Hm, new patch gave plenty of additions, notably the change of how unique characters are gotten, turning from something that is unexplained for most part to something that tells you how while giving them a bonus to compensate, good for getting the newly introduced characters, as well getting better results from already existing ones if you manage to get them, including the default neutral one. But of course, the bonuses can be outright useless, like offense bonuses for a support character, and in ordinary settings, their growth bonuses still won't make them suitable for late game unless fused, which will use the normal characters stats instead of their unique ones, and especially skills, both of which make them unique in first place. At least one of main characters can freely adapt their skills back, but it still doesn't feel the same. And bonuses like 3 armor are mostly powerful on simplified, which disables growth alltogether, but there's one thing it doesn't check for, which is next point;
Using the copy ability that is used by slime characters - yes, the already powerful skill if used on strong characters, usually enemies, can be used to double up on things that you are not supposed to have more than one, like the super hybrid from non-elite/unique characters, and on simplified, said copies do not retain item uses, meaning you can boost the copies and copy those, allowing you to break the limits it normally places. And if you play the creator character, you can copy the starting unknown from a specific trait using slimes copy to get essentially an army of them, and while not strong in regular games due to their lack of growth and losing their non-elite status upon fusion, in simplified, they are the best option you have, especially the fact they spread slime fast and that the hidden power doesn't have the same disadvantage it has normally due to fact creator doesn't have good growth options in the first place, which simplified removes and makes it less of an issue.
Additionally, the 2 unique characters have an ability to freely adapt skills on any character from a pool of existing skills, which is very, very strong, but they can also apply slimes copy skill on themselves, which as you might expect, allows them to replace themselves with another character of choice, usually the aftermentioned unknown/super hybrid, and considering they are stronger than original characters you turn them into, it further makes them more powerful and flexible, though they lose access to their original skills unless other characters have them. And its literally any skill, including character exclusive ones, and ones normally skillsets of others like wisps, mind control and so on. The sheer flexibility it offers makes them very strong once they get a good amount to choose from, though in case of one of them, if you transform yourself, you lose special global passives said character does have, so its kind off a potential tradeoff in that instance.
Expanding that, in post-game, you can get a mythic essence portal, which essentially what if legendary essence portals were even harder - even larger map and even more battles, but most dangerous is a buff every single enemy can get, which is anywhere as +500% to their health after their growth, so a 50 health character becomes a 300 health one after adjustment, or damage related ones that essentially forces you to defeat them quickly. But the reward at the end is very well worth it, being either a artifact, which is not worth at that stage you can get them to begin with, a random robot character, which is not unique and can be worse than ones you already have, or the best one, the mythic essence itself, and while I only found one of such type, the one that allows you to freely change skills from any character, same effect as those 2 unique characters have but with more flexibility, since you can get that essence as shapeshifter, who loses normal skill changes after getting said essence, but also has access to flexible trait, which overrides the change by allowing affected characters to equip both skill pools they have, your character has learned and what others possess. And that essence allows savage trait characters to get skills, making its penalty less prominent. Though the said unique characters cannot learn skills from events due to said ability overriding their normal choices, the shapeshifter can still learn new ones to utilize, but only with flexible trait after getting the essence.
Some of new characters are quite powerful, the swamp lizard being an alchemist who makes every single portal that is swamp compatible contain one with a chance of a second area, but is heavily reliant on them in order to be strong, and simplified makes the benefit non-existant due to restrictions, so as a result, diminished is the way to go while you play as them. But you going to need a good force since swamps contain enemies who can drain max health, and you don't want to lose stats you worked for.
The ice lizard has a passive that doubles ice damage on poisoned characters, meaning that targets that resist ice damage take full and those that are weak to it take four times the usual instead of twice, similar to electric for targets on water, and with the forest snake unique character, you can poison anyone, excluding characters with immunity, for full ice damage on anything or more for non-resistant ones.
The dark nephilim is a energy focused character that deals bonus damage based on energy, while still won't keep up in non-diminished settings due to growth outgrowing the energy based damage and magic, on simplified/diminished it becomes very useful, as in one, you can get events that boost max energy pretty often when exploring, while in another you can supplement with energy potions. Upgrading magic is less of a option due to fact the resources are needed for a newly introduced item that uses resources that would go for a stability potion, a moot point in simplified for obvious reasons;
Initiator item - something that allows you to get events more reliably unlike before where you had to take perceptive trait and hope for luck to give you right ones, now it allows you to trigger them on demand, useful for special areas, quest progression and converting excess resources into a useful item, but you can also use it on final story portal, since its an area that cycles through artifacts you haven't obtained, allowing you to complete their collection by using it as many times until it starts giving you the generic healing/ambush ones. It also means no more artifact portals, but you don't really need them if you are there to begin with, and artifact portals use the same pool, so once you fill it, no more will appear, meaning quests and mythic essence portals(which are really hard if unprepared, even compared to usual challenge ones)are only way to get more.
There's a new event that apparently triggers when you have great approval from librarian and you possess "illegal in their world" characters like oracles, robots and guardians, that if chosen, allows for a ending similar to compliance one, where you surrender in order to end the game, but instead you escape with two specific characters plus any extras expect mentioned "prohibited" ones, who are in their words seem to be resistant to their abilities and would rise against them due to their lack of loyalty. You can refuse with no penalties of course, but I wish there was an option to fight them on spot using the "restricted" characters they mention.
Archive trait(was released earlier, but just saying its potential power)allows you to summon any character that is unlocked, in case of unique characters they retain their genes, meaning that if you summon the overseer, you get level 30 15 gene blueprint of sorts to be used with mushroom essences, while being as powerful as actual one is, expect on simplified due to lack of growth, plus its a giant character which means not much options to work with unless you use fusion, but that means no 100 armor, though its best used to summon a horror, which entangles every single enemy every turn, something that is very useful no matter what, especially against enemy bosses, and can come in managable size, and in theory, can breed via impure fusion with another impure species, so catalyst is important if you want to have multiple of such things to pick from for various needs.
But of course, there's nothing without nerfs - the mana worm item is only given in a single use now, because apparently getting two for only one item was already very strong due to fact its a 0 action point item that gives an extra action, so only ones that come in two or more are ones from a unique event, or if you play the succubus alchemist who can make two per craft(pre-patch they could get four, the highest possible amount).