Hi Fooljastic,
First of all thank you very much for playing our demo of Valiant Souls, and for taking the time to write such an extensive feedback. This version is kind of a "stealth" release for our close friends, and we were surprised someone found the game and incredibly honored you took the time to play through it.
Thank you for the feedback especially regarding the encounter rate, this is something we've been working quite hard on balancing (many games with RPG Maker tend to have battles every 3 steps... xD) but I agree it could be a few battles more for each area, we'll be trying to balance that a bit more in the next version.
Also thank you for your feedback on traits and spells. There will be a lot more to gain in the main game, but traits are usually learned through executing special events in towns (e.g. by triggering dialogue events with NPCs or among the main characters) as well as progressing through the story, as all traits and spells are based on the 8 emotions in the Skill Tree. We don't have a nice UI for that yet, and the traits you can find in the first chapter with the Rune Knights act as a "tutorial" for that system, that's why the number is fairly low in the demo. Combat will be the same, there are some examples of enemy weaknesses or things you can do with Soul Arts in the demo, but there will be much more in the "main" game - the Rune Knight chapter is just the start.
Also thank you on the feedback regarding start with level 1, never thought of that, but it kind of makes sense to not have them be Level 1 indeed. The battle counter is for the player though. ;-)
Also thank you for reading through all the books, I hope you found some of the side quests and hidden content as well that we've placed in the first chapter, we aim to have a lot of short events or little hidden things here and there to find for players apart from the main story, which definitely is a straightforward classic RPG story, thank you for your comment regarding the feel of the story as well, it's exactly what we wanted.
Sorry for not making it able to beat Themis in the last battle of the demo, you are definitely not supposed to, but kudos for trying so hard. There will be a time when you might be able to get a second chance against her. ;-)
It will take a few years until our game is ready, the first chapter is only about 5~10% of the whole story, but thanks for following our page here, we are doing our best to finish the game and hope you will also play the final version once it's done.
Have a great day and thank you again for your incredibly kind feedback!
Rene