It honestly feels almost criminal to me that, at time of writing, we're four days into the review period and seemingly no one's touched this yet. There were some issues here and there, especially in presentation (and I'll get to that), but for a brand new team's first effort this was excellent.
Breaking things down further:
Implementation of Theme:
Yeah, sure. Requirement met, box checked, etc. I don't know anything about Mallorcan folklore and wouldn't have guessed this had any basis in real world legend if you hadn't said so, but even aside from that we have our quest to stop the dragon and our heroes themselves becoming the folklore as their tales are told through the town in the good and less good endings. I'm quite satisfied here.
Presentation:
Yeah let's get this one out of the way early because this area had some issues. Before I get to those, I want to acknowledge that there were still highlights in the presentation: the sprites you provided for the main cast, though limited, were well done and captured each of their respective personalities, and the music choices were all spot on. I especially appreciated the spicy battle theme. Love me some guitar-focused soundtracks.
Some of the effects were really well done here as well - I thought the purple fading into the screen as Robert is possessed in the bad ending (and maybe the mid one too?) was really effective and the first dragon roar kinda made me jump.
One big issue here is what I think are some missed "stop sound" cues. Very early on in the game, I had the footstep SFX continue all the way through the flashback to meeting Valenti and Roldan and back to camp. At that point I figured something was wrong, and saving, closing, and reloading fixed the issue, but it happened again with fire crackling SFX in the good ending route. Definitely something to look out for since that was quite annoying.
The bad and mid endings both throw an error - for the bad ending it's before the credits and for the mid it's after. Might want to double check your labels here. Also in the bad ending, there was a reference to fighting "Josep"? Maybe that was Lambert's name in a prior draft and accidentally made it through, otherwise I have no idea who that is.
There were quite a few proofreading errors throughout, at least one instance of text running outside the box in the mid route, and sometimes colored text could be hard to see with the transparent text box. This was especially true for name tags and Patron's lines in the bad ending (I'd guess this was supposed to happen to some extent to signify Patron's connection with Robert slipping, but it was really hard to make out and might be something to consider for accessibility purposes).
I know it's very difficult to produce a lot of assets during a jam, especially when you're still figuring out how the whole process works, but if you had more time, this would definitely benefit from more sprites with varied expressions as well as some CGs for key moments. Your writing for the sex scene was good, but it is a little awkward to just be staring at a static image of a tent the whole time, and if we got an image of Magdalena's mural that would've been a great coda to end the story on.
Story/Writing:
Based on some comments I've read on other entries, I'm a bit worried this VN starts a tad slow for others' tastes, but I generally thought this was really well done, with some of the best character work I've seen so far this jam. The banter feels genuine and natural with all of the main cast maintaining their distinct personalities instead of dissolving into generic quip slingers, and I bought that this was a party that actually cared for each other and had some chemistry.
I think introducing Patron right out the gate is a great hook that builds intrigue even when there's not much action happening on-screen. Even though the VN is on the longer side for a jam entry, every scene feels like it has a purpose and no scene really feels like its overstaying its welcome. Each scene feels like it's building on the characters and their relationships with each other, which makes their inevitable demise feel all the more tragic. Said demises also feel weighty and dramatic without slipping into melodrama, which is a difficult balance to achieve.
Writing felt pretty solid across the board, though there were times in action scenes where I lost a sense of where everyone was positioned, and this occurred at one point during the sex scene where I wasn't sure what position Robert and Oriol were supposed to be in.
For critiques, while it's always nice to see branching paths and player input, I'm not sure I feel about how the bad and mid endings were implemented.
Addressing the bad ending first, I just didn't buy that Robert would completely turn the way he did. Like, sure, he could have doubts and want to run away, but the shift into full psycho just didn't really seem in line with how the character had been portrayed to that point. Thankfully that branch was pretty short so it didn't linger long, but it felt a bit like having a bad ending just for the sake of having a bad ending.
My issue with the mid ending is more in the choice itself; we're giving the option of making the cold, logical decision to leave Valenti and Roldan behind to cover your advance or stay with Valenti despite his urging. First, it's something of a pet peeve of mine when stories have characters dawdle or argue when another character is sacrificing themselves to buy time because it's kind of wasting their sacrifice (a former partner pointed this out to me and I just can't unsee it now), and second, the difference between the two choices barely feels material for the massive effect it has on the outcome since even if you stay, you have to leave Valenti and Roldan almost immediately afterwards anyway. Like, if you choose to leave Valenti, you become a thrall until the B team can save the day, but if you leave Valenti two minutes later you win. To be honest, I didn't get much out of either of the alternate endings and I question how much they added to the experience.
For other minor gripes, I did feel like Na Coca's compound was ridiculously easy to get into compared to how Roldan described it in the previous scene. Like I don't even know why they had to use the ruse on the kobolds, I feel like any of the techniques they had used against Lambert would dispatch them before they had time to sound the alarm. For that matter, I'm not sure if Lambert was just supposed to be really good, but the party seem to be able to take down thralls much easier in the compound than they did in the first fight. Like, yeah they all eventually get overrun, but they take down quite a few and it took a coordinated 4v1 to beat Lambert.
Creativity:
It's still early and I have like 30 of these to go still, but I highly doubt I'm going to see Mallorcan folklore featured again. The plot itself is straightforward enough - fantasy RPG party goes on a quest to defeat the big bad and they get their bittersweet victory, but I think the way these characters were realized added a lot to the formula.
As stated above, for a first time effort, this really killed it, and I look forward to seeing what you can do with more time for polish. I will be watching your career with great interest.
Final score of 15 sick flamenco guitar riffs out of 12 perfectly fried panades.