This is absolutely amazing!! I really enjoyed playing. I was honestly really impressed. From the gameplay, to the graphics, and to the music. What an interested take on the FFXVI battle system, but turn-based! Hearing 'A Metia's Prayer' in 18-bit brought a tear to my eye. I also loved that you included the dynamic background music in Stillwind. I was impressed that you went the extra mile to even include the dynamic background music in the game! I was honestly expecting 'Sixteen Bells' but you served! I could truly see the passion in this FFXVI demo final product.
Some feedback I have is that the battles felt really fast, but that's because actions only take .5 seconds to execute. So, I would make attack animations a little longer so that battle doesn't move too fast. For example, in the old FF games, the character would run their attack animation and then 1 second later, the amount of damage taken is shown.
A bug that I ran into was when I was trying to take the stairs and go to the stables to meet Rodney. However, because I went back inside the castle after exiting, the merchant and the bearer reset to their original positions, barring my path. Luckily, I saved before going back inside the castle so I was able to get the merchant and bearer out of my way.
Overall, this was an amazing final product! I really encourage you to see this demake to completion. I think that many people would love to play this game and it would become very popular! You'd get influencers like the Night Sky Prince talking about it!
If you'd like to assemble a team to continue working on the game, I know some people who have worked in these kind of video game projects before. I also have experience working with video games, and I would really love to be a part of this project! Please let me know if you want contributors and how they might take part in this project!