I think the biggest thing I'd recommend is removing random encounters. The forest sequence was extremely frustrating because you had both on-map enemies and also random encounters. I always like the ability to try and evade, so I'd probably bump up enemy counts where they're lacking (like the plains directly outside the town) and just straight up remove random encounters.
Shops need to be rebalanced, for sure.
And probably make abilities not be weapon special. Classes are already locked to certain weapons, there's really no need to further add limitations.