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Played through on Hard and thoroughly enjoyed it!  Still ended up being pretty comfortable on HP and MP at the end, and I had a couple Toxic Bombs leftover as well.

I've always felt like the key to randomness in an RPG is what options you give the player to play around it, and this game nails it.  Mia is slightly faster than Draconius [sic], which means that you can always decide what to do with him at the start of combat if you're willing to spend the MP.  This was a common choice for me because eliminating an enemy quickly at the start of combat is important, and I could take my time to conserve resources after the pace of enemy attacks slowed down.

If you choose to let Draconius strike randomly, then you can still assert control by choosing Mia's target correctly.  Attack items provide options to make up for bad luck or seize a good opportunity.

I enjoyed the way you used the Cave and Forest as tutorial zones before the player goes to the Tower.  They're too small to work as proper dungeons unless you jump through hoops, so it makes sense to use them for something else instead.  Because you don't need to use any resources there, it gives you a chance to see what your strengths and weaknesses are before you have to decide how to use your limited resources.

Speaking of which, I felt like I was spending the most resources against Solid enemies, so I ended up spending most of my money on Toxic Bombs to mitigate that weakness.  Poison (in a battle system where it's quite valuable) and extra multi-target damage options never hurt in general, so they have utility even beyond Solid foes.  With that, I had multi-target damage against both Solid and Fluent, and I figured the combination of Sure Fire and a natural bonus to Draconius' attacks was enough to handle the Formless ones.  The Tower encounters are structured such that you usually don't get easy wins regardless, but having those fundamentals down meant that I always felt like I had a tool for the situation on hand.

Beyond that, I gave the Power Bagel to Draconius since he's attacking every turn while Mia isn't.  I ended up keeping the Formless-element whip on Mia because I felt that using Erosion was going to be preferable against the powerful Stoners, while I wanted to boost coverage against Fluent enemies.  I bought some Stun Bombs as well, which I saved to spam against the final boss or some hypothetical bad situation that never materialized.  I bought only two Potions (one for each character) because they looked expensive and I had a funny feeling they'd be less critical than what my natural RPG instincts were screaming at me.  I bought three Dispel Herbs, but those ended up being a complete waste because they were never worth using.

From a story perspective, it's neat that you were able to give Mia the same sort of guiding, mentoring role she plays in combat without it feeling unnatural given the difference in Mia and Draconius' social positions and power.  I think it's a common problem IRL that people try to maintain the status quo because it makes them feel powerful and necessary, even when life becomes better for people at large when progress is made.  The music was great and felt natural as well, though I don't have enough musical background to say much more.  The built-in RPG Maker tracks are fine, but having different music does a lot to make a different game feel like a different game.

The poetic dialogue in this one is charming and slows everything down in just the right way to make you stop and smell the roses.  It's a pleasant and dreamy experience overall.

Caution: Spoilers ahead in this review!

Yet another jam game that I really enjoyed the premise of!  It's not hard to just get a win, but I ended up messing around with this a lot, losing against the hardest fights to lose to and winning against the hardest fights to beat.  I also did Neither + All Losses and Neither + All Wins playthroughs, and the latter especially was fun to figure out.

Losing is pretty much always better than winning because the stat difference is minimal (perhaps bugged based on what I saw in the editor, but maybe I'm misunderstanding it?), but the skills you learn are powerful.  Reflect and Beg For Mercy are easily the strongest skills.  The former shuts down anything except regular attacks, which is a borderline instant win against most enemies, including The Sun.  The latter can be combined with Poison or any attack item (which don't remove Mercy status) to whittle down an enemy's HP while it can do nothing.

My Neither + All Losses route:

1. Lost to the bridge Slime since I had to lose to at least one Slime, and this was the least tedious time to do it.
2. Lost to the bridge Goblin to get Beg For Mercy since this was now the least tedious time to do it.
3. Lost to a Plant to get Poison Pollen
4. Lost to whatever.  The Crab and Nothing are pretty fast, and I also bounced Beg For Mercy off the wizards to lose those ones fast too.  I filled in the gaps with Plants since Poison damage scales with HP.
5. I entered the final battles with full HP and just used Poison Pollen followed by Beg For Mercy and waited for each.

