I'm here to add my part to the very deserved pile of compliments the game is collecting, but first I would like to share a bit of constructive criticism:
About the combat system and the difficulty. I don't think that the game is too difficult, but the player lacks some tools to make the best use of the mechanics and so must rely on luck from the RNG to make up for it. This feeling of lack of control over the fight results is in my opinion what makes the experience frustrating. The thing I felt it was missing the most is a way to tell your allies not to attack for a turn. Many times I would have needed Stella and Akari to stop attacking for one turn to time the breaking of the enemy guard with them using their special ability.
After that the second thing I would have liked to have is a defensive ability for Stella. Gina and Akari have effective defensive moves in the Ginpsy Rool and the Blade Reversal, while Stella has none. This is exacerbated by the fact that despite her high health and armor Stella's low skill ends up making her the squishiest of the playable character.
Related to above, skill based dodging is a much more effective way to limit damage than armor, if this is non by design maybe some re-balancing might be useful.
Another strategic wrinkle that I would love to be able to use is changing the positions of the girls in the grid. For example placing Stella at the center to protect her from flanking assassins and bow users.
Lastly a little suggestion for the boss fight at the end of the "save Jade" quest. The narrative setup is that the girls attacks barely scratch the boss, so they eventually resort to an unorthodox combination attack to fell them. The effectiveness of this narrative beat might be enhanced by having the fight gameplay reinforce it. I see at least two ways to accomplish this; the most satisfying, albeit maybe a little bit more difficult to implement, is to boost the boss armor value so that most attack do zero damage, the set the fight win condition to be lasting a certain amount of turns. The second, easier to implement, but slightly less satisfying is to boost the boss health and set the winning condition as dealing 250 damage instead that taking the boss health all the way to zero.
I hope this doesn't come out as condescending, I just think that sharing detailed feedback is a way to I can use to help.
With that out of the way, time to gush it is. I really enjoyed the game and not only for the sexy. The double gameplay loop prevents any part to become stale even after long sessions and injects some very needed action in the visual novel narrative, which is great to avoid becoming fatigued from reading lots of slowly scrolling text.
The writing is much better than a kinky romp has any right to be. The way it can be silly and self aware, but still being earnestly dramatic when it wants to is absolutely brilliant. I especially liked Xici's meltdown, absolutely gripping, and her picking herself up after touching the bottom was cathartic. Even the fact that Stella surpassed Gina's strength, that initially left me baffled, is then capably used to setup Stella's character arc.
I'm looking forward to the next phase and the reaction from everyone now that Jade and Gina are back and bigger than ever.
I really, really, really hope that, with the Executioner locked in the facility, Xici will find the way to reunite with Jade and start developing a new friendship with her, not based on deception this time. Xici is my favorite character at the moment and I'm rooting that she can mend her relationship with the Greatarm siblings, find her own happiness with people that really care for her and, why not, put a lot of sexy muscles on her frame.
On the topic of the Executioner, I don't believe that she can be loyal to anyone but herself, either the Don has some seriously effective way to control her or she is just waiting for the right moment to betray him.
Thousand thank to the developers for bringing us such a satisfying experience!