All right, I've figured out one thing - unplugging my controller has at the very least made this playable and not lock up during conversations with NPCs. However, I'm still having a lot of trouble making progress.
- Using ATTACK with the main character does nothing and simply softlocks the game.
- Potions used in a battle that you lose do NOT come back if you reload your game. Somehow they are staying used even though I should be loading a point well before a losing battle ever occurred
- I can't figure out how to unequip items from party members to put them on someone else
I'm getting filtered by the knight on the bridge because I simply run out of choices and can't exactly go grind on enemies because only 1 party member can fight.
Hopefully this helps you to make further bugfixes and changes to your game.