I decided to go back and refine the intro, one of my testers referred to it as "stiff" and after looking it over I was inclined to agree. Not only did I improve the opening, but I fixed up and improved a lot of the dialog.
I wanted to have this new intro ready by the event, but I sunk too much time bsing around doing other things. But that's fine, I wouldn't have wanted to compete with Balmung Cycle anyway.
At this point, I'm going to finish fixing up the early gameplay, continue on with the game into the second dungeon and make release a demo.