Summary:
More interesting portals
Spirits integrated more. (more enemy variance etc.)
Farm/fusion work more together.
Portals/Overworld:
Tooltips for portals for modifier descriptions etc.
Portals now have a native trait that each character in there has, including some unique ones
New basic modifiers
weather effects per portal that can change each day (affecting spirit spawns etc.)
combat modifiers, affecting all battles in a portal
new world types with more restricted movement (caves etc.)
special consumables + unlockable farmpotions for special world types
Characters/Creatures:
2 new elements (total 10 new species) some previously existing creatures moved into the evolution lines
Light: combo based magic/support species
Shadow: terrain based team species, introducing shadow tiles in combat
11 new unique characters (mostly missing unique combat sprites, but many aren't really battle characters)
Shadow species rework:
they work together with shadow spirits and share similar skills
generally more hp/ less reliance on shadowform. bonuses in shadow/malus outside
shadowform increases speed more and only costs upkeep outside of shadow. no longer increases armor
requirements of being in shadowform often replaced with being on a shadow tile
Farm:
simplified a lot of stuff
removed focus, now always similar to previous default settings but better
control shifted more towards using farmpotions
you don't assign characters to farm ( characters at home show in farm, can assign any two to place in farm)
removing pairings puts characters back home
pairings are shown more clearly and separately with quick infos
separate sortable lists for left/right character. (rightclick can now close as other windows)
can use instantbreed without pairing (can still pair afterwards and keep progress)
can toggle between creature/humanoid (can breed same species creatures)
some new farm items unlocked through explorations/events.
descriptions now adapted to alchemists bonus.
fertility/virility potions increase by a flat amount of 30 instead of +50%
eggs/day capped at 3 per pair. removed doubled crystal gain for farmer. eggs spoil quicker
Quickruns:
some new world modifiers exclusively for it. Most runs now have a world modifier
rival power starts higher than other runs (not just stage 1 spirits in final battle etc.)
more modifiers/starting traits
always start with an S-rank tavernquest available
generally higher chances for more interesting/rare things
Other:
new events
evo art update + outfits
unranked arena battles can have combat modifiers
Rivals can have any element, not just the basic 3
Corruption now sets the maxlevel to the characters current level. those species are stronger now (might be weird with summoning/fusing)
Castalia sells potions once you unlocked the reward thresholds
new genetic traits (mostly start/end of combat effect)
new mostly neutral difficulty modifiers
Can now buy potions from castalia once unlocked
genes have less impact on stats (10 = doubled stats, prev *2.5 - *3)
slime type characters are stronger, but corrupt sets their maxlevel to current level
Noteworthy bugfixes:
tavern characters didn't correctly scale with rank (always had same low total genes)
party strength (for mining/woodcutting etc.) was based on magic instead of strength
story mission portals had normal enemy spawn rate (could often just walk through without fights)
sleeping multiple times the same day resulted in same events
crafting draining bow required wrong resource
First weekly seed: "glowing"