Yeah, the skills are granted by equipment and I haven't totally gotten worked out how powerful I want tiers of equipment to be, but I'll work on that. And glad you noticed the shopkeeper bit! I didn't implement that with the clothing/armor ones, since I have to set up variables comparing 15+ items; the other merchants just don't have so much so it was easier to mess with.
And yes, games like Digital Devil Story and SMT 3 & 4, and speedruns I've seen of SMT1 are definitely big inspirations here. I'll look at tightening up the maps a bit, I want it to feel empty and uncomfortable a little, much like if you were in a hotel for the very first time and don't even know which room you're supposed to get back to.
While it's pretty unpolished for a demo, I figured this was a good testing point for the feel of the game. If it seems interesting enough now, it'll feel actually good once equipment/items are working as intended.