Nice custom graphics, a decent experience. Honestly the best part of this is the idea of moves that can only be used when a resource is 0 and that full refill it. I might steal that idea for something someday :P

3 things I liked about this entry:

1. Beautiful art! The busts are high quality and the map sprites have a nice retro pixel flair. The fact that you made the enemies and backgrounds yourself means they have a very cohesive style, too.
2. Unique situational mechanics that generally aren't seen in RM games. I can't recall the last time I saw a skill that could only be used when the character's MP was 0 and would fully refill their MP, all while dealing massive damage, but it was very satisfying.
3. Small maps means no getting lost! There is plenty of detail in them despite their brevity, so they successfully avoid being boring corridors.

3 things I did not like:

1. While the story itself is fine, the dialog left something to be desired. It's far from the worst I've seen, but it isn't on the same level of brief, character-rich dialog seen in some of the better entries in the jam, either. My advice would be: try to say more with less.
2. Between the short maps and the lack of anything to do on the overworld besides interacting with the save crystal, I don't think there was much value in having an overworld movement component with random battles in the game.
3. Continuing that last point, the random battles were fine for testing out my skills but don't really add much beyond that since there is no reward for grinding. While the encounter rate isn't too high and the short maps mean there isn't much opportunity to get caught in many battles, I still was feeling pretty done with the battles toward the end.

Quest To Terrortalon Isle is a standout entry in this year’s Harold Game Jam, bringing together beautiful custom art and pixel graphics with well-crafted traditional RPG gameplay. This game is a visual and interactive treat, offering a polished and engaging experience that shines among its peers.

The first thing that catches the eye is the art. The custom visuals are stunning, showcasing meticulous attention to detail and a unique aesthetic that sets the game apart. The pixel graphics are equally impressive, providing a nostalgic yet fresh look that enhances the overall charm of the game.

Gameplay is where Quest To Terrortalon Isle truly excels. The traditional RPG mechanics are well-paced and easy to understand, making it accessible to both newcomers and genre veterans. The balance of exploration, combat, and progression is spot-on, ensuring that players are continually engaged and entertained.

The music complements the game beautifully, adding depth to the atmosphere without overshadowing the other elements. It’s solid, well-composed, and enhances the overall experience, creating an immersive environment that pulls players into the world of Terrortalon Isle.

The story, while good enough to support the gameplay, could benefit from a bit more “show” and a little less “tell.” There are moments where the narrative feels a bit heavy-handed, but it doesn’t significantly detract from the enjoyment. The plot is serviceable, providing a backdrop for the adventure without getting in the way of what the game does best.

Overall, Quest To Terrortalon Isle is a fun and entertaining jam game that stands out for its beautiful art, solid gameplay, and immersive music. While there is room for improvement in the storytelling approach, it remains one of the top entries in this year’s Harold Game Jam. It’s a testament to what can be achieved in a game jam setting, and I look forward to seeing more from this developer in the future.

Overall: A strong start with some great art and a very promising story. Something like this with more time spent on lore and character building could be a real winner.

Gameplay: I'm feeling a little restricted in the overworld. No items or running?! Battles were straightforward enough, but I ended up running from most of the random encounters and they really didn't affect how I performed in the boss battles. The final boss actually could have been a little tougher! Sparking was the game changer for me with that crazy DoT.

Music: I know this has been an issue but the knockoff Lamb of God battle music actually got a laugh out of me. Towards the end I actually started to vibe with it!

Graphics: Great art all around! Loved your sprites both in the overworld and during dialogue. Only thing is I wish the blue crystals stuck out a little more. I'd miss them from time to time which cost me dearly.

Story: Some pretty cool worldbuilding going on in Terrortalon Isle. Love how all the enemies are based on fears. The big thing is it felt a little fast!  I really wish this game took a little more time to really dive into the lore of the island and the relationships between the characters. It had a very interesting premise that could have been explored a lot more in-depth. Also just a bit edgy.

Comedy: I told you in RBT a low comedy score isn't the end of the world, but regardless David bumped that score up for me.

Gameplay: In a word, this game is slow. In slightly more words, this game is agonisingly slow. Movement speed is too slow, text speed is too slow, and the battles are far too slow and too frequent. Speaking of battles, you’re bombarded with an overwhelming amount of skills at the start, making it highly confusing up front and difficult to learn how to use skills effectively. Also, it’s weird to me that Damage numbers are all in the hundreds, yet MP is inexplicably in the thousands. You have 10,000 Max MP, but skills never cost less than 1000, so the gameplay is the exact same as if you had 10 MP, and skills that cost minimum 1 MP.

Music: I liked the map music, but the battle themes were all kinda annoying, and I thoroughly did not vibe with any of them.

