Uchioniko

While I've not played either, I've seen both the RPG Screenshot play of Matsumori Days and Nessiah's Try of this (haven't heard the podcast, though), and between the two, I think I can tell you what your greatest problem is; there's no real sense of direction or purpose. Or at least not early on. There's no reason to care about the characters or the 'story', whatever it even is.

Both have pretty much the exact same setting and scenario of 'piss around high school for half the time, spend the other half in some poorly explained dreamworld'. I suspect the Persona series heavily influenced this. While it's not a trope I'm fond of, I think your execution of it is particularly poor. It flip-flops between the two much too quickly. You're not really given a reason to care about the otherworld. It's just 'bam, you're an elf now and fighting random monsters'. The school portion amounts to wandering around a couple of 'pointless' boards filled with NPCs that don't really contribute to anything.

The characters had quirks, but didn't seem particularly memorable at all. I think a part of that is the names, and another part is them looking a bit too similar, but probably the most central problem is that they're not introduced very well. It probably has a lot to do with them all being introduced at the same time and being reduced to two or three lines. On the other hand, several (probably all, given enough time) of them were with you for otherworld sections, so that gave you a little more time to get acquainted with them. Except they turned into monsters and stuff. So, yeah, great, that just made keeping them straight even harder.

Basically, yeah, a slower and more deliberate pace would probably improve clarity. Make the school segments better introduce the characters (also possibly don't limit it to just the school). Make each of the otherworld segments longer and have some clearly defined reason, purpose, and make them clearly linked. From what I saw, they seemed like completely random sections with no connection to each other besides 'I'm an elf now'. Again, I only saw a couple of videos that only covered the first part, so I might be jumping the gun with some of these generalizations. But the first impression counts, no?

As for what you actually wrote in this blog; Ruri is kind of annoying and nosy, and it's exacerbated by the fact everyone else is kind of a jerk. Boards are boards. As long as they serve a purpose and don't look absolutely horrid, I wouldn't worry too much. As for the opening and introducing everyone, some of the problem was that the opening was really awkwardly written, and there wasn't too much about anyone. Perhaps, I dunno, start out with Ruri meeting someone before school starts. That at least gets one person a little more defined. Possibly make them somewhat grouped, too. I find it's easier to remember people as groups and their relations to each other. I guess that was sort of going on with 'mean guy' and 'some girl I can't even remember anything about'. Characters were clearly supposed to be the strong-point here; if they aren't clearly established and distinct, you pretty much have nothing at all.

Ruri was not particularly liked. I'm not sure what to make of that. See, I get into a certain mind-set when writing for Ruri. She practically writes herself! Her antics are supposed to be for comedy relief more than anything else, but the judges were annoyed by her. That would mean that other people would be annoyed by her too. To be honest, I just don't know what to do.

The sequence where the characters introduce themselves. Er, yeah, I should probably break that up somehow. Maybe instead of everybody introducing themselves all at once, maybe just talking to each class member normally on the "first day" would be sufficient? I'm really not sure what my other options are.

personally I feel these two issues are connected. the first school scene in the game, a lot of characters are introduced and only a few lines of dialog are given to each of them as to not bog the player down with text. I think you did great in the execution of this, however the player has a hard time absorbing so much information at once. if rather than introducing everyone in the first class room scene you spread it out, I feel like it would not only make it easier for the player to absorb information, it would also allow ruri to bloom as a likeable character. as the developer you have a far more intimate relationship with these characters then the players do(at least at this point in the game). in the first scene, you are introducing ruri...you may also want to introduce ruri's "opposite". it doesn't have a be the main villain, and in fact ruri's "opposite" could even be someone who ends up joining the team. the idea behind this is that you want to introduce the main character and introduce a character the player doesn't like. cause in school, it's all about who you like and who you don't like. with less people to introduce you can expand a little bit more on dialog, this would help build the personality of both characters and establish a connection between the player and ruri. when ruri sits down maybe introduce another character, we'll call them the "sidekick". this character is there to support ruri, and be somewhat of a guide through high school. they can be used as a device to introduce other characters, give the player important information without making it seemed forced...etc.
As you introduce your characters pick locations that are suited to each characters personality type. for example if you have a athletic character who easy going you could introduce them outside at a track field, if you have a athletic character who is very competitive or egotistical, maybe introduce them inside in a gym type setting. when introducing a character who is a "trouble maker" you could introduce them outside the headmasters office...etc. environment provides a good atmosphere to help introduce characters. lastly when introducing a character, don't be afraid to just tell the player the characters key personality trait(the sidekick is a great device for this). for example...depending on your scene your dialog may look like "This is Adam, he loves math." or "This is Hendricks, he's a trouble maker." lines like this allow the player to instantly apply a stereotype the characters, and as your game continues you can build, and shape that character from that foundation.

The school looking more like a dungeon. I suppose I could replace the more broken-down tiles with normal ones. I guess it just didn't seem right to have all the same tile for the floor even though a mono-tile floor is what I did in Matsumori Days.
The "forest park". I might have been rushing myself on these maps. I figure I can replace the trees with a different kind of tree, and the blank tiles with grass tiles to make things feel more open. Any other suggestions for improvement are welcome

I myself built a classroom map, as to experience the RTP side of mapping a classroom. I have ideas on this as well as, forest and hospital mapping that I would enjoy sharing with you privately if you are interested.