Agreeing with most of what Game_emaG said here. I really appreciate that you didn’t go for the standard turn-based RPG maker combat. I would add that the combat, even with the written tutorial before, was a little confusing in the beginning. An in-game tutorial might be nicer, or maybe it would be enough to make the arrows stand out a bit more.
I like both the pixely overworld style as well as the more traditional dialogue portraits, but I’m not sure how well they work together. I know other games manage to pull off this sort of mixed style, but for my personal taste, it just doesn’t quite work yet. Not sure what change would make it work though.
(also, are you drawing those portraits with a mouse? That’s pretty amazing! If that’s the case, I’d definitely suggest buying a digital drawing display, though. I know they’re not exactly cheap, but mine was one of the best purchases I’ve made yet)
I also got stuck on the combination lock and while I did find something a little suspiscious, it didn’t seem to be the correct solution. Getting stuck so early in a game is definitely a bit of a turn-off, so I would suggest giving more explicit hints here (Maybe I’m just blind, though). May come back and give it another shot once I know what the combination lock is.