This game was a masterpiece in the making. It's visually engrossing, rich in content, and even serves as a technical benchmark in the history of RM2k3 game making. It had everything going for it.
But it was canceled.
In the aftermath of a great project's demise, I'm inclined to share my thoughts about it. I feel like this is the RM Korgoth of Barbaria. A great work of art tragically unrealized.
To summarize...

Masterful Ambience - The first thing anybody will notice is how entrancing this game is. It doesn't dazzle the player with superficially bright colors and vivid set pieces, but instead ushers in the brooding atmosphere of a world pitched into darkness by a political crisis whose good vs evil battle lines are greyed out. This wasn't a project meant to merely entertain you, but to enrapture you like the best of books.

Extensive Mythos - Typical fantasy game conventions are nowhere to be seen. This world is full of it's own original history and mythology. The lore is ever-present in the enemies you face, the organization you belong to, the spells you "cast", the items in your inventory, and the lands sadly untraveled. Whether it was an individual's battle with literal personal demons, or a clash between opposing factions amid the grand scheme of things, there's an abundance of background underlying every conflict that needed to be played out. Egads, there was so much to experience.....

Custom Feature Abundance - At one point I tried to run past a soldier, but he saw me and we fought it out. After I reloaded (I lost the boss fight), the same soldier was standing on the same tile, but this time facing the other way. I slipped by unnoticed. Small elements like this added to a basic touch encounter system bring so much more tactfulness to the player's experience.
I could also mention the custom menu system, stat distribution, and crazy modding of the DBS, but words come up short in describing these technical achievements. Still-aspiring RM2k3er's out there, take heed of this project.

Intricate Storyline - Oathguard knows how to engage a player right off the bat. At the outset, some limited exposition is delivered via the heroine's thoughts. Then the game begins not with fighting slimes and goblins, but with a head-on collision against the elite soldiers of a foreign army, the general who leads them, some ominously evil cult dudes, and I'll say no more lest I spoil.
The plot is further revealed by an interesting fellow who elaborates on exactly what we're missing out. A political landscape full of ambition, rivalry, sedition, independence, hedonism, and very little in the way of promise. This is the stuff I live for.
He then went on to die in a nondescript field; the game parodying it's own fate.

As far as my disappointment in seeing Oathguard canned goes, I don't think more need be said. Even if it took 10 or 20 years to come to fruition, I would have doggedly followed development every step of the way.
Alas, poor Gela, I knew her well.