My second time through I made the star sword and shield and was a bit higher level with better creatures. It was much easier. The first time through I didn't get the upgrades and levels and it was actually very challenging.
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Ah, yeah, if you didn't have those it makes sense that you found it more difficult.
One thing I originally had in my notes was that "Do Nothing" was pointless when your monsters can Defend every turn, but what I didn't notice was that doing so results in the interest meter going down, which can mess up your taming efforts. It does in fact become a bit of a strategic element where you can keep the bar exactly where you want it through a combination of Agitate and either defending or Doing Nothing, which I eventually found quite fun.
Oh what a relief that someone else forgot that Defend reduces interest. That's another note to dev - seeing instant increases and decreases in interest would help people like us remember the effects of attacks and skills. A bunch of battles went by where I thought that some moves were broken because interest wouldn't go up (But it was really because I defended twice and used the +2 interest move).
Thank you for another great point!
Originally I had a bit of tutorial dialogue that explained how monster "attack" and "defend" moves also effect the fight, however I implemented it wrong and therefore it doesn't appear through the intended way to play.
The way I implemented the interest meter made it so that I didn't have a way to have an instant effect on the meter (possibly I completely missed the way to implement it like that). This will be really helpful feedback though, I'll have to make a note of it!