My Neither + All Wins route:

1. Killed the bridge Slime to unlock the right side of the map.
2. Killed two random Slimes to gain power.
3. Killed the bridge Goblin to unlock the cave and continue to gain power
4. Killed a Hunk.  The goal of this fight was to let it heal me a bit before the next couple fights.  In hindsight, it probably would have been safer to do this before the bridge Goblin so that I'd be hurting myself less in confusion, but I never tested this.
5. Punched the first Tower Wizard to death to gain access to the Magical AUA.  This was what I needed the majority of the HP from the Hunk for.
6. Used the Magical AUA to take out the Wizards guarding the Differentiator and CaveBack.  They get OHKO'd with the Magical AUA, but they still get a chance to attack before I can use it, so I needed to have some HP leftover for these.
7. Killed Nothing by spamming the Differentiator.
8. Fought a Slime to reheal with the One Percenter before the final bosses.
9. Used the Differentiator to attack and the One Percenter to heal against The Sun.  Before finishing it off, I made sure that I was at lowish HP so that I could hit The Moon harder with the Differentiator.
10. Spammed the Differentiator against The Moon and killed it before it did anything meaningful.

What an ending!  Gotta love the loopy way that Yusha's goober brain interprets the Princess' down-to-earth decisions. :P

Don't worry, they all respawn, so they're not dead.

I couldn't beat this one.  You should lower the number of options in combat to two because having to pick from three is just so unfair. :(

Neat trick to rearrange the dungeon maps like this.  It means that there's real exploration here even if you've played a ton of Cookie Cutter games already.  Definitely reminded me of older RPGs where you need to make risk/reward decisions about when to go on and when to go back.

What a cool premise!  In most RPGs, the enemies progress slightly faster than your party, but in this one, I see that the enemies mostly remain the same power while you go back to a point where you were weaker.  Normally, you'd learn how to fight enemies, use that knowledge for a bit, and then discard it as you get powerful enough to steamroll that particular encounter.  But in this game, it's important to pay attention to the behaviours of easy enemies you're steamrolling because they're relevant in your future instead of your past.

Interestingly, I've felt like most of these jam games have an inverse difficulty curve where you start out having to ration every resource, but in the endgame you have enough characters and resources to spam strong attacks and heals as much as you want.  That makes the difficulty curve of this particular entry feel like an oddly good fit for this jam since the "early-game" is near the end instead of the beginning.  Since you start in the "final boss fight", it's not instantly clear what your characters roles are or how to use, which turns a fight that would be fairly straightforward for a real final boss into a test of adaptation and thinking on your feet.

After doing some of the hard and resource-stingy combat-focused entries, this one felt like a nice, chill break.

The way information was conveyed to the player was excellent.  It starts out intentionally confusing, but slowly reveals how everything got to that point in a satisfying way.  Narratively, the story also does a good job of ramping down the tension as you go along to match the tension the story should have at that point in time.  The music switches went a long way towards making this work.  Two of the puzzles seem like guessing games at first, but provide clever ways to solve them.

Overall, thanks for making this! :)

I like how the lack of danger in the Tower re-contextualizes the fact that some of the villagers are scared of it.  They're scared of the truth itself, not random monsters in a dungeon.

I feel bad for the characters learning "universal truths" here.

"You're a character in a video game."

"Well, dang."

Interesting game with a lot of unique mechanics!  The way the party members are constantly changing state means that each encounter is different than the last even if it contains the same enemies.  You're constantly on the edge of your resources, and unlike most RPGs where you can thoughtlessly heal every status condition, this one asks you to decide what you can heal now, what you can heal later when the Moon Beast or Jester transitions, and what you'll just have to accept.

The bosses are fairly short and easy, but by the time you reach them you're often so low on resource that it's still tense.  I guess this is unsurprising given that this game takes inspiration from FF1.  Oddly, I felt like the miniboss in the Tower was harder than the main bosses there, with the final boss being the easiest of the three.  I fired off big spells at the ghost boss and the tower miniboss, generally playing the random encounters and other bosses more conservatively.

I feel like the way I routed the Cave and the Forest was fairly straightforward, with a fair number of resets when things didn't go to plan.  I was able to line up a Full Moon Beast and get rid of Vencchio for the Forest boss by taking just a couple extra steps, so everything lined up nicely there.  I usually saved my Mimic Stabilizers for the Vampire transformation since that made healing so much easier.

As for the Tower, I initially tried it without doing the Golden Bones sidequest, but I didn't have quite enough resources to make it work.  I ended up deciding to look in the game files to figure out how to actually get the Mimic to take the form of the Golden Bones because the random chance of transforming into the Living Bones instead confused me.  After getting the reward, I was able to brute-force the Tower with Sound Dampeners, which made it easy to conserve enough resources for the boss fights.

Om nom nom.

This game is making me hungry.

The scenes are somber and thought-provoking without being cynical, and the puzzles have some clever moments (though it's hard to say why without spoilers).  The main idea behind this game is one of those things I don't understand how people come up with.

