Hi,
First of all; thank you for the in depth review! It really makes me happy to get to read something like this about something I've helped create.
I'm going to mostly focus on the parts I think I could improve, that said I'll be saying that this is most likely the best thing I've ever written, so I might be more than a little biased. A special place in my heart, in a way.
You've definitely seen through most of the core parts that came up in development of the story.
Such as wanting to keep it brief to certain levels, which took a toll on some parts of the story. For any future updates, I definitely want to slow things down just a tad more and add in a bit more narrative.
It's a new thing to me, writing a short story. As you get to see the full picture, and thus any single line or thing becomes more important. But it does also kind of opens up for the mistakes to be greater. I think what makes it noticeable the most is the fact that we wanted this to be a short side project. "VN Bootcamp". For our future projects together, we'll be taking our time in more ways, and that'll make it so the polish isn't so irregular.
As for the levels of polish, it's spot on. Music placing is one of my weakest points and it's something I will look into for the eventual patch/update.
For the sprites not having separate images when being flipped, it's honestly something that didn't cross my mind while working on it. Not even sure how that happened. I'd like to say it's one of those things that are more noticeable because the of the shortness of the story, but I think that might not be the case.
As for characterisation, the idea in my head was to have them very much the same on the inside, but different on the outside.
Kindred spirits, seeing each other from afar and thinking they can never be similar or reach one another, but what's going on inside is a different story. I think where I faltered was in having their wording being too similar. Recurring phrases and what could be more personalized. I also think having a bit more backstory from either perspective would change this. But overall I'm pretty happy with it. Kind of like going in and having no regrets after just writing what was on my mind as the story went on.
As for the endings, that was exactly my intention when writing the third ending.
All in all; thanks for a great review, I've taken note and realised I need to focus more on polishing the important things when writing, more so than I currently do.