I've thought about this before, but I feel like the game somehow doesn't know what it wants to be.
You have so many spells, a lot of mechanics around them, lot of time spent with the combat system, crafting, herbs, talismans, shops... All of that is meaningless. There are not nearly enough fights in the game to justify the effort put into those. Those few fights aren't random, you know they're coming, and afterward you can forget about the whole system.
There is a bit of grind involved, but I'm not spending two hours just grinding back the -5000 that I got from getting ebola. Or do I even have to? I can just get a million for free, at which point this mechanic ceases to exist (but you don't know that in advance). Or does it? Will some higher force, some writing magic take that away from me again? Maybe it's not clear what I'm trying to say, so I'll say it again - there's money in the game as a mechanic, one which you use to buy stuff with. But when it starts to just bounce up and down with scripted events, I feel like I shouldn't even bother doing anything.
The grind also makes the fact that there are supposedly multiple paths in the game weird. Without it you might have multiple saves for each path like in a regular VN, but now you have to sit through the same fights, get through the same content etc. just to get to the part where your choice gives you a different outcome. Of course, you're at the mercy of the developer to not retroactively change something, even if you do have all such saves. This wouldn't happen if the story was basically linear with optional content... but then again, I have no idea which direction the game is going.
And the last choice with the dragon was... also extremely weird. Money? That either just broke the money system or there is a plan to somehow take it back from the player, either way this would realistically have consequences that would completely derail the story. Knowledge? So just combat stuff? What are even skill points for? I've already mentioned the absurdity of having a complicated system like this for just a few fights. And if it did make the player truly stronger, now the player that didn't take it will potentially face fights at a different difficulty for the rest of the game. Cure Lamashtu? I mean, a player might take that for content, but realistically MC would never take it over... well, the money and Asara. Never mind the fact that the MC could ask for just about anything else, like something that would help resolve his harem problems, extend his lifetime, I don't know. All in all this choice is contrived and feels more like a punishment to the player than a reward, like you're just choosing what hurts you the least. Could probably be resolved with Asara and MC getting some cool enticing magical stuff rather than a wish or money.
I didn't want to be rude or anything, I enjoyed the game quite a lot, especially the writing and would like to see it finished. And I do mean truly finished, not like when harem game devs decide they lack the creativity to untangle the giant clusterfuck story that harems naturally create, so they make a "shortcut" - usually a massive choice selection with all girls' names. I'm simply worried that it'll turn into a huge mess before it has a chance to, now that there's so much stuff to write around.
