I love the mod a lot! I'm not finished with it, but it is very great and there's a lot of pretty unique mechanics! Well done!

I'm sorry that the next section might seem negative, but I'd love to share everything "negative" about the mod from a player who plays rank 5 and doesn't care about endless. It will be a lot of negatives, but there's a lot of good as well, it's just not as pertinent to share for improvement and idk how to say interesting things other than "yeah that thing is great"... But the mod is pretty great so don't worry!!

Stats economy and value:

I think balancing is pretty bad in term of judging what certain stats are worth. One of the items gives 1 elemental damage, arguably the worst damage stat, in exchange of 3 regen, a very valuable stat for nearly every character. In the base game, Boiling water gives two forthe price of 1 max hp, so a third of a level of max hp. There are other stuff like this, I feel like in general dodge and xp gain are way overrated, and adding a tier I item which add 6% ennemies is broken, there's only one so I can very easily get to +25% ennemies (so +25% money and xp) before turn 10, so ennemy frequency might be valued in the wrong way, as a negative instead of a positive. This item being tier II would make it way more balanced imo.
Nature weapons are horrendous. And the stick being nature is heartbreaking... So, primitive weapons give 15 max HP, but nature weapons give 6 max hp and -15% damage... I feel like there's a huge problem with how those stats are valued, and it drives me away from nature weapons every time. I don't understand why putting such a big negative on your new very cool designed weapons, I can't get myself to use them cause of that...


Characters personnality:

Characters feel very unique and very in theme with what they should do, I think it's very well done!
In general, I think it's not the best when characters are designed around the idea that "those stats affect those other stats", it makes it quite complicated to understand in the beginning, and it usually makes the strategy pretty straight forward.
There's a lot of characters who start with minus engineering, or no way to add it, which sometimes feel random and I don't know why it's so important to completely block a stat that isn't even that great to begin with...
Here are some problems with some characters:
Escape artist dodge based on structure is WAYYY too low... It's hard to even get to 5 structures in a run usually, so with no engineering bonus, this trait will most of the time not even give 6 dodge, so like a level in dodge. The money gain also doesn't give XP, so xp gain with this character is horrendous, and they rely a lot on luck and surviving the first ten waves without anything to help you through that.
The pirate's 1% explosion size for every 5% explosion damage is pretty small when you consider that there's like 2 items in the base game and two (as im aware for now) in the mod that adds explosion damage, and two of them are tier IV.
Blaise's -16% speed is a nightmare. It's barely playable. With items being way more expensive, harvest being inexistent and XP gain lowered, you already can't take much items and level upgrades, but if you don't take speed and only speed, you are dead by wave 7 with no way out. There's no other weapon you can take, so there's no option, and you can't choose your weapon upgrades, so this character feels bad, it's like I can't do anything to save myself from the inevitable death of mid-game waves.


Content gatekeep:

Challenges are a great way to add replay value, but here, it's a gatekeep to play-value... I don't think I'm the only one who has already finished the game before I started trying mods, so I'm not interested in playing with base game characters that are pretty hard such as Jack, and I'm not interested in playing at low-difficulty for an half-hour with the hope I get the tier III item I need and then win the run just to play the mod character... The characters shouldn't be gatekept behind those challenges, items should and it's always fun to go get them but characters is such a huge part of content that I might eventually not even try because of that.


Positives:

Those aren't the only positives, but those are the ones I really would like to precise cause they're really great.

Alien is a incredibly unique character, I love it, making the fruits hurt you but also give you a bonus, and making a bonus with making them heal you more makes it such an incredible risk/reward character, way better than most like it in the base game. You want fruits, and you want them to hurt you more, but go too far and it might be fatal, and luck becomes such a dangerous stat, I love it.

Oversensitive is actually well balanced, well done. A 1 max hp characters might seem scary, but the damage stat go up accordingly to make it possible, but not easy neither.

The custom weapons are all very good, and starting weapons giving and scaling on harvest feels good and was lacking in base game.

A lot of the new items are very unique, and I end up taking them a lot, even tho they don't feel overpowered. The cape that ups dodge cap is a very well designed one!

I'm sorry for such a lengthy post, I don't usually comment and I did so cause I think you worked very hard on your mod and you deserve praise and you clearly deserve that I take some time to talk about my experience so your next creations might be even better!
I'd like to get into brotato modding myself, do you know a way I could access/decompile your mod code? I'm very interested in how you did all of that and would like to take a look at your work (and certainly not cheat and check what impostor actually do...)