Whew so before I respond, I really want to thank you for your review. I've been lurking in the rpg maker forums for... gosh? 7 years? Before MV was even an engine I believe. I have such amazed memories of seeing all your custom art in the forums that you created for FREE(?!?) and seeing such a veteran play my game is honestly awesome (even if it was mandatory for a contest haha).
I'm afraid I have a problem with making my games a bit too wordy, and I definitely agree I could have put the bonding session in a better spot/expanded on the rounds a bit. I'm really glad you liked the overall battle system.
As for the battle system's art I'm grateful you pointed this out. I think it's the first comment to mention this and it's definitely something I'll be adding to the log to fix up for a future update/release.
As for the overall strategy/difficulty level I was definitely nervous making the battles too hard as to get good mons you might have to grind a bit, and I was hesitant to require it even more. I definitely think having a higher list of monsters (I'm thinking 25 might be a better number) and being able to implement the different attack ranges that I wanted (that I unfortunately had to cut for the entry) will help. I also want to expand on the physical vs magic attacks more as while implemented... it wasn't expanded on enough and that could definitely be worked on. Out of curiosity, how did you feel about the 3 on 3 battles? I feel like one issue I have with games like fire emblem is how difficult balancing/gameplay can become when it's a 10 v 10 or 10 v 12 battle. Perhaps 4 vs 4 would be better? I'm curious as to your opinion on this.
I think after the words of you and some other reviewers I will expand this into a more full commercial release. I'm overjoyed I got to do something a bit unique with the engine that people could enjoy.
Thank you again for the feedback!!