I'm going to be blunt: this demo is tough. Really tough. The "kick your ass and leave you crying in the corner" tough. I've attempted the prototype fight nearly ten times now, and I've gotten runs lucky enough to the point where I'd manage to defeat both Krystal and Rem, as well as injure Ram pretty nicely, but all it would take is one unlucky hit or blade storm to finish off the best of the party. I blame Ram's near over-powered status for that since she hits like a damn truck and has the health of a tank.
Right, now that my venting about that's over, onto my main thoughts about the prototype. Whilst there's obviously not much here at the moment, I can say that I'm pleasantly surprised by the mechanics here once I look past the difficulty. I'm a fan of the traits each character holds and how they affect their stats in combat. They're quite reminiscent of Darkest Dungeon's quirk system, and leave me curious as to how they'll be further implemented in the future.
If this fight wasn't so mind-numbingly difficult, I can certainly say one thing: the combat is fun, at least for the moment. The number of skills each character leaves a lot of room for imagination and strategy, although I didn't get to explore all the avenues of possibility with the resolve and lust(?) skills since physical damage seemed to be the only way to actually make a dent in the fight. From what I can guess, however, lust appears to be used for more powerful abilities (such as Mercy's healgasm skill), like a mana bar, which can be reduced by enemies' offensive lust skills, or the other way around. Resolve took far too long to drain due to the massive cooldown time of abilities, but I assume it'll follow the same mechanics as stress in Darkest Dungeon.
On an off-topic note, before I get to the things that need to be worked on in the combat thus far, the selection of characters here is certainly interesting. I'm excited to see what plans you have for the customization mentioned in the description. Krystal is the best waifu, fight me.
Alright, onto the things that need to be worked on and the bad. Like I mentioned above, the cooldown for skills can be crippling in this combat encounter. Bash, for example, either has a 6 turn cooldown or a 3 turn cooldown that only starts after the effect runs its course. Either way, the waiting time before you can use that ability is abysmally long, even if the skill is incredibly helpful.
The other issue I had was all of the binding and gag abilities. At first, they look incredibly helpful, as a four-turn ability lock would've been extremely helpful, but their current state is kind of a mess. Combatants are capable of struggling in the binds when their turn comes around, and it makes sense that this ability might have a percentage chance to release/reduce the bind's effect. However, whether by bug or choice, enemies always escape when they struggle, meaning that the bind abilities are actually one turn stuns. This makes them near completely useless, outside of the few scenarios where you have to stun Ram to prevent her from hitting the party whilst she's enraged.
So, in conclusion, I'm liking a lot of the ideas this prototype's bringing up. The idea of a Darkest Dungeon + Slave Maker + Pokemon game intrigues me in the development of this game, so I'll be keeping an eye out for future changes. Since it's a prototype, all the issues I've found are easily waved off as early build problems. No one makes anything perfect on the first try, that's for damn sure.