Decided to check Adventurer Trainer again, and heeeey, it updated! And quite a lot from since the previous patch where I asked about Darkness's Accuracy Training on itch.io. Gonna be honest, when I saw that the changelog said that there was a massive story rewrite and the bit with a bodyswap was done away with to make Kazuma the Protagonist, I was skeptical. But I figured... Hey, I like Konosuba and I liked what was shown with Adventurer Trainer so far. So I gave it a try anyway.
I really like the animated opening, and I can definitely tell that there's more passion in the writing now -- you can always sort of tell when the writer is really getting into it, and that's the general vibe I'm getting here. I also like the gameplay loop changes, and the Persona 5 influences are a nice touch.
So, it's pretty safe to say that my initial skepticism ended up not being necessary. While I still prefer the "custom character" over Kazuma personally, especially with the reputation system, I've pretty much elected to headcanon it. The character I was playing actually got amnesia and really thinks he's Kazuma now. Boom, minor problem (entirely on my end) solved.
As always, I look forward to more! I still got plenty to play through as is on this new update.
And, a pet peeve put aside;