Thanks for the comments everyone! I'll take all your feedback into consideration as I worked towards Demo Day 10! I'm glad everyone seems to like the story/dialogue since I'm really not used to writing...
Sorry about the Items menu - it's just a placeholder at the moment (since Items aren't actually implemented yet). I've fixed the crash when leaving the ninja fort (but haven't uploaded a new build). I'll try removing the "monsters get a free turn when you enter fight mode" thing (it was just meant to make it harder but it is a bit annoying).
Since the tutorial seems to have fixed the issues that people had in Demo Day 8 with not understanding how to play, I'm going to focus next on getting the gameplay as smooth and fun as possible (which likely means revamping the skill microgames or removing them). Once that's all sorted I can probably start working on the actual world!