For a free game it is understandable you want to keep the cost under control. I would say if you want more people to play your game however, commissioning for title art, commissioning for key character portraits will be very important,, you can leave the pixel art alone and use default, and use default GUI and everything else, but character icons should be changed. You can pick an artist that can adapt this style but take it their own way to make it seem less out of the template, people can tell the templates easily because RPG maker is well known, to set yourself apart from other games to stand out you must have customized art. Another way is have your artist do a template of your own, so you can mix and match yourself, but that might be more expensive than just straight up character portraits, it could help your future games though.
I get that you would want to do everything yourself, it is the long way, but respectable, if you want to, post your title art on my discord "art leveling" channel and I will give you a very detailed critique. I don't want to do that here since it's very involved and specific. https://discord.gg/wYKghA7
As for taking further look outside of Fest, probably not at this moment since I am spending most of my current time outside of fest to finish my own game and productions. I will revisit in the future when I have free time to stream indiegames regularly again.
