Oh wow. I love getting this level of feedback and I apologize it took so many days to respond to it (my job is truly kicking my butt).
I really appreciate you putting your negatives here, and I wanted to address a few:
-I'm so embarrassed that I neglected to put some kind of warning or info regarding the machines. The only autosaving in the game is mandatory when using the machines as an anti-cheating measure. I was really inspired by Megaman Battle Network's trade machine, but even that machine does give a warning. Big whoops on my part!
-I hope you'll forgive me copy/pasting this from another comment to explain the rates:
The capsule machines are actually configured to not give anything too good too soon. It takes a randomized number and depending on the level, subtracts from that. The logic is the following:
-before 1st round: -30, makes it impossible to get the best 6 monsters (essentially locking out the epics and strongest rares)
-before 2nd round: -15, makes it impossible to get the epics
-before round 3: no limitation! Best chances of getting the rarest mons! (The hinted love interest, Nina, might have a special Capsule Monster for you if you go to talk to her and trade after her ordeal...)
These limitations unfortunately meant lady armor was so common in the pre first round, but it can be taken advantage of to make sure you get certain mons at certain times!
-I DEFINITELY should have made it a bit clearer that you could play the players to negate bad RNG. I wanted to reward exploration, but I can see how it would make it harder for players who don't want to stop to talk to the NPCs.
-I'm very sorry you didn't get to kick Hunter's butt! If it helps at all, Nina, the hinted love interest, trades you an Epic for a common, and has some special unique dialogue to encourage Maria. I liked the symbolism of the "weakest" player choosing to help you in such a way.
Thank you for all of the constructive criticism! I genuinely think this is the best game I've ever made (at least in concept and overall gameplay) and I think I actually want to make a "definitive edition" that's a commercial release in the future. So all of these comments are huge for me.
I'm so glad the music and art seems to have gone over well with people. It's the first time I've done so much pixel art edits and straight up new character art for a game, so I'm grateful it worked well.
If you're a fan of lore each character has 3 conversations you can have with them at any given time. It's meant to be a reward for exploration/acting like Maria would and they leave comments on how they died and hints at the sort of life they had. I tried really hard to be respectful with what I was trying to imply for Nina's past, so I'm glad so many seemed to like how everything was handled.
Thank you for reviewing! I'm so excited to play your 2nd entry! Framework was really something special and I'm excited to see another collecting game!!