I’m so late to the party, here - i feel like i’m always echoing others, but I want to reinforce a message here.
I was also surprised by the ambiguity/negativity of your author’s notes for this one. I thought the vibe would be ‘finally got it!’.
While you might have felt there was ‘too much’ for your process, there was certainly not ‘too much’ for the player. I play a lot of ‘magic tower’ games, so the format here was instantly readable, and I liked the simple game of the battles, as a replacement for the normally deterministic way those games go.
I was able to get all chests, botch a couple paralyzes against the ‘cave bird’, and still get out with enough mp to paralyze and bop the last ressurectoid on the way out. Good stuff.
An hour is nothing weighed against the fun and just plain playable result you got out, i think :)