Alright I'll try to keep this simple. I bought this game for 5 dollars. Here I will evaluate whether I believe this game is worth that amount or not.

Note: I have been playing this with a friend for a collab stream, where we voice act over the characters when they are not talking. I bought this game for that sole purpose.

Story: 2/10

The story is incredibly simple. That would be fine if the characters were more interesting or solidly motivated. But half of each characters motivations make no sense, and evans naivete only works against the game as well, even a child should know not to make a gambling addict a treasurer of the state. While I understand the ideal they were going for, it is childish. The characters just going with his ideas with little to no resistance makes little sense. I can understand they wanted to aim this towards a more general, and even younger audience. However I don't believe they give children enough credit here. Even ghibli films,(this is marketed as a ghibli style game) have dark themes with the heroes eventually rising to the top. The only dark theme in this game is a big bad guy. Worse off the game creates "side quests" tied in with the main quest. It seems strange to call them side quests at that point, it's a small nitpick but side quests are supposed to be optional, so if a goose chase side quest is required to move the story forward, it's a main quest. Beyond all that I could have forgiven the game all of this for it's incredibly fun combat system.

Combat Mechanics: 6.5/10

Honestly, the combat was very gratifying and fun early on. Though I felt like we were leveling too fast for some reason, it was still a very fluid combat system, with skills and real time combat. Lots of super neat enemy designs to deal with. In general a solid system. Though there are a few fatal flaws. First and foremost, you don't gain skills that easily, it takes heavy grinding, and often the use of another game mechanic that is all about time grinding. This slows down any progress in the story if you haven't participated in it very much, or if you don't want to participate in it. Secondly, as we finished off the lady luck arc and moved on to the boaty bois arc, we realized it was a level jump from 20, to 28. You would be forced to grind, or, as I mentioned before, participate in side quests just to be able to reach the level necessary. This likely isn't a bad thing for everyone, but for my purposes, and the way I like my JRPGs, it's bad. There should be a steady rate of leveling overall, and side incentives to side quests. Especially if you have no way of running away from over-world fights when enemies notice you without getting the brisk trot skill, which needs to be researched.

Skirmish Mechanics: 2/10

I honestly don't know where to start with this. The more we played this game the more it felt like they were shoveling mobile game mechanics into a 60 dollar AAA game. I was honestly very forgiving through the whole game-play, I thought this might be optional at the best, or rarely used at the worst. The skirmishes work as a live action tactical game where you move your 1-4 units as one large squadron. As far as tactical mechanics go it's incredibly simple. There isn't much depth to it at all and it really does feel as if I was playing a mobile game. You rotate your units around yourself to choose the best tactical advantage at the time. The problem is they don't always attack what you want, and the options are incredibly limited to just this rotation if you don't want to use your might points or might gauge. The might points system is your military might, you can call for reinforcements, or use special unit skills for special effects, such as shock tactics which freeze opponents and ignore the fire emblem-esque weapon triangle. The might gauge is super simple, press b to run and your stamina depletes. Press y to bolster yourselves against attack and do more damage, and your stamina depletes. Overall this felt like a feature they just threw into the game to try and add more playable content, without ever actually fleshing out the game itself. I never found this fun, I like JRPGs, I like tactics games. I did not enjoy the tactics or mechanics of these skirmishes. They slowed the story to a halt, even for a JRPG, which is meant to be slow. Worse off they ended up tying a lot of important skirmish and combat skills into the worst mechanics in the game. The kingdom mechanics.

Kingdom Mechanics: 0/10

I honestly wanted to say something good about the kingdom mechanics. But I can't. The entire system depends on you grinding "King Gilders" (KG) as a currency to build, upgrade, research skills, and gather materials within your kingdom. But the entire thing, just like a mobile game, is time based. Your coffers fill up over time as you play the game, and as you gain more influence you gain more KG per hour of in game time. You gain influence by building new things, researching new things, or upgrading buildings that you spend KG on. This is incredibly tedious, it doesn't feel like a kingdom management game, it feels like a mobile game. Even the graphics, being set to chibi versions of all the characters with lack luster buildings and a cluttered system, just makes everything less fun. I thought this would be semi optional as well, but ALL of the other mechanics are tied to this. If you don't use it, you cripple yourself.
"Oh you need a certain spell for a quest so you can cross a bridge?? Here go research the spell at your kingdom."
"Oh you need to win a fight with your army to progress the story? Well you'll want to research this thing if you really want to do it."
"Oh you want to learn new skills outside the tiny amount you learn from combat alone? Here give us a ♥♥♥♥ ton of king guilders to unlock the ability to do so, THEN give us materials and regular guilders to unlock those spells and level them up!"
It's so tedious. Every single mechanic in the game is tied into the kingdom management, and I get what they were going for, but there are so many other ways this could have been done. Not limiting the coffers for one, which force you to return to your kingdom every hour or two depending on your influence just to keep it efficient. Beyond that you always want to have some research going so you aren't losing out on passive ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ going on in the background while you try to play the game. And if you don't have certain research done then you are just CRIPPLED in battle too. It takes SO much grinding, of both time, and in game money, more than any JRPG I've ever played. JRPGs are supposed to be grindy yes, and I get what they were going for here. Beyond any of that, if you enter your kingdom, you don't get the same thrill you would entering goldpaw for the first time. It doesn't feel like a kingdom or town at all, it just feels like a hub for all this tedious gameplay. It was an interesting idea, but horribly executed.

Character design:

Just some notes

Overall I found a lot of the character designs to be lacking. The game looks amazing, for what it is, if you aren't in the kingdom or overworld. Otherwise it's all chibis. Evan and Roland are solid designs. I love both of their designs. Unique but simple. They stand out in a good way. This is to be expected, as they are the main characters.

Your main "kingmaker" lofty, on the other hand, horrible design. His eyes are strangly small, the spikes on his head make him feel very offputting, and his tiny limbs make him creepy. I know what they were going for with the higgldies and lofty, the whole mononoke tree spirit vibe. But they didn't pull it off well at all. Visual appeal is important, and whoever designed lofty wasn't sure if they wanted him to be cool, cute, or weird. Most everyone else was average to be honest.

TLDR: 2.6/10
JRPG the mobile game, would not play again.

Not worth the five bucks I spent. Though that's my opinion of course, after 14+ hours of gameplay.