Holy moly, I don't even want to imagine how much work went into writing all the endings! :O Especially since so many were clever in some way and not just phoned in.  I explored several dozen endings (anything that seemed noteworthy) in game, and then read through the ending event in RPG Maker to experience the rest without needing to bust out a spreadsheet of my own.

GRGHHL can play a piano like nobody else!

As somebody who loves a good little text adventure, that part made my day! :)

This game contains all the essential parts of an RPG and therefore cannot be criticized by anyone.

I feel like there are a lot of in-jokes I'm not getting. XD Thanks for making!

Great custom art, especially the in-battle sprites.  Orange Soda is a friendly slime! :)

Wow, amazing that you were able to dig up this nugget of gaming history!  I never realized that they had plans for a 7th Saga prequel! :O

This is just so ridiculous (in a good way).  I haven't watched any Star Trek, but I have just enough familiarity to enjoy some of the references.

Also, I now declare this game canon.

Va glcvpny ECT snfuvba, lbh fgneg bhg xvyyvat Tbq naq raq hc xvyyvat ubhfr pngf.  Jnvg, fbzrguvat frrzf bss gurer... 

Guvf ragel vf njrfbzr!  Gur vqrn bs gheavat gur Cbvfba fgnghf sebz n zvabe ahvfnapr vagb gur pber tnzr zrpunavp vf pyrire naq harkcrpgrq.  Gheavat gvzr vgfrys vagb n erfbhepr zrnaf gung lbh arrq gb rkcyber lbhe bcgvbaf naq qrpvqr ubj gb hfr lbhe gvzr zbfg rssvpvragyl.  Va beqre gb znkvzvmr lbhe erfbheprf, lbh nyzbfg arrq gb guvax nobhg gur tnzr nf vs lbh'er gelvat gb "purng" engure guna cynlvat snve.  V nccerpvngr jura lbh pna ernyyl tb "nyy bhg" ba bcgvzvmvat guvatf naq abg srry yvxr lbh'ir olcnffrq gur punyyratr.  Gurer'f bayl bar gevpx V nibvqrq nohfvat: ol hfvat Freranqr, lbh pna qrsrng Snvevrf snfg rabhtu gb snez gur Snvel vgrz vasvavgryl fvapr rnpu Snvel vgrz urnyf zber UC naq ZC guna lbh'er hfvat gb jva naq zbir orgjrra gur svtugf.  Vg jbhyq or n ovg grqvbhf gubhtu.

Guvf tnzr fgevxrf n terng onynapr orgjrra nfxvat lbh gb rkcyber naq svaq frpergf, ohg nyfb znxvat vg qbnoyr jvgubhg svaqvat nofbyhgryl rirelguvat.  Gur znva (naq qhzorfg) guvat V "zvffrq" jnf pbzcyrgryl sbetrggvat gb tb onpx naq ohl vgrzf sebz gur fubc.  V qrpvqrq gb tb gb gur sberfg svefg fb gung V pbhyq pbzzvg gb ohlvat vgrzf jura V unq gur znkvzhz nzbhag bs vasbezngvba, ohg gura V raqrq hc pbzzvggvat gb nofbyhgryl abguvat. yby V nyfb qvqa'g gel cvpxvat hc gur sybjref va gur sberfg, juvpu jnf nyfb n ovg fvyyl va uvaqfvtug orpnhfr gurl pyrneyl nera'g va gur bevtvany irefvba bs Wbuajbeyq.  Bar bs gur zbfg erprag ragevrf V cynlrq jnf gur Pbeevf bar, fb V thrff V tbg qrfrafvgvmrq gb znc punatrf. :C

V nyfb zvffrq gur Qentba'f Oyrffvat naq gur frperg gbjre ragenapr.  V qvqa'g pngpu gung bar orpnhfr V qvqa'g guvax rabhtu nobhg ubj gur sberfg oneevre jbhyq npghnyyl or vzcyrzragrq, ohg V guvax vg'f gbgnyyl snve rira gubhtu V'z abg xvpxvat zlfrys sbe zvffvat gung bar.  Zvtug unir qbar zr fbzr tbbq, ubarfgyl.  Jvgubhg xabjvat ubj gur grpuavpny qrgnvyf bs ubj gur Dhvpx fgnghf jrnef bss, V ubarfgyl guvax orvat noyr gb frr gur fgnghf vf zber inyhnoyr guna ZC Ertra qrfcvgr ubj zhpu bs n tnzr punatre ZC Ertra vf jura erfbheprf ner fb pbafgenvarq.  Naq gur jnyx hc gur Gbjre bayl pbfgf n Pneebg be gjb, fb gung jnfa'g n ovt qrny rvgure.

