So, I finally got around to playing the game.
Here's my short little review for the players. It's definitely too much for a beginner, but anyone who has played a game of the Shining Force (just the earliest example I also remember the name of) style before should find it fairly easy. The expert difficult just seems like being dropped in the middle of a Shining Force game without character spells and after battle revives. It simplifies it but also makes unit deaths damn near inevitable (without save-scumming) since the number of units is increased and the quality of each is decreased.
As for advice to the developer, if you want to make this style of game, remember that new players don't know the mechanics ahead of time and won't willingly struggle through the unexplained menus to figure out mechanics (I did that to figure out which units to use on what, since the information given was a little too short and fast for my thick skull to get it). The key rock-paper-scissor style (which is slightly more difficult than that of a Fire Emblem game since appearances are less clear) of this game is barely mentioned and dropping people into a game with 7 or 8 different unit styles (especially with unit styles the player themselves does not have - like squire) with expert/veteran units and Hero units is essentially throwing people in the deep end just after telling them the basics of swimming in 20 words or less. I'd definitely advise a tutorial level to explain the mechanics of units with time to chew over the explanations between turns (i.e. turns between each new mechanic mentioned). Most easily accomplished by, say, a battle with tiered encounters where you fight groups of certain enemy types and the main or supporting characters tells you what to do to deal with each. Much easier for beginners to stomach than that better, but still rather rapid fire approach, is a series of battles where you slowly build up your forces (and introduce named units) from one to three units up to something like 10 to 30. It accomplishes the earlier example by letting you learn each character and their unit type one at a time and cementing the value of careful movements and planning to the players over a series of easier and shorter battles.
As for the trading mechanic, it seems interesting and rather similar to what I remember from Shining Force but rather inconvenient considering the scale of this game. When you have this many characters, keeping track of and maneuvering all the items will be tedious at best and horribly annoying at worst. I'd advise a party inventory style centralization of items (like the average rpg game on this site).
Also, I rather like the rescue spell and after-action movement, it's an interesting idea for diving in deeply for attacks on archers without writing a suicide note and maks retreating viable and deadly to the enemy through rescues on front-line units hanging back as a rear guard (and with the after-action movement you don't have to risk your units capable of rescuing). It's a fantastic use of a spell that I've never seen in any of the games of this type and an cool twist on the usual movement of characters in this type of game. It's clear you've got some good ideas and I'd love to see more of this game (even if it didn't have the H-scenes).
Edit: Oh yeah, and I like the music choice.
Anyway, keep up the good work.
