So he removed the grind and sandbox elements and turned it into more of a VN? I guess i can delete my old saves then and start a fresh playthrough.
He made the right choice imo. Though the grind wasn't that bad for me, personally, he probably saw that too many people was getting stuck/not progressing or generally didn't like grinding. It also was probably why the game wasn't updating as often when you have keep adding in sand box elements and different scenes that justify repeating them.
Anyway, I'm downloading the update now so let me go see what's changed.