Aesthetics: 3.5/5

The game is graphically coherent. Area mapping ranges from competent to good. The rudra tiles are rather limiting and don't offer a lot of range for original design, but what is here looks pleasing nonetheless.

The characters are all competent recolors of the rudra characters. Number one problem here is that characters look too similar to their original counterpart. It's a little... disconcerting. The good news is that Rudra characters had pretty minimal character and personality, so there's not too much of the whole "Terra would never do that!" cognitive dissonance. Character portraits are nice, but would look better if they had been made with the low resolution and color depth in mind. The black and white battle versions are not particularly flattering to the art though.

Music is well placed, but poorly chosen. Several tracks are just too familiar to rpg players to be appropriate in a serious game. I would strongly suggest revising the soundtrack to include lesser known, or even free-to-use originals, tracks.

Plot, Environment, and Atmosphere: 3.5/5
The plot is rather competent. The beginning is painfully cliche and a bit of a FF4 ripoff, but the game quickly redeems itself. While the plot isn't particularly gripping, it is decently told, and the game keeps you moving. Some of the dialog is a bit on the longer side, but I didn't think anything was particularly painful. The story kept me intrigued, but the last section (particularly Slade's tale and the ending of Epoch's) was very interesting. I really enjoyed how similarly secondary, unimportant plot points constantly get weaved back in as more critical than one had once thought.

The characters themselves are the typical RPG cypers. Epoch and Lee are particularly uninteresting, and Goldo has a lot of the annoying traits of jrpg characters, including stupidity, over-excitement, and childishness. On the one hand, because they're not the main focus of the tale (the story is driven by circumstance moreso than character development) it's not entirely painful and the familiarity of the characters helps you grow attached to them even though the split plot structure means you spend little time with any of them.

The big problem with the game is that - as noted above - the rudra tiles and characters do not lend themselves well to original design. Therefore, the whole game sort of feels like it takes place in Rudra's world. Some smart color edits and good use of tilesets towards the end of the demo helps alleviate this somewhat, but does not eliminate this problem entirely. The world is smartly designed and original, but you never quite get to feel that, unfortunately.

Gameplay: 3/5

For the most part, gameplay is competent. Nothing too interesting going on while walking around the maps except to see the sights and talk to NPCs. The few puzzles in the demo are good, if a bit random (I have never been a fan of the "Why is this even here? How do the people who work/live here function with this in the way?" type puzzles).

Battle is a mixed bag. For the most part, battles are well balanced (with the exception of one difficulty jump when the third party member joins Epoch) Each character gets a unique skill set (with the exception of Elise, but I hope this will change in the next release) and several characters can also learn magic. Most unique skill sets are learned in interesting ways, which I thought was intriguing and well done. Some are through items, others through events. It kept skill acquisition lively. On the other hand, even with the all the extras, battles are not super interesting. For the most part, you scan every enemy, capture it (I'll get back to this), and then you can just go around hitting enemies in the face with their elemental weaknesses and kill everything rather quickly. Most characters' abilities come down to really basic elemental attacks and every enemy has several weaknesses.

The monster capture system is very clever, but not very useful. I never used a single monster in battle, nor did I ever need to. I captured them all for the rewards and then promptly moved on. Some stronger incentives to capture and use certain monsters would have been appreciated.

Stability and Polish: 4/5
Only bug I encountered was somehow getting stuck with a character who did not belong in the party during one cutscene and battle towards the end of the demo.

Otherwise, polish level is rather high. The optional elements are included and work properly. While not the complete game, the demo is VERY length and is polished throughout - a very impressive feat.

Other users report lag issues. I encountered none and as a result will not penalize the game on this account. Your mileage may vary on this point.

Overall Score: 4/5
This score might seem a bit higher than the section scores imply. I played this very lengthy demo to the end, however, and it left me wanting more. While it's not perfect on any level, it does have a certain cohesiveness, and a certain style that I found appealing. It comes together rather well and presents itself as a competent package that is easy to swallow on every level. As such, I feel confident recommending this game to anyone who enjoyed late SNES/PSX era rpgs.