Hi there!
This post might come as a surprise to you but I'm fulfilling my obligation of writing a review for every entry I played in the RPG Maker Game Jam 2025 and haven't had the time and motivation combo until now. Apologies for the wait.
I'm one of the 6 judges for this RPG Maker Game Jam 2025. I was one of the 2 judges assigned to your game, and we have been assigned to rate your games according to each metric highlighted on the game's main jam page, and submit these ratings to the organisers, who will then appropriate what happens with that. Please contact them in the Q&A if you have any further questions about the judging process. The judges will work on different time schedules, so even if I may have finished playing your game, the entire process might not be finished as of yet. Many of these reviews I am posting while still judging.
All that aside, I'd like to share my VOD of me playing your game, which contains up to an hour of gameplay, and some final thoughts at the end! Depending on whether I stopped the VOD early or not, it will also contain many of the thoughts that I say to you below, which may cause repetition. So just be aware of that.
I will also attach a review below this VOD. I will not disclose my ratings for each category as of yet, but those will be revealed in due time. Not all judges are required to post a review or VOD to each game, but many will do so even if it's optional, including myself.
Here's the VOD:
I thought this was quite a cute adventure with a lot of heart. It was a little RTP adventure that could. It did things very by-the-books, but that was done in quite a solid way. I enjoyed it overall. Thank you for making it <3Theme
It was hard for me to detect a "beyond expectations" theme, which might have cost points in here. By most means, I detected it as a generally consistent JRPG but was finding it hard to find the theme anywhere, with all sadness. I was looking for twists and turns or anything that would indicate it would be beyond expectations but it was hard to find. Despite the game being rather solid.
Gameplay
The battles had some strategy, but they did begin to get a little repetitive. I was also sad that run speed was set to half T_ T Anyways, by the end, things got better. I'd say after the 45min mark, it started to warm up a bit, but that was after a stretch of some quite repetitive battles, and I felt my 1-hour playthrough ended just as things started to warm up and get better.
Engagement
There was worldbuilding and reasons for things why they were happening, but I do feel it needed a sharper hook to hook me in - to get right down to brass tacks and go right to personal conflicts, I feel. I feel like this is a decent game that would benefit further from having the drama come more to the forefront. Something with higher stakes or relatability. With all love, many stories benefit from getting straight to the point, and I think this game could have been boosted even more than it currently is by pacing the player right to the conflict. It took a little while, which might make some players fade off a little before they get to the interesting stuff!
Presentation
The cliff town was very beautiful! A true highlight. Sometimes the forests blended into each other. I think this is a decent RTP world, all said, and with more time, and care put into the maps, they could be further embellished to add further interest. In particular, I do feel the sound mix was a bit off... sound effects were way too loud, and I had to turn them down manually. Otherwise, mostly the presentation was quite decent and I enjoyed it overall.
Polish
No bugs as far as I know.
Overall
I think this is a decent standard JRPG with some interesting parts towards the hour mark, but for a jam game, I do feel like it took a while to warm up. Further efforts would resonate with me particularly more if the game were to get quicker to the conflicts. Otherwise, I think everything in terms of base quality was decent.
Keep making games. Every game's a gift. <3