V nccerpvngr gur yvggyr qrgnvyf gbb, yvxr ubj lbh sberfunqbjrq gung gur furrc jnf gur Qnex Ehyre ol cynpvat gurz va gur bayl ybpngvba bhgfvqr gur gbjre jurer lbh jnyx ba gur abeznyyl vzcnffnoyr greenva.  Orvat noyr gb crrx vagb gur jvaqbjf jnf arng gbb.  V jnf cerffvat N nyzbfg rireljurer va gur gbja orpnhfr V xarj gurer jrer n gba bs frpergf nebhaq, ohg gung bar qrsvavgryl fhecevfrq zr.  Naq fyvtugyl gheavat hc gur grzcb bs gur zhfvp qbrf n terng wbo bs tvivat gur tnzr n senagvp srry, rira va nernf yvxr gur gbja gung ner abeznyyl pnyz.

Svanyyl, gur onggyr flfgrz.  Gur jnl Fxl naq Syner pna bayl urny/ohss rnpu bgure jvgu gurve fxvyyf vf n pbby gjvfg.  Sebz n aneengvir crefcrpgvir, vg rzcunfvmrf gur grnzjbex orgjrra gur gjb.  Ohg vg nyfb zrnaf gung lbh arrq gb unir gjb tnzrcynaf sbe fheiviny/erpbirel, bar sbe rnpu punenpgre.  Gur ynpx bs syrkvovyvgl zrnaf gung lbh arrq gb punatr lbhe tnzrcynaf qrcraqvat ba jub trgf nggnpxrq, znxvat svtugf qlanzvp naq ratntvat.  Gurer'f nyfb n pregnva grafvba orgjrra jnagvat gb nggnpx naq urny ng nal tvira zbzrag.  Gur erfbhepr pehapu naq gur nyyher bs gur Freranqr fxvyy chfu lbh gbjneqf jnagvat gb or ntterffvir.  Ohg va gehgu, gur xrl vf bsgra erpbtavmvat gung lbh jnag gb cynl qrsrafvir naq gehfg gur ynj bs nirentrf gb riraghnyyl jbex va lbhe snibhe.  Ohg fbzrgvzrf orvat ntterffvir ernyyl vf gur nafjre!  Vg'f avpr onynapr.

V tnir gjb bs gur Zvenpyr Sehvgf gb rnpu punenpgre fvapr Fxl naq Syner ner fb pb-qrcraqnag gung V'q unir n tnc va lbhe qrsrafrf vs V qvqa'g.  Gur Nccyrf nyy jrag gb Syner orpnhfr V birerfgvzngrq ubj vzcbegnag vg jbhyq or gb pbafreir UC orgjrra shyy urnyf ba gur birejbeyq, ohg jvgu cresrpg xabjyrqtr V'q unir tvira Fxl bar be gjb sbe gur svany obff.  Gur Crnef nyfb jrag gb Syner orpnhfr V jnagrq gb uvg gur 22 ZC guerfubyq gb hfr Freranqr gjvpr naq fgvyy pnfg fbzrguvat ryfr sbe rkgen syrkvovyvgl.

Nyfb, V fnirq gur ynfg hfr bs gur grqql, fb Syner qbrfa'g unir gb or fnq. :)

This might be the most realistic depiction of a job that I've ever seen.

As somebody who's extremely uncomfortable with NSFW-ish stuff, I was very close to quitting twice (once after opening the Equipment menu for the first time and once at the tail end of the second beach cutscene), but I'm glad I pushed through since the good parts generally outweighed the discomfort.

This is the first entry I've seen that really made use of John's "You can cheat and mess with the map tiles if you want" clause, and the execution there is basically perfect.  It keeps the spirit (and the most important parts of the walking path) of every map intact while making them look better and providing variety.

The ways you reused the maps were clever too.  It might feel like padding if it wasn't for the conceit of the jam, but in this context it's a clever way to give the game some meat on its bones.  And the way the time travel was used was fun in general, with lots of play between the two eras.

A lot of people have already mentioned the word "atmosphere", but I still can't help but want to mention it as well.  When John was making the maps, I somehow doubt he thought "Yeah, CaveBack and Well are enough to make a game out of", but here we are. XD

I, too, push every lawyer I see down a well.

