how far has the game come now? any recent updates? improvements in game balance?
7 Gyms and a bunch of side content.
Hinoarashi's Twitter voted overwhelmingly to wait until Moltres' event is done (Articuno is already in). Hopefully not too long.
Balance is kind subjective. The Gym Leaders have good teams, but Alphas and Event Pokémon have optimized movesets (including Egg Moves) and Abilities. Dr. Wankenstien's Splicing service lets you put any move(s) on any Pokémon, with some work. If you have a more specific question about a specific encounter/fight, feel free to ask.
If you mean the many combat bugs, that's a Pokémon Essentials thing and will have to wait until Hinoarashi decides it's time to update to a more recent version (which is expected to take an update cycle).
The sprites don't align correctly when playing on x4 and Full screen sizes causing these lines to appear, please fix it.
This is probably an engine thing. If you're on Windows, you can play on a smaller size and use the built-in Magnifier App. You'll probably get better performance, too.
