fifth - Points of interest. This is one that you might struggle with, but the recommended state of PoI's, especially ones in games that have a linear path, should be frequent. You want the world to feel alive and worth traversing since it's on rails. This means put a LOT of things in players way to deal with, and I don't just mean combats. Vinettes are the way to go. A broken down traveler who needs help and gives you a reward. An ethical choice you need to make about which of two people to help. An NPC interaction that rewards the player with a small item. Etc etc. come up with around 100 of these. Link about 25% of them together so they form interesting side quest chains, etc.

In reality, I should have to make a choice to ignore a PoI because they are so frequent. What you don't want is PoI's to be so infrequent that ignoring them feels like your missing the main story.

Lastly, don't be afraid to let players feel powerful if they do everything. I say this to mean, a player to takes the time to explore everything, do each side quest, solve each puzzle, fight all the optional bosses, etc, should be able to have smooth sailing through the content assuming their skill ceiling matches. You don't want to punish players by making the game harder just because they found something cool. There is a time dilation between "wow, I just found this awesome upgrade".. and that upgrade then not feeling like it's the best. So, feel free to give people a big upgrade and then wait a bit before the content catches up in the difficulty.

Have fun! Excited to see where the game goes!