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re: Music - the style also reminded me of crosswalk music in Japan. I think I keep seeing similarities with these Japanese electronic sounds because they a share similar understanding of what makes an "ear worm", and it's less about the specific notes/keys/modes and more about the melodic movement over time, where the rhythmic emphasis is placed, etc. and it's recognizable even across different tonal/harmonic systems. I think even for people who found the music more dissonant than they are accustomed to, they may find that it was actually quite memorable a couple days after playing. That being said, you did stick with many established expectations, for example: tension and dissonance in the battle theme, consonance in the fanfare. I generally think of this as being genre-savvy, similar to playing tropes straight, because subversion for the sake of subversion tends not to be great. 

Edit: I replayed quickly just now to listen to the fanfare, the arpeggio-like flair on top seem to be from a different key. Structurally I perceive this as a "sparkle" effect, in which case, I would de-emphasize their pitches (not too consonant, not too dissonant, maybe Lydian mode, stick landing on the tonic) and play with the timbre to sound more like chimes. Duty cycle modulation is one way you can do that on GB/NES.

re: Shader - oh I did the exact same thing. The background in my game is just a processed noise texture that scrolls with time, and when I started implementing different scroll speeds, it would jump to seemingly random positions (because it was just UV * TIME * scroll_speed). Took me like 3 frustrating hours to figure out how to offset it properly, but in the process it helped me solidify my understanding of UVs. One of my goals in the jam was to practice technical art, and I was happy with my progress here, although it came at the expense of gameplay, so I've also learned valuable lessons about priorities.

It also reminds me of how in Portal 2, the devs were very proud of the animation of the neurotoxin generator implosion, but playtesters didn't even look since there was no real reason  to, and so the devs put up the "In case of implosion, look directly at implosion" sign. I can't hate on technically unnecessary pet projects haha.