This is a fantastic game. It was rushed of course for the gamejam, I assume, but it's great for what it is. The issue most players will have is that some techniques you earn are simply BETTER than others, so you have to choose the right ones to get the most out of it.
The game has a great concept of a kill or be killed world of cyborgs. The game unfortunately does little to explain what's going on or even what an "Asura" or a "New Born" is. But we can assume that in this world, humans are mechanical beings that appear from...somewhere, as adults, and are forced to fight and survive in a world ruled by the enigmatic Asura King, who controls Asura Town with his legion of soldiers.
Your character is a New Born, freshly arrived in this world when he happens upon a murder scene. The killer then attacks your character and is killed in retaliation, and you gain abilities and equipment. In this world, Asura cannot heal naturally. You must kill another person and take their parts and abilities in order to recover health or magic points. As any Asura can drop parts or a special ability, even a weak newborn one, the weakest members of society are hunted for their valuable body parts by stronger ones.
You then become a hunter and face off against other Asura in duels to obtain their weapons and abilities. Eventually after killing every hunter you come across, you're forced into a team death match for the amusement of the Asura king. You're then given your first party member and must fight a series of 2 on 3 battles. Eventually, you prevail and are allowed to live in Asura city. You meet up with two new party members and decide to storm the Asura king's base and take him down.
You fight a series of bosses and eventually meet he Asura king, who challenges you to a fairly difficult battle. Eventually you win and become the new Asura king.
If this game was more expanded, it would be perfect to have a good and evil route.
It was a missed opportunity that you couldn't band together with other newborns and protect them from the hunters. It's very late in the game that you even get one party member. Having someone with you from the start could be a very powerful emotional experience. In the same vein, it's a shame that you can't hunt anyone who isn't interested in fighting you to increase your own power.
The explanations and story could serve to be expanded. This world is really interesting and I'm curious about it. Is this the after life? Is there some kind of God who puts people in this world so they fight for its amusement? If everyone is a cyborg/robot, who is building them? Are your enemies all violent sociopaths and you're one of the only non criminally insane people around? Do people have babies here? Are there children, or do they get killed immediately upon entering this world?
All of your fights except the first one, the one in the cemetery and the battle royal are duels that you asked for. The hunters don't do any hunting. It would be great if you came across more people being killed or if you had to HIDE from groups that go patrolling after people during your escape. Maybe you could even use other New Borns as diversions while you're running away.
There's an amazing story here in this game of people being desperate to do anything to survive and the player being either a loner or a gang leader to try and create some form of order. Realistically, one of the best strategies would be to band together and jump everyone you encounter, 6 on 1. Or wait for fights to end and then kill the winner and take everything. It would be nice if this kind of stuff was in the game. Or if there were enemies/the player that were capable of killing 6 attackers at the same time.
It would have been nice if all of your party members came with abilities. In order to even be in the city, they must have gone through just what you did. Why is it your responsibility to equip them with gear, spells and powers?
You don't have nearly enough at the end for everyone and you never earn anymore, even though you kill groups of 5 cyborgs for all of the final battles. Why did you stop taking people apart for their parts and gear? That mechanic was good! It's the best part of this game.
The monsters are out of place and not needed. You don't need to kill any chickens or hornets and the game would have been better if you just got ambushed by Asura enemies. The parts you'd get from a weak enemy would be more useful than EXP, which doesn't help much. Levels aren't nearly as important as having healing items and new powers. If you were going to add animals, it would be pretty cool for them to be machines too, and team up with enemy Asura, or possibly the player.
The game's ending was incredibly anti climactic. At the very least we should have gotten a cut scene. It just takes you to a game over screen as if you had died. It takes some of the shine out of having become the strongest beings on the planet.
Would have been nice if there was more treasure around. If you don't want to use chests, maybe you can find hiding, injured Asura that you can either kill for parts or recruit after you heal them.
In conclusion, this is a fun and entertaining game. The only parts I got stuck on were the guy who drops the wind book, which I then immediately used for most of the game with a sword, and the battle royal on the far left side. Those three were really tough, but eventually I won. The final bosses were easily dealt with by using magic spam and having the main character play defense. The item to reduce the boss' armor was a nice touch.
I hope this game is expanded. It's truly unique for an RPG maker game and it does something that very few RPGs do: provide a fun and engaging combat experience and narrative.