Hey there, thanks a lot for playing my game on stream and for your feedback! Oh and congrats on claiming that Steam key too ;) There are three different in total so let's see if others get them.
Regarding the balacing issues: I did realize while playtesting that going for the "Strength" route from start does make things easier early on. It's kind of a way to get a head start, but not many people realize it immediately, so well done! I was precisely waiting for feedback on some of the issues you mentioned and I already have a few tweaks in mind (like reduce the Shards of Light obtained from slugs for example) so it's not THAT easy from the beginning, and especially on the long term. Just as in any other RPG though, grinding needs to be rewarding in some way for the player, it wouldn't be fair otherwise. So you could be farming for EXP by defeating blue slimes forever to grind and reach high levels from the start, but the downside is you might get bored quickly and want to move on and explore further. Some players have this kind of patience, others don't, I guess. Also, as you've seen, the enemies' defense also increases, some are resistant or immune to physical attacks, obviously their strength also increases, others use magic, etc. so it'll be important eventually not to dismiss the other stats. (By the way, you can get info about the monsters' stats from the "Minions" menu). That being said, I had already thought of the Shard cost increasing by tier for the stats and I'll definitely implement it based on your feedback, on top of the other tweaks I mentioned.
You also said that at first it felt like it was hard to get Shards of Light and they're only used for TP recovering at the beginning. It's true, but it's because I like not giving players too much guidance to encourage exploring right from the start: You can get quite a few "free" Shards as well as TP Dice from hidden chests early on by doing so.
About the fact that you can press the "Pummel" button immediately after getting a first strike, it is kind of nomal... I guess? The first strike hits the foe without using any TP, and then the battle starts normally and you get to select the action. It also allows battles to go quickly. But I may have missed what you meant.
I did also think about remembering the cursor position, but it is actually a lot more work than it seems at first glance, and not everyone might like that. I could add it as an option as you suggest, if more players want it. What I'll definitely do though is swap "Defend" and "Spell", it's much more logical to have both attack options on top of the list, while defending is not used that much during normal battles.
The infamous yellow switch: Yes, it is useless and only there to make players waste a bit of time and TP if they decide to go and press it. I admit it. It's just like that sand castle, you did have the urge to step on it. You see a switch, you have the urge to press it, even though it may not be useful or necessary. The God S is a bit of a bitch towards the demon, after all. ^^;
Two things I also wanted to point out: It seems you noticed quite late that you can get a quick view of your HP and Shards in your possession by pressing Start on the controller without having to open the main menu. Also, you walked everywhere, but you can actually run by pressing X while you move around. It's all explained on the Options/Controls menu, but I will probably add a message at the start to mention these.
Finally the music: Yeah, it's very much WIP and I'm trying to improve, you're not the first one to complain about it . As a matter of fact, I uploaded a revised build with a toned down version of the music, it's not as high pitched and generally I think it all blends togehter better to make it less grating. Let's see. Unfortunately I have no budget to hire a composer atm. Sorry you had to suffer so much from it :/
Thanks again for the detailed, and very useful feedback!