Hello,
First of all I would just like to say that I really love AVWW 1 and 2. The sequel, especially. It's a very fresh and entertaining foray into a new field while carrying with it a lot of nostalgia from my early youth. The Megaman influences are especially appreciated.
I have a bit of a suggestion though, and its mainly regarding coins and equipment. A lot of equipment is very imbalanced in terms of usefulness. For example, a piece of gear that adds +80% is less useful than a piece that adds -80% damage taken, because the -80% damage taken gear will last longer due to the very nature of equipment. Since you're taking 80% less damage, that means your gear is getting damaged at a much slower pace than it would if you simply had +80% health.
Second, I think that coins are very much useless. You get them only by defeating Demoniaca's soldiers. And it takes several fights to earn you enough coin to.. buy your way out of completing an area? I understand that some areas can get very difficult, but using a resource specifically to avoid playing a section of the game diminishes the value of that aspect of the game. I don't necessarily disagree with this idea, but I feel that coins should also have another use. I personally feel that their value would benefit from making equipment more permanent. Allow us to keep a small variety of equipment in a sort of inventory, perhaps only accessible on the strategic overview. We could then swap out pieces of gear to choose an adequate piece for our current objective or goal. Adjust the way equipment works now so that as it degrades from +10 to +1 it is reduced in effectiveness on a similar scale (so a piece that gives +100 movement speed at +10 might only provide +10 movement speed at +1). And then, rather than break and be tossed away, we could use coins to repair equipment. Perhaps repairing equipment might even require a new structure to be controlled or purified. This might require another look at how quickly gear degrades, how we acquire coins, and gear bonuses in general, but it would add another avenue to the value of coins and equipment itself. Otherwise, coins seem like a very strange addition to the game that serve only one purpose: To allow you to "buy out" of world tiles and avoid playing the game.
What are your thoughts?