Cute story, fantastic artwork, and a nifty battle system! I love that the dialogue sprites were simplified and the in-game sprites had more detail. It was a nice reversal from the usual. The subtle line animation in the dialogue sprites made it work.
The battle system stood out to me just as much as the graphics. In a full release, that could build in a fascinating way. The UI tied everything together phenomenally.
The music is solid, too, and it made it wish there were sound effects. Simple sounds would have filled in the time while you're waiting for the battle actions to play out. I also wish the primary font in the dialogue boxes was a plain version of the main font without all the irregular characters and sizing. In small doses on the splash screen speech bubbles, it was great. In the dialogue boxes, it was cramped and tough to read. A little bit more contrast between the text and the background would also help readability.