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Popping in real quick to try some of the new changes! I didn't get to far; just started a new file to mess with things.

However, I loaded up my old save just to see what would happen. Other than my party all becoming mice inexplicably and my fighter forgetting his abilities, works just fine! I fell into a pit trap in the dungeon, so that was a pleasant surprise.

First thing that struck me was the absence of the four characters from before. They were really charming and I miss them! All the new sprites are really cute, but it's weird that the three other species from the first version of the game (and the game banner) have been swapped out for moles and ducks. I don't HATE them, but it's an unexpected change.

So! Onto a new file!

It has now somehow gotten even more difficult! When a party member goes down, they're dead and it costs a STEEP price of 250 Gold to get them back. Considering that the first floor is where players will have the least options, resources, and stats, it's pretty cruel to have it be the most punishing. I had trouble even though I knew what I was doing, so I can't imagine what it'd be like for a new player.

On top of that, a dead party member takes all of their current equipment and experience points with them, leaving you even worse off if you can't afford the revival fee. Your best chance is to recruit a new party member and start from scratch, which then simply compounds the issue since now you need more gear and need to fight more JUST to get back where you were. Not ideal.

Speaking of recruiting new characters!

I like the very D&D way the character sheets are assembled! The ability to swap two stats before confirming the spread and class MIGHT be confusing to new players since it takes a bit to parse exactly what they're looking at. I was able to figure out that different classes required different minimal stat thresholds thanks to the red/green UI elements, but the UI soup on the bottom of the screen is just STRUGGLING.

Something that could use a lot more work is picking the Perks and Drawbacks. Right now the lists are essentially the same, with every positive item having an exact negative counterpart. This makes it awkward to try and make builds since there are only so many points you can pick up before all you can viably pick are...the exact negatives to the Perks you just chose. And since picking any Perks is optional, I think the player is incentivized to just avoid interacting with that system altogether since that's the only way to leave on something that's not a net negative.

Onto the dungeon itself!

This is where I noticed the thief doesn't have a bow to start with, meaning you either have to go without one OR make them a frontliner. Hiding and then using Ambush DOES make it so they can hit from anywhere, but Hiding only has a CHANCE to work and Ambush can still roll a 1 in damage. Doesn't feel great.

The Reach mechanic is also a lot more prominent here, and so are misses, apparently. I feel like me and the enemies both missed a LOT more than before. As for the Reach mechanic, it's all good and all right up until your Mage runs out of Mana (which has been made way more manageable with a larger pool and Honeycombs restoring some) to which they now just have to sit back and defend. Same goes for the Thief when they fail their Hide.

I'm not sure if I'm just not remembering correctly, but there seems to be a much higher number of enemies per battle on just the first floor. I've run into groups of 6ish enemies per encounter multiple times, and boy do they hit hard. It just makes it even harder for players since they can't even tank all that well since equipment is nonexistant that early into the game. Not to mention that your frontliners will usually not get a chance to even Guard since they're too slow.

HP values for your characters have gotten much lower, so it makes ever point of damage that much more hard to deal with.  From what I can feel out, the enemies either have the same HP as before, or just the slightest bit more. I like the excitement it can bring, but the death mechanic made it less fun than it could have been.

Chests have an interesting little minigame to them, but I think it's a bit too simple for it to be interesting. You get the thief to look for traps. Disarm the trap. Have the tank open the chest. It's pretty much a solved process by your third one. Maybe having the ADDITIONAL option to take the chest with you to get it appraised like before would be a nice wrinkle. Pay to safely get the contents later, or risk it and get something you can use immediately. Chests would need to have more useable items in general if opened in the field (and only when opened in the field) to make them worth it since gold and a weapon don't usually do much to a dungeon run.

UI! No cheeky segway!

The battle info has been relegated to text boxes on screen, but I don't think it's a better solution than before. It's pretty slow to go through the pages and there doesn't seem to be a way to breeze past them. Sometimes the text doesn't get the chance to finish before the next attack goes off, sometimes it makes it hard to notice that it's the players turn now. It really gets in the way of the brisk pace battles had before. If you were to go back to the old way you did it, maybe you can add a second bar where the blue brick pattern is at the top of the screen so you can have more text displayed at the same time and allowing you to break it up more neatly.

There also needs to be a cleaner solution to having control hints on the bottom of the screen since, right now, it can either be a jumbled mess, crowded, or hard to parse. Right now, the more controls and context needed on a screen, the more real estate it takes up. This one I'm not super sure how to go about solving.

The descriptions of attacks in the battle screen weren't always the neatest before, but this current iteration is trying to cram even more info into that little black box. It's hard to parse what effect an attack has and what the saving throws even means in that specific context. This one also needs a more elegant way of being presented.

The numbers used for the enemy attack order and the symbols for their intended target also took me a bit to figure out. I thought the numbers by the enemy's portraits were health or some other stat at first. Seeing a sword and a number made me think it was indicating an amount of damage that was incoming in the vein of Slay the Spire. I'd say you can get rid of the numbers altogether since you already have the turn order on the side of the screen. Then you can just color the little sword icon the same color the enemy has for their name on the list. If multiple enemy units of the same type are on the field, THEN you could add a number to their name on the list. Something like "Grub (1)" or "Small Slime (3)". Then you'd have their colored sword icon have that parenthesized number next to it IF that situation arises.

Keep up the good work! I'll be keeping an eye out!

EDIT: Oh! Also! The new level up system is something I have mixed feelings on. You don't get control of how your character grows, nor if they get any new skills. Considering we can't level up mid-run anymore, it's a little disheartening to make the trek all the way back to the exit just to see you received reduced stats and no new options. The skill tree from before wasn't really all that bad; the issue was more about having the options be more interesting and impactful than anything else.