So, just discovered this game, and here are my first couple thoughts. Love the structure and the idea. If you're a competent RPG player, so far it least it seems you fight everything without any real danger. I'm about to fight the first boss, and have yet to climax, having fought every single encounter I could to 1: see if it was doable without climaxing (it was) and 2: earn some money.
I also made a discovery that some quick searches have not shown anyone else mention in thread yet. For ambush combats, at least in the forest, it is in fact possible to turn the ambush around. I discovered this with reflexive button clicks in the face of ambush, but if you are looking at the tentacles about to jump you (so basically if you go to them to trigger them, rather than walk by them by accident) and press z before they complete their jump and start the fight, then when the fight starts you aren't caught off guard, and in fact none of the enemies act during the first turn, so you have actually countered their ambush and gotten the extra turn for yourself. Very useful if you want to clear an area, or even just want a spare turn to activate regeneration to get some mana back.
Loving the game so far, even if I will have to play a second time after my first purity run (I curse the completionist/achievement hunter in me at times that insists that all H games must be done virgin/purity run first to prove that I can do it even if I want to just go straight for the H. "No" says my brain, "You must complete the game 'properly' before you can lose on purpose").
Edit: forgot to ask, how do other people pronounce Ollicts? My brain keeps on reading it as Ocelot, which I know is wrong, but since I don't know how it's actually supposed to be pronounced, I can't properly correct myself either.
Edit Edit: Alright, I've reached the Ard Village and discovered that some of the ambushes here can also be countered. Specifically, some of the bloody mirrors. Not the ones that spit out monsters when you get near that then chase you, those are an ordinary encounter. The ones I'm talking about are the ones that you pass directly in front of, and your movement gets halted and a monster fades into the mirror then attacks. If you press Z before it fades all the way in and attacks then you counter it and get the free first turn, just like if you counter the tentacles. I was apparently wrong about needing to be facing the direction of the ambush, because I now have direct evidence that it works when you are facing away. I apparently just mistimed it in my quick experiment with not facing tentacles directly. The ambushes that have the monsters watching you closely (turning to follow you) and then eventually jumping you can't be countered as far as I've experienced. I've only had two though, so I might just be mistiming it, but so far I've not been able to counter them.
Also, can anyone provide a clear mechanical explanation for how the cameras and deleting the data from them works? I understand the idea in general, that photos of you taken climaxing or reacting to training build up as the cameras take pictures, which empower the ollicts, but you can depower them again by deleting the photos. Same goes for the photos of Emerald, which I think just slowly build up for every turn you have in combat. But specifically how does the empowerment work, and what are the tipping points in terms of amounts of data, and how much of a boost does it provide? Does anyone know?