Bland and tedious
This game needs to be a lot more engaging. I'll get the trite stuff out of the way first, because it doesn't really matter since the only important thing is the gameplay. The total lack of music or sound effects is off-putting-and considering that there is no real-time gameplay (it's all turn-based), you might as well be playing a boardgame.
The visuals are decent, but I do take umbrage with the occasional meaningless tiles. In most cases the tiles are descriptive enough: floors you can walk on, walls and objects that block your path, doors that can be opened. But here and there are tiles that stand out-a sign, an unusual door, a unique floor tile with a circle on it-that seem to indicate something special, but don't do anything. The sign says nothing, the door will never open, the circle is just decoration.
The only purpose of graphics in a game is to describe the challenge to the player in a visual way. It's perfectly acceptable to have graphics that are purely decoration, but in these circumstances it's important to separate decoration from function in some way. A common solution is to lower the saturation of the decorative graphics so that the interactive elements (player, enemies, signs you can read) stand out against them. Minimalists will often suggest you should never use any graphics that don't have a meaning. But the point is, make sure the player can easily tell what he can and can't interact with or the player will become confused.
Now that we're past the fluff, the gameplay itself is slow and the controls are confusing. I realize there is a guide of sorts in the description, but manuals are a thing of the past. The typical gamer wants to put the game in and play, not read a lengthy manual. If the controls warrant explanation (this game does), the game should explain them to you when you start, either through a brief text or a tutorial of sorts.
Once I figured out that you just ran into enemies to attack them (again, this is counter-intuitive and needs to be explained), it took me a while to notice the arrow controls on the bottom left of the screen. I couldn't figure out why I killed the enemies above me but not the ones below me (in combat, up is attack and down is flee-hence my confusion). After this discovery, the shield and running man made sense but the fiery sword did not. Does it increase damage? At what cost? I seem to kill things faster but I always lose hearts when I use it. Does it cost a heart to use?
I also couldn't figure out how experience worked for a while until another confusion, the diamond gems that didn't seem to do anything, clicked into place and I realized that I got experience from the diamond gems. I wondered after a bit if maybe the fiery sword cost XP because my XP kept going down, so I quit using it. After a while I stopped using everything but my main attack and quickly found that this was a workable strategy. None of the enemies do enough damage to ever need to defend or flee, and the fiery sword doesn't do significantly more damage, especially at higher levels. In short, this game is simply ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK. It's a glorified button masher.
This is all very sad because it seems like with a little bit of balancing work, a tutorial explaining how to play (especially the combat mechanic) and some sound effects, this could be an 8 or 9 game. It's put together well, and plays smoothly and without any major glitches, but it's far from professional.