This is one of the games I shortlisted to try during MGGJ10, but unfortunately I couldn't get to it then. It's definitely one of the longer entries to that jam, and I played a good chunk of it but didn't finish the whole demo this time.
An 8-bit style feels uncanny in an RPG Maker game- it's hardly the first, but something about knowing what tech stack it's actually running on throws off my strange mind- but it's very well executed here. Weirdly, it feels more like some kinda DOS shareware than a console game, but maybe that's just my own nostalgia talking.
I'm surprised by how much I like the story, because I didn't really think it would be my thing. Usually I like my stories edgy to a fault. But I love the humour and the use of speaker names like "Winston are you sure about this".
I don't love how long it takes to get to any gameplay section. There's Story Skip for people who've played it before, but as a new player it feels like a bandaid, and I wish there was some integration here with some minigames, or introducing some of the mechanics before the story, or something.
It's a long, gently paced game overall, and that's something I have mixed feelings about. It's not a bad thing, and has a depth to it that a shorter game wouldn't, but these days I just don't have the time to dive deep.
Mechanically, it seems pretty conventional in general, but I do like the explanation of where items come from, and the skill tree system.
I lost the first team fight, but it continued as if I won, which was weird. I did see in the devlog that there are concessions to this in the demo version, though.
I never played the original version, but I was kinda surprised to see how many of the things I saw were new additions. It feels polished enough, and I remember the original screenshots looking final enough, that I kinda assumed it was mostly complete from the beginning.
I really like that the devlog has both regular updates (though I didn't keep up with them) and a concluding entry that sums them all up. It talks a lot about what was added, and why, which is great, but I do wish it got into the process more, the challenges in creation, what went well and what didn't.