For the most part I liked this one, although there are a few things in it which didn't click for me.
It's a pretty stock standard RPG Maker game at first glance, which is fine. Not amazing, but fine. I don't hate seeing RTP assets, but at the same time they don't particularly excite me either. I think only real complaint I have about the graphics is that some of the battlers seem wildly out of scale, and the dragon's world sprite covers up part of the text when saving/loading.
The environments aren't amazing, but they're visually appealing enough, and they make good use of the available assets. I think the only complaint I had is that the house is supposed to be Japanese style (judging by the layout) but is far too big with lots of empty space.
Using sparkly animations to show what can be interacted with is a nice touch. The fact that they're apparently diegetic is even better.
I think the unique elements system is both this game's greatest strength and its greatest weakness. It's a fresh take that's different from the typical four elements or minor variations thereof, and fits the overall theme of the game well.
On the other hand, it's also a stark reminder of why so many games use basically the same elemental system. Maybe some will be able to memorize the various fire types, although that's a bit of a stretch for such a short game, but if you don't, there's nothing intuitive to fall back on. I don't even understand what the difference is between fire, burn, and blaze, let alone why one would be weak to another. The dragon tells you what to do for most fights, but you're left on your own for the boss fight.
I do really like how you can transform into each element type and it's accompanied by a little animation and a different set of sprites. The fact that you can only transform into each element type once works well for the initial battles where you're already overpowered, but less so for the boss fight where it makes it incredibly unforgiving.
I attempted the boss fight three times before giving up, which in my mind is more than a fair chance. I understood by the end of the first run that it's my least favourite type of boss fight: the kind where you have to take the right actions in the right order or you're screwed. It's not the most egregious I've seen, you're not literally one wrong turn away from losing, but if you don't pick the right elements in the right order you can make it most of the way through the battle and then suddenly be left with only the wrong one to use.
You almost need a chart and some notes to figure it out. Which, to be fair, is something some people are into, but I don't generally break out the pen and paper, and for me that's way too much to ask for a short jam game.
Other than the boss fight, the difficulty is actually pretty low. I think some will take issue with that but I much prefer a game that's too easy than one that's too hard in a jam. If it's too easy, I'll note that down but keep playing. If it's too hard, I'm very likely to just give it up.
The story is just okay, but it was enough to make me try the boss fight three times because I wanted to see the ending. It was pretty obvious what was going on from the start, the dialogue was pretty rough, and the humour hit and miss, but I appreciate that it has a story and I appreciate that it strayed from the usual RPG Maker faire which frankly often take themselves way too seriously.
The game has saves, but doesn't have autosaves except for the boss fight. It would have been nice to see more of those.
From the description I wasn't really sure how it implemented the theme of sadistic, but it's a lot more clear in the game itself.
For a first jam game, this a pretty strong entry. I think the core mechanic fell flat and that took away from the game a lot, but it's complete (as far as I can tell), mostly free of bugs, has a story, and isn't obviously missing anything. I think playing it safe by sticking to an engine you know and not trying to push too hard with custom scripts or graphics was a good choice, as well as keeping the overall scope relatively small.