Detailed breakdown of my thoughts per the criteria

Battles

The player sprites are pretty basic and don't have a lot of motion to them, but the enemy sprites are highly detailed and lively with lots of unique motions. I also appreciate the action sequencing. There aren't too many or too few choices in the commands. UI is very customized, too.

Battles come from on-screen encounters that chase the player, which is much preferred over random battles. The battles don't take too long. Enemies don't do much damage, and since the party heals fully after each battle, it would be OK for the enemies to do more damage. The low enemy damage makes the items irrelevant.

I would have liked a little more information from skills when viewing them. For example, Aqua and Tempest have the same description, so I don't know why I would chose one over the other beyond the cost of the skill.

No animation on countermeasure so I don't know whether it helped the whole team or just the user. The description doesn't mention the scope and the skill does not have the user select a target.

Retributive Strike doesn't have any animations.

Not Relying on the RTP
Instances of RTP:
- I heard the default Ship BGM on the battle aftermath screen
- Toolbar icon is default
- Green summoning circle a couple of times on the second map
- Default SE when enemy starts chasing

Although the battle animations rely on art from the default animations, they have all been customized to varying degrees (and have some original art thrown in, too).

Conclusion: Only a few minor instances of RTP usage; it's otherwise an end-to-end customized experience, and a pretty good-looking one!

Visuals
The overall presentation is very detailed, evident of a lot of work being put into it. Lots of details in the overworld tiles and characters. Pretty much everything in the UI is custom-made and good looking. The one criticism I have of the player sprite is that the movements are on the stiff side.

I love the treasure chest opening animation. It has a cute bounce to it.

That closeup of Alpha Zay is SO GOOD! Looks professional. Well done!

Storyline/Writing
The exposition at the beginning is a bit long and could use BGM earlier in the sequence. It may be that I'm not familiar with the stories being referenced, but I spent a lot of time going "I don't get it" and eventually stopped trying to figure it out. Character dialog is awkwardly phrased and doesn't help my investment in the story, either. For example, "You may not believe this, but the future I've seen through a Time Stone." I think it would have been better to say "Believe it or not, I have seen the future with the aid of a Time Stone!" Another example: instead of "I have an objective of investigating where we are," say "My mission is to explore the area." I'm also not getting much of a sense of these characters' personalities. What do these characters know about each other? Are they surprised to see each other, or is this a reunion of old friends? I get that the main character is disoriented due to being thrust into an unfamiliar situation, but beyond that everyone just rolls with whatever happens.

There also are several instances of the text not using all of the real estate in the text box. If you're using the MessageCore plugin from either Yanfly or Visustella, I recommend turning on the word wrap feature so the text automatically fills the text box. If you need to enter a line break in the text, just type "<br>" where the line should end.

Encounter with Alpha Zay: Nate says "You don't know what power you're dealing with here." How does he know what the power is? It seems like a generic good-guy line he's throwing out, rather than a line based on personal knowledge.

Following the Criteria
I don't know that many RPG Maker games (I clearly need to watch more HawkZombie) so this one is going to be tough for me. I think I saw one of TrueCynder's characters in there!

Miscellaneous
Daisy's question text does not loop. I liked the looping with Sniper.

All of the BGM has some silence before looping.

No BGM during Alpha Zay in-battle dialog. Why not?

Battle BGM restarts with a version that has lyrics when the final boss is half-dead. Nice touch!

Game quits after end cutscene. What, no credits reel?

I think you meant "I can see what colour your soul is..."

The question was "how do I leave?" I think you meant "You will be able to leave...", that "not" needs to be deleted.

Conclusion

I'm mixed on this one. It seems that all the development effort for this game went into fulfilling the "no RTP" mandate, and while it does a great job of that, the rest of the game is left lacking. It's not unplayable or even "bad," but it's not blowing me away, either. I know there are many critical points in this review, so let me restate something important: the art in this game is good, and I appreciate the effort that went into it. My advice to your future jam efforts: if you're doing a game jam like this later, spend a little less time polishing the look of the game and work on polishing the various mechanics and writing in the game, then apply the full-quality art after the jam is over.