Story: The writing of this game feels juvenile, in a bad way. Every character has an edgy design and even edgier skill names, and the self insert is included in the story about as gracefully as drawing your OC over an ensemble image of the cast of your favourite show in MS Paint - which is to say not graceful at all. The writing seems to really enjoy calling attention to his presence at every opportunity in often very clunky fashion, (“all of you and Josh” being a particularly egregious example)

Graphics: The art is the strongest point here to be fully honest. The designs are quite edgy which for certain characters doesn’t really feel like it makes much sense - like these guys are heroes why is Marsha dressed like she’d be the main villain of any other RPG (Harold is also dressed like this but I’m assuming that’s a result of the island) - but are generally well drawn, and I can appreciate a good edgy design, so long as it’s supported by decent writing. Bonus point for David’s gun blade, though. Gun blades are cool.

Comedy: there uh, wasn’t any.

Overall: Graphics are about the only nice thing I have to say about this game.

Overall: I loved the look of everything.
Gameplay: I got tired of the popup fights very quickly and spammed the enter key for a while, then I just started escaping everything. And then I stopped playing because I couldn't get more than five spaces without having to do that all over again. Sadly,the fights, which look like they took you the most time to set up, turned this quickly into a DNF.
Music: I turned it down. Way down. Make of that what you will.
Story: It definitely felt like a self insert fanfic, which is fine.
Graphics: One of the best looking games of the whole jam. I think the girls were drawn with a little too much fan service, but everything else was very nice.
Comedy: It never felt funny.
If the fights hadn't interrupted me so much, and if the characters had less to fight with at the beginning I would have played a lot more of this game.

Overall: A fun little romp with the RTP Crew as FFXIV Jobs.

Gameplay: Heard Marsha was a FFXIV Black Mage.  Happy to see you tried to adapt multiple FFXIV classes to turn-based.  A little saddened by the encounter design making me feel invincible.

Music: I can see people enjoying this.  It's just a little to much screamo for my taste.

Story: It's a simple story with plenty of edge to cut yourself on, but it kind of works.

Graphics: I broke out laughing when I saw AST!Lucius.

Comedy: This didn't read like you were going for comedy.

Will start by saying all the character busts were solid! I especially loved Lucius and Harold's designs. The enemies were pretty cool to behold as well. I found the random combat to lack incentives to not just run away from. There were no rewards (that I found), no levels. So it was just a loss of resources and time to not just run. 

I also thought there were too many skills, and when there were few skills, it was really just about AoE or Single target. Aside from Lucius buffs, there wasn't much thought I had to put into the game.

The story was perfectly scoped and had a nice hook and resolution. A couple jokes, but nothing that made it seem like comedy was a focus of this entry.

I really liked Theresa's....eyes.

A bit overwhelming at first with all the skills available, but I did find the abilities that cycles when at 0 mp etc quite interesting to use and warmed up to the battle system as I went further into the game. Some of the initial enemy status effects were a little rough with my first battle having my whole party paralysed for multiple turns not able to do anything. The graphics with sprites, character busts and enemy battliers look great! Cool that they are based on different types of phobias.

Full disclosure, I did test this game before the ratings period started so I will skip some of the stuff I'd already shared with the developer.

Pretty solid effort, some good ideas for character abilities just a bit held back by iffy encounter design and some balance issues. Still, there was a good variety of stuff to do and the classes felt very distinct from one another.

I think the thing that needs the most work is the writing, it wasn't bad per se but some sentences were clunky, felt overly expository, and/or weren't concise enough.

Visuals were strong overall and I didn't mind the music, though it did seem a bit out of place so I didn't give extra points for it despite being a metal guy myself.

Good game!

Story: I quite liked the story and it was solid for a game jam. Good job.

Graphics: Very nice and I scored highly, probably would be my graphical winner or at least close but the change between pixel art on maps and the battle style. Still great job for a gamejam.

Music: Thank you for now blowing my ears out with rm default volumes, it was nice to play a game where master level was 100% and my brain wasn’t being blow out of my head. Good job.

Comedy: It was fine, acceptable.

Gameplay: I found this a slog to be honest. Not bad just slow, battle were ralatively slow for me, as was map movement speed and having to click multiple times to get a save. Also a high random encounter rate on such small maps.

In combat I feel the player was lacking a lot of agency. Removing 1/4 of the early party from my control, than the required sacrificing of turns on Therese meant there was turns where I only had 2 useable characters. Combine this with Marsha being essentially a use single fire, single thunder or AoE fire and the first few battles were a real slog with only Lucius having any real gameplay. This did get considerably better when I got Harold in the party and a few more skils and the end battles despite the high hp were a saving grace.

All in all, its a jam and you did a great job in the time given. This one with better pacing, less randoms would have been a potential winner for me.

Sad I can't rate this right away but I love the character designs of this and was happy for edge lord David.

A very fun entry with pleasant art and a cool battle system! It was awesome seeing everyone interpreted as FFXIV classes, and even more fun exploring how those classes function in this battle system!

I really enjoyed the graphics of this game! Artwork and pixel arts are superb, deffo inspired me as well! :D The heavy rock/metal music was also very cool! Love that! I adore the unique classes and skills each chars have which I assume are based on MMO FF (which I haven't played yet xD), though I wish there were more progression to the battle, but as it is, it works and it's done in a short period (I spent most of my time escaping the mobs after the 1st dungeon xD). Harold looked epic btw. Great job with this entry! :D