This is superb! Unfortunately I can't rate it because I didn't submit anything to the jam, but if I could, I would give it full marks. What surprises me is how much it feels like an NES game. Even though I'm well familiar with Pico-8, somehow I think I could be convinced this is a genuine 8-bit title. Something about your use of palette swaps for transitions, use of scrolling backgrounds and small sprites, the style of the cutscenes and the color palette itself feels very Nintendo-esque.