Hello, I played your game for a bit and I noticed a few things.
So in order to emulate SMRPG I always think of how smooth the animations are and how well things are telegraphed for timing your hits and timing your defense. In this game, the animations are too fast and too short. Or the attacks are made to be deceiving on hit just for the sake of miss-timing attacks. I appreciate the reminder that you were too early or too late. But, I feel like that is compensating for not having a clearly telegraphed move set.
for example. Mario's first attack in SMRPG is his punch. the windup of that punch shows his fist going far behind him, then leans into connect with his fist. that is the moment you do your timed hit. In this the Hero takes his sword in front of his character model, where it isnt clearly seen, then slashes back to his right, at some point in there is when the timed hit is. What is so different is I can recall that punch from SMRPG so well and after playing this I cannot tell you when exactly the animation requires the timed hit. I am more trying to memorize the timing with the hints I am being fed with text.
Looking up the 12 principles of animation may help explain what Im trying to say.
I feel like the timing windows are really weird. If I press a button really early during an attack I get dinged because of it, I don't believe this was the case in SMRPG either, I know there were moments of set up for specials that if you did your timed defense you wouldn't get punished for pressing it during the beginning of the animation or when they move up close to you.
Glitch I noticed, when I accidentally went back to the first area after the boss to get into town. I was fine with that, but the puzzle with the gates reset but would not allow me to solve it again. this is when I stopped.
I appreciate the effort! keep up the good work clearly you guys like SMRPG. Best of luck!