The artistic elements of the game are simply breathtaking! I loved the toony environments and enemies, and to an almost equal extent loved the music. I found the gameplay elements to be a bit lacking, and here's my opinions.
Firstly, I'm a laptop user. The resolution that you have selected for the game window is way larger than my laptop's resolution, so a lot of the game, including UI is mostly blocked off for me. I believe you can set itch to scale the view according to the player's resolution, so maybe use that?
It felt like there was many instances where I had mana to attack, but the game wouldn't let me. Even the cheapest attack would fail, and I would be condemned to lose a life. Not sure what triggered the glitch, but seemed to repair on death. I also didn't get the mana system initially, as it was a bit discreet (and half cut off by the resolution). Also, an empty mana bar looks a bit too similar to a full one, so maybe increase the contrast a bit to make it more obvious?
What was the point of items from the chests? Does it improve some stat, because by the point I had found any items, the UI had vanished (which is apparently a feature?) Maybe tell us what the item does, or at least what the item is. There also seems to be the possibility for long streaks of chests without enemies, my record whilst testing was three in a row without any enemies, which feels a bit broken.
Also, when UI randomly disappears, it isn't really a sacrifice. Whilst this may be a bit nit-picky, a sacrifice should be something that a player actively chooses to do. If it is involuntary, it is closer to progression than sacrifice. There could be more depth to this vanishing UI thing if the player had control over when and what disappears, and maybe it gave them some sort of buff. This could add some more strategic elements to a game which is otherwise, very simple in its approach to gameplay. The player doesn't really have much to do, and there isn't really a choice. A better application of sacrifice could fill this void.
Could have been some extra polish added. Little details like the text bubbles are nice, but the text is rather repetitive, with some events even having the same message each time. You could have maybe randomised the message each time? Also the text bubbles don't really fit in with the rest of the game. They seem to use pixel art, and look quite bland in comparison to other artistic elements. Also the pause menu was quite glitchy, and I found a considerable number of exploits using it. The game would continue playing if you paused during a death animation, and upon resume, all the enemies would disappear. Also looks strange how stationary objects such as a chest don't sit still on the floor, and move relative to the ground. There also wasn't a lot of important feedback events. One such missing event was when you tried to open a chest without a key. Nothing would happen, and no feedback was given as to why. Could have maybe made the player say something to indicate no keys? I also get the feeling that the font was actually custom made (if so, well done, fonts usually come straight from google fonts), and whilst this is nice, the text doesn't scale well, as seen in the "Encounter's left" text. This text is blurry and slightly pixellated.
Otherwise, the game is quite nice, and the art and music are simply wonderful. My only concern is that this came at the expense of gameplay, and consequently, the game isn't particularly engaging. There isn't a whole heap to do. The music and art alone keep me there for some period of time, but that only lasts so long. This is a very nice, and rather ambitious game, one to certainly be proud of! Keep on developing, and I hope this feedback was useful! :thumbsup: