Let's take zell23's Forest Of the Blue Skin (or other games) for example. When captured or player on low health -> music stops or more noticable music change, maybe throw a couple of audio effects like drowning out the music. Your game does that as well, yet it is quite minimal.
Just make it more dramatic, you get me?
Hmmm that is an interesting idea, although with how often players get caught or captured I just feel it would be strange to cut out the music constantly or to change it only for them to break free and go back to the overworld soundtrack. When you said the game feels like "nothing on top of nothing" I thought you wanted me to add more stuff, wouldn't it make it feel more empty if I took away music for encounters?
