Ambitious, but repetitive
I played the game for several hours, but was only entertained for two of them. Leveling up became too slow and not rewarding enough too quickly. Additionally, the game's reliance on the little midget gremlin race for earlier levels lasted too long. Changing their skins and giving them cooler weapons was a step in the right direction, but didn't actually alter gameplay significantly. Ease into the use of the other races, or include different, more advanced weaponry to help keep things interesting. To clarify, by "advanced weaponry" I mean catapults or mounted fighters or cannons. Really anything that changes the way the enemies attack, rather than how they look.
The inclusion of a skill "tree" was ambitious, but wasn't very well executed. The combat skills were too limited in number, and like other skills, weren't practical to use much of the time. I found that using the crowd-clearing lunge/rush skill often resulted in my taking more damage than I would have by simply spamming my regular attack and inching forward, and the short time allowance between steps in combos resulted in my having to input a command too early to keep a real chain of attacks going. Unless I was fighting a massive horde (which as I noted earlier, would eat my life too quickly) I'd be forced to lose my "combo" in order to keep attacking, or keep the "combo" and completely miss. The jumping attack took too long, and wasn't practical for targeting anyone closer than 3/4 of a screen away. Because the enemies move forward as the attack drags on, enemies even half a screen away would generally end up behind me, no matter how early I hit and held the appropiate arrow key to adjust the targeting. The teleport was well-done, but I would have liked to see some damage potential added to it, rather than simply increasing its range with level-ups.
The spells were a little better thought out, and I found the fireball spell particularly versatile. Although they upgraded in a more practical, innovative way than combat skills, I didn't feel that having them mattered much. They didn't do enough damage to really alter the gameplay since the time between uses was so long. Either allow for the spamming of weak spells, or the occasional use of powerful ones. Allowing the occasional use of weak spells doesn't really alter the gameplay. The gravity spell was probably the exception to the rule. The health spell would have been, too, but you forgot to increase the healing potential beyond 20 percent. After a few upgrades, spending points on Heal just results in having to wait longer between uses.
The equipment feature was well-done, and seemed like you put some thought into it. It was nice to be able to change the appearance of my avatar as well as most of his stats. However, making the drops a little more random would have been nice, especially if players had the option of revisiting early levels. I understand that you had to strike a balance between giving people loot and encouraging them to buy cool gear, but you could have done a better job. Purchasable gear needs to be slightly overpowered (which you did well) and unique in appearance (which you didn't do so well). If you had offered a wider selection of buyable gear and made it customizable or unique in appearance, I think you'd sell more. Then you could also accomodate players who would rather farm for treasure without cutting into your profits.
Overall, your game was above average, but the gameplay was too flawed and repetitive to keep me playing to the end. A good effort, but you could tweak some things and wind up with something great. Think about including character classes in a sequel, and actually creating a tree for the skills, rather than allowing everyone to accquire every spell.
