There are very few game options especially in controlling the sound. In most games you can distinguish the SE and the BMG and set their own levels, but in this game you only get to adjust the master volume. This can be a huge issue.
Speaking of options there's an option called "Improve Performance" but there's no description for what that's supposed to do... Confusing for sure.
The menus have been customized and they look nice.
Some attention to items and skills has been made. I appreciate that it wasn't completely skipped over.
There's a custom HUD which on one hand looks nice, but on the other takes up some real estate on the screen. Overall I think it's a plus.
The huge problem I have with this game is that the battle system looks awesome but plays poorly. The enemies completely wreck you and the random encounters are oppressive. Tone down the encounter rate and maybe start the characters with an additional piece of armor.
The game starts you off with some basic items, but they're super weak. The potions only heal for 50HP but the enemies hit for like 150-200 sometimes. This missed the mark entirely.
Sometimes you encounter a fight and the enemies go first, which is normally fine, but they immediately run away... So this makes me ask myself, wtf is the point? This forces the player through two scene transitions/loading screens for no reason. Ditch this idea unless it serves some important purpose, which from what I can tell it doesn't.
The naming convention on the skills makes no sense. I appreciate that you tried to do a thing, but I don't like it. For example it took me awhile to realize that the raise and lower luck skills actually did other things. Even though they say in the descriptions, there are enough skills to provide an analysis overload which will cause the player to miss details that are right in their face. Your skills should have a customized name, like "Waves of Fortune" and the player may be more include to check it and be like what does this do? Oh it adjusts luck AND heals? Nice! instead it's called Positive luck with a LUK UP icon. Some people will not even read the description and assume that it just adds a stat boost.
Thank you for giving Tamika the First Aid skill, it really is a saving grace in so many ways.
The elemental attacks you choose to use when fighting enemies really does matter in this game. It's good to see that spamming attack isn't the best choice and that strategy when picking skills makes a noticeable difference in the pace and outcome of combat. But to address both sides, I think even when the player deals the wrong element it should deal SOME damage, not 0. There's a steep learning curve in this game on figuring out which elemental attack each creature is strong against and weak to.
The ability to come back to town and get a free heal is a great thing to have, especially in a a fight heavy. So good job there.
I'd highly recommend giving all the actors the "TP Persists" flag. Especially since First Aid requires TP.
Some enemies one shot you from full HP and it feels a little unfair.
Some skill share the same animations and I feel like even with using only defaults you could have picked different ones for different skills.
The mapping is really bad but you won't notice that to much because you'll spend 95% of your time stuck in combat The fights are overly hard and grindy, trying to escape fails too often, the player's accuracy is questionable and that encounter rate makes me want to alt-f4 every three steps.
There are some things you got right and some huge mishaps in this project. I hope I've made some helpful suggestions and think your best game is yet to come. Congrats on submitting a project to the game jam and good luck on the next one.