There are many things that I want to say about Foregathering: Exordium, so let me start with the shallowest. I LOVE AUTUMN. Well honestly I quite liked all of the characters and their distinct designs/personalities/backgrounds. Soul is right, the game has a ton of style to that REALLY makes it stand out on its own in my opinion. The 3d models of the characters both in the 'overworld' and during combat were simply excellent and just OOZED personality.
Speaking of the combat, I very much enjoyed how each of the four had very distinct and defined roles, after a few rounds with the dummy it became very clear what each character was capable of and what they could do in concert with one another. Here I think my opinion diverges a little from Soul, I found the balance of acting versus waiting to get out a specific ability, especially after internalizing what each character could do with each stage of stamina, was an interesting experience. If I had but one gripe with it, I felt characters starting with one stamina in combat might have felt more intuitive to a first time player.
Adding on to that, I'm conflicted, but curious what the game would have felt like were it to pause whenever an ally's stamina had filled, allowing the player a little more time to consider. But on the other hand, as it is it promotes a faster paced almost stressful form of gameplay that I actually think suited it quite well. I suppose I'm not fully convinced either way, the former would definitely make the battles easier, and I think difficulty was just about perfectly on par.
Narratively speaking I found it really refreshing that rather than some grand an epic adventure, this was more a couple of friends and an odd ally were huddled together to simply help one of their own. Devin's secularism in comparison to his allies' very clear spiritualism was a good juxtaposition and as someone with not so smooth familial relations the final plot thread struck a fine chord with me.
Overall one of my favorite experiences of the jam so far, I'm really impressed, especially given that you'd mentioned you have little experience with the genre in the RPG Thread. Without a doubt on further cleanup and expansion mechanically/thematically, I'd play more of Foregathering: Exordium in a heartbeat.
Thanks for making this game!