Hello. Thank you for your feedback! Okay, that's fair. I doubt I'll make these items persist even after a successful run. I will need to explain inventory clears somehow, I get it.
There's definitely a lot that needs to be done to improve combat clarity. Do you have any suggestions on how I should improve it beyond adding SFX and animations? I'm thinking of slightly increasing the delays between turn stages (of those five) and adding a delay to each log message so they don't pop up in bulk.
That definitely sounds like a good idea, separating the individual turns is definitely not a bad idea. Though I could see it becoming tedious even later on, similar to random fights in JRPGs, so I'd keep the current speed, or even a faster mode as a way to blitz through combat in case you're doing some lower level easier dungeons to, for example, grind some money for a delve or two before attempting a longer, harder one.
There are a ton of free sound and sprite effects out there that could be used to add some flavor, having lets say, the party view's border change color to indicate one of them is doing something would help, as well as just wiggling the enemy's portrait when it gets hit or does an attack would probably already help a decent bit.
Having a separator between turns might not be bad to improve clarity i.e.
Turn 1:
Hero hits Slime
Slime hits Hero
Turn 2:
...
Doesn't exactly need to count turns though, just as an idea.
Font size seems a little large, might help to turn it down a small notch to fit more of a turn in the log