This is an ambitious entry, and easily the meatiest I've played so far.  Although clearly unfinished, the foundations are strong because the class system makes for a variety of compelling choices.  Here's hoping that you're able to finish this one off and clean up some of the bugs! :)

I just realized that you aren't on the Discord, so I'll post my playthrough details here in ROT13:

V raqrq hc cynlvat guebhtu guerr gvzrf gb rkcrevrapr ubj guvatf punatrq (naq orpnhfr V jnf whfg rawblvat vg, yby).

Svefg cynlguebhtu: Gur gbja V fgnegrq arkg gb jnf gur Dhrrafoynqr ebbz, fb Xneva unq ure hygvzngr jrncba evtug bss gur ong.  V ragrerq gbja, sbhaq gur Pnir onpxebbz jvgu Preorehf va vg, naq oneryl qrsrngrq vg va n grafr svtug.  Gura V obhtug fbzr fghss va gur fubc, sbhaq gur qentba, naq gubhtug "Uhu, V'yy fpbhg bhg guvf svtug fb gung V xabj jung gb rkcrpg yngre".  Naq gura... Xneva whfg orpnzr n pevggvat znpuvar naq V nppvqragnyyl jba gur tnzr. KQ

Frpbaq cynlguebhtu: Guvf jnf n oebxra frrq, hasbeghangryl, fb V fbsgybpxrq orsber trggvat gbb sne.

Guveq cynlguebhtu: Guvf jnf n zber "genqvgvbany" cynlguebhtu.  Vg jnf fngvfslvat gb anivtngr zl jnl bhg bs gur rneyl-tnzr erfbhepr pehapu naq svaq zber naq zber gbbyf gb gnpxyr gur ynetre nernf.  Guvf gvzr nebhaq V obhtug Eharf (juvpu V jnf vzcerffrq jvgu) naq yrag ba Prqne zber fvapr V sbhaq n orggre jrncba sbe uvz rneyl.

Huge fan of this.  Not only is it a great technical achievement, but the game is balanced in a way that gives you different tools to work with on each run.  The characters work well together, and there are multiple ways to solve every problem or use your resources, which is important to make the multiple playthrough aspect work.

Now I'm curious how a community race of this game would go (using a premade save file as a "seed").  Though it would need to be prescreened somehow to make sure that it isn't one of the broken seeds (I got one of those too, unfortunately).

Thanks for letting me seek the dragon! :P

Well, you certainly leave the audience wanting more. :P All of these concepts were great, and I can see the roots of a good game in each of them.  Here's hoping that some of these are finished off someday (maybe for another jam?).

Truly epic combat.

*Whack* *Whack* *Whack*

The writing in this game is top-notch!  You did a great job tying together all the different themes, and I'm always a sucker for a time loop (or time-loop adjacent) story.  The story is well-paced, particularly the mysteries surrounding what is going on and the way everything gradually gets revealed.  And I like the messaging about making choices as well.  Everything just comes together to make this an awesome entry! :)

Amusing to play this one directly after Project: Grey.  Straight from minimum walking speed to maximum walking speed. XD

The atmosphere in this one is fantastic, though I do wish that the walking speed was one notch higher.  I get what you're going for, but I think it goes a bit far on that front. Maybe I'm just impatient though, IDK. :P

This one's wild, hard to know what'll be around the next corner.  It's a fun game to turn your brain off and just explore.

Did you make the music yourself?  I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the RTP songs, but I don't recall hearing any of these tracks before, and they add a lot to the atmosphere of each room.

I'd say that this is the most polished entry I've played so far.  Every part of the game feels finished, and there's a high attention to detail.

The combat is consistently great in this one.  Even though I've never played your other works, the variety of inspirations are carried into an RPG format in creative ways that give the combat a ton of flavour while also being amusing.

Each character has a strong voice that presumably reflects the tone of their game, though I can imagine that I didn't get the full effect since I'm not familiar with their games.  The fact that you have five characters and only allow me to use four makes me want to revisit this one after trying some of the others.  But not until after playing the rest of the Game Jam games, there's already enough on my plate. hehe

The non-fictional meta-story is insightful.  As somebody who's on the other side of the gamedev fence, having made exactly one game for this jam, hearing the thoughts and feelings of someone who has spent longer in this space will shape how I think about it going forwards.

Rest assured that all avatars are treated with dignity and kindness.  The positive review is appreciated though!

--Craise

Thanks peb!  With respect to Zack, my original plan was to use the RPG Maker defaults for as much as possible, but I drifted away from that more when I felt they didn't meet my needs.  Using Zack as the main character (including the original name and starting stats) was a holdover from that design choice, as he was the default main character.

But yeah, he isn't avoiding the "protagonist hairstyle" allegations. haha