To start off, thank you very much for your review. I'm actually very close to having an updated version of Eremiel ready to post in the forums and your feedback is very helpful.
All of the characters are indeed pulled from biblical sources, although mostly from apocrypha, not canonical. None of them, including Eremiel, have much if any lore written about them that I could find. I chose lesser-known figures on purpose so I'd have more of a blank slate to work with and to keep the story more personal and small scale. In a single hour, when most of your time is running around blasting monsters, there's just not enough time to develop more than a couple characters so I focused on the main two.
As far as the things you didn't like about the game, I'm working on improving as much as I can in those areas, especially with pacing, balancing and bringing more humanity to the lost souls you rescue. I also appreciate the complements on the things you did like. It's always good to know the things I got right, too.
My inspiration for cutscene character movement is a little tricky to pin down. I just kind of did it naturally but just about everything we do draws inspiration from other sources. I'd have to put credit in a couple of places. When I first started messing with RPG Maker about a year and a half ago, I watched a bunch of YouTube videos to learn everything I could about the program. One source was Echo607. I distinctly remember her talking about having your characters move around during cutscenes to break up the monotony of just reading text back and forth as your characters talk. The other big influence was probably Final Fantasy 6. It's one of my favorite RPGs of all time and the characters do a lot of the things you mention (pacing back and forth, turning away etc). I wished for, and I believe even asked for, more character poses from the generator like sitting, kneeling, raising your arms in the air and such and FF6 was specifically in my mind when doing so. The characters do a lot of these kinds of things in that game and it makes the cutscenes in that game a joy to watch.
Thank you again for your review! I really appreciate it. I'm certainly not expecting it but if you'd like to help me continue to improve this game in the future, look for my updated version in the forums very soon. I had a lot of fun making this one and hope to nail down this type of action mechanic as best I can to make it a fun experience throughout the entire game. Take care.