Esper Lotus

I tried my best to make sure I had a close amount of positive to negative critiques.

My first impressions: this game is artful and charmingly put together. The asset work is very well done, if not a little derivative of things like Chrono Trigger or Earthbound. Especially Earthbound. I liked the look of the game, and despite needing some work to make the assets look less amateur (unless a hand-drawn, not incredibly polished look is your intention, then go for it), I think the sprites, facesets, tiles, and the music were all consistent and honestly, pretty great. However, I didn't enjoy the game. I had to put it down after an hour because despite being charming to look at and listen to, it wasn't fun. It ended up more frustrating and confusing.

Some things I think you did great:

• I already mentioned the art direction and the music. I won't beat a dead Esper on that topic.
• The autosaves were helpful, and I think the Zotons were a nice touch. They were in good, convenient areas so deaths wouldn't mean a long runback. They were also unique enough to stand out. I personally don't like having to use a save spot, but that's personal preference and has no impact on the demo review.
• The time aspect of the standard turn based battles added some uniqueness to the encounters, but they did end up just being button mashers of "attack, attack, attack", since none of the powers stood out enough to make the characters unique in playstyle. Flamethrower and Tornado were the only ones worth using.
• The items, like the eggs? Great feedback. I know what I'm picking up, and the animation of each egg being snatched was super cute. Some games don't tell you that you're picking something up; you tell and show it.
• The Esper exposition dump on the bridge was short enough that it didn't make me roll my eyes. Normally, dialogue like that is kind of a big no-no, you want to stay away from narrative diarrhea, but that one was actually alright.

Now, my critiques:

• The game is genuinely confusing. I didn't get engaged with the plot, and in times it felt like art and being silly/edgy mattered more than actual storytelling. I do not care about Ballandra or the kids. I do not care about Sam or Cocoa, because you never made them characterized enough to care about. The dialogue at the beginning where he talks about the cabinet? I don't feel anything toward it, because it never ended up meaning anything, at least during the demo. If it gets expanded on later and becomes a focal point of Bal's character? Then great!
• Like I said before, I'm not really sold on the story.
• Dialogue is both boring and kind of unrealistic. Like above, there were times it came across as intentionally edgy, like with Merrad in the beginning. I wasn't sold on anything being said. Sam and Bal have this sort of dramatic conflict, but family drama is so cliche and nothing special was done to make it different, so it just made me groan and not want to read it. Some of the pauses between dialogue chunks were so unimaginably long that I thought the game was frozen several times. The diamond patterned dialogue box can also make the text hard to read sometimes.
• The menu layout is super generic, for both the battles and the standard menu. I would know immediately this is an MV or MZ game as soon as I hit escape.
• Is Merrad adopted? Why does he look so different from all the other characters? Even Paris at least has that yellow beak. Overall, the sprites all stand out...but as a family, that's not always a good thing. Some internal consistency would be nice.
• The random encounters ruined the game for me. It killed the pacing; as soon as I leave my house, bam. Three random encounters within seconds of each other. And since the battles just aren't fun, it was a slog to get through all of them. Random encounters are not always a good thing, especially in a narrative game like this. Save the RPG elements until the ball gets rolling.

Your game has potential. Like I said, it's got excellent atmosphere and the art is fun and pleasant, if not very Earthbound-esque. It's not fun to play, I put it down because I wasn't sold on the premise, but with a lot more work, I'd probably pick it back up. Some more time with playtesters and maybe a few more weeks/months to sharpen things up would help a lot. So far it feels like your eagerness to get a demo out maybe outweighed giving it time to develop, but it is not the worst I've played, for sure. Nobody could call it an asset flip, if anything.

Good luck with your project!