Went into this after reading some of the reviews/comments on the difficulty thinking it'd be Modded Emerald/Uranium type fights. After playing through to the "End of Update message" I really don't get the difficulty criticism. Your starter starts out with a defensive kit that makes anything on par with you a non-threat and after the 2nd or 3rd trainer fight you are consistently 1 to 2 levels ahead of the remaining battles.
As for criticism:
-I wouldn't mind seeing the EXP grinder be rescaled/removed, you can get a whole team of mons around 35+ with almost no effort by abusing the early Exp Share and Lucky Egg.
-It might be nice to have a signpost or small RP to introduce the location of the Grove to the player after rescuing the Bunneray. Was easy enough to find if you are used to Pokemon area design but I can imagine at least a few people missing it because they want to go in a straight line from objective to objective.
-If "difficulty" seems to keep being a common point brought up by people, maybe consider reducing potion price until after beating the first gym or something else along those lines. I'm guessing whatever problems people are having early can be remidied by more healing and that means either price adjusting potions early on or adding more ways to get cash on Route 1, but I don't imagine that'd be possible unless you award cash for random fights which would just feel odd. (Sure there's other solutions but that's just what comes to ind immediately)
-Maybe a GUI for pokemon trust (attraction/lust?) stat withihn the grove. It's an alpha so it's more about showing the system working(which it is), so this isn't so much a criticism as much as it is a suggestion.
Edit: I think it's worth adding, I did enjoy what's here and am looking forward to see how it's added to in updates going forward. Good luck dev =)