Alright, the pitch is pretty straight forward here: very standard fantasy RPG story with a hefty video game influence (we even start out with a gimmicky stealth section before we get our starting gear) but the characters are all GAY???
I'll be honest, this kinda thing isn't really my jam. If I want an RPG experience, I'd rather just, like, play an RPG, and this premise is reminiscent of the kinds of anime I generally tend to avoid. That said, there is clearly an audience for this based on the other comments, and I do want to clarify that I at least had a good time - this wasn't at all a struggle to get through or anything. Keeping in mind that I'm outside the target audience, I have several thoughts though:
Implementation of Theme:
Maybe this is too technical (or nitpicky, realistically), but I'm not sure this actually nails the theme. While there's often a lot of overlap, high fantasy doesn't necessarily equal folklore, which specifically concerns legends and stories passed down through cultural tradition. While we have monsters and magic and stuff that certainly aren't real in our universe, they're presented as commonly accepted within the game's universe, even if they're infrequent. Like, even if this stuff is relatively rare and dangerous, the tainted stampedes aren't any more folklore than something like a hurricane is on Earth. Maybe the idea is that the characters will become folklore down the line due to their heroic exploits, but this isn't really coming through for me either. If there was something else you were going for, I missed it, but I think the theme was implemented more cleanly in other entries that I've read.
Presentation:
Strongest category here by far, and man, you guys absolutely crushed it in this category. Yeah, sure, there are some things that probably had to be cut due to jam constraints, but I thought all the art here was superb, especially the CGs, which were explosively vivid (maybe even too intense at times - I feel like the sparring CG might have been too intense for just sparring, but we're clearly doing Rule of Cool here, and that's fine). The text was very well proofread, the various expressions on the sprites were well-deployed (mostly - there were a couple times when one sprite would look like it was facing the viewer and the other would be awkwardly staring at the middle of the screen), and the bear monster design was pretty cool.
One major knock that I did have for presentation - while the music was generally solid, there were a few times when the track that was playing seemed totally disconnected from the tone of the scene. It's not enough for me to take points off from this category, but I thought it was bizarre, especially with the attention to detail shown for the rest of the presentation, that while you have lines like "Seeing them soaking in a pool of their own blood, I felt bad for a moment" or "We were taking care of the fallen" the BGM is just like :)
Story/Writing:
Similar to your May Wolf from last year, I have a lot of thoughts so I've prepared another numbered list here:
1) It's difficult to really judge this since this is, in effect, just a prologue, but I feel like there are some pretty important worldbuilding elements missing that could really shape the tone of the narrative and characters. Strategically, I don't really understand what the logic of keeping your healers locked up at home would be. Even if they can't use offensive magic (or aren't supposed to be able to, anyway), they can still very clearly be proficient with physical weapons, and even if that wasn't true, why wouldn't you want to have healers supporting the people that were proficient with weapons and offensive magic? That's like, the basic function of a medic.
If there is some sort of impetus for keeping healers locked up (and there might be based on some of Moon Blade's comments), it would be very helpful to know what those are because that greatly impacts the consequences of Frey's adventure. If locking up the healers is arbitrary, that makes the practice feel like a plot device that exists solely to incite the plot rather than have any function in the world, and if there is a good reason for keeping the healers in one place, it changes the whole dynamic of how we read Frey's actions if he's putting the whole country at risk or something by going off on his own. Same thing for Moon Blade - his sudden switch from machine operating on behalf of the government to party member has a much different connotation if that's also contributing to some greater risk for the institution he's sworn to protect. Further characterizing the impact of Frey's actions is also important because...
2) Right now Frey is kind of a Mary Sue. Frey is supposed to be a healer, which are ostensibly kept in monasteries because they can't defend themselves. However, Frey also easily dispatches lower level monsters, goes toe-to-toe with a guy that's so good at melee combat that he has his own super cool Naruto OC nickname, and then takes down a super hard monster that almost one-shotted said melee master (with an ability that Moon Blade is shocked he can even do because it's offensive magic, which goes against the like, one rule we've established for this magic system so far). Additionally, every choice Frey makes is the unambiguously morally correct one, and there are never any real consequences for his idealism. He helps the villagers even though that blows his cover and stays and fights the murder bear even though he has the opportunity to retreat, but that all that results in him recruiting Moon Blade instead of getting him or someone else killed or captured (for longer than like 5 minutes). Also his super mega ultra healing power on top of all the other stuff he's good at is magically curing incurable status effects via gay kissing, and everyone he magically kisses also becomes smitten with him to some degree.
This kinda goes back to the worldbuilding thing and the lack of an explanation why he's supposed to be cooped up in the first place - it feels like the world revolves around Frey rather than Frey existing in it. And like, if all you're here for is the power fantasy and building up to the inevitable smut, that's probably fine, but I struggle to get invested when it seems like there are limited opportunities for the main character to grow.
3) Let's touch on Frey's smoochy-smooch mechanic a bit more. When Moon Blade gets impaled by the murder bear, I think that was supposed to be a tense moment, but it really wasn't for me since a) we already established that Frey has magical kissing powers so of course he's going to use those on Moon Blade and he'll be fine, and b) the fact that Frey has magical kissing powers is already so ludicrous on its own that it kind of crumbles any tension generally. The latter isn't actually necessarily a bad thing though - if anything, I wish this story leaned more into the absurdity since that would set it further apart from being really similar to everything else in its genre and make it feel much more interesting, to me at least.
4) If you did want to keep things a bit more grounded, I think there are some scene edits you could make that would fix a lot in one go. Like, instead of having the murder bear stab Moon Blade from behind, have Moon Blade react to the mutation and realize he needs Frey's help. This makes Moon Blade look more like the experienced professional he's supposed to be rather than a cocky dumbass, gives the two an opportunity to work together to build their chemistry and trust, and can result in a less grievous injury that Frey can heal without the mouth-to-mouth and cuddling that the script jumped to a bit prematurely.
5) I don't think the shift in perspective to Korpa was a great idea. As it stands, we learn basically all the information from that exchange later anyway, and it probably would've been more impactful to learn "Chris'" (I will only refer to him as Moon Blade and you can't stop me) true role along with Frey since the dramatic irony doesn't build any real sense of foreboding or anything. It would be one thing if they traveled together for some time while we knew he was a traitor, but he reveals his identity within like an hour of meeting Frey anyway. It's also the only current switch in perspective away from Frey, so it's not a reoccurring concept, and you're also losing another possible twist for the audience of finding out about Korpa selling Frey out.
6) More minor point, but Frey's insistence that Moon Blade's skills call into question his story as a deserter seems totally based in video game logic, where soldiers would be minor NPCs, rather than a defined, functioning world, where soldiers would likely be some of the best fighters, because that is their literal job, and one can desert for any number of reasons. You can be an amazing swordsman and be a fugitive because you got caught balls deep in a princess. There are some other lines that raised an eyebrow for me (like Frey stating Moon Blade wouldn't change overnight, even though he literally just did change from order-following tool of the crown to party member overnight), but the soldier thing stood out since Frey mentioned it several times and I didn't think it was that sound.
Creativity:
So, on the one hand, there's definitely an attempt here to create a fantasy world and add your own systems and intrigue to it, but on the other hand, as I and others have pointed out, the premise never really strays too far from genre norms. I'm not sure if this will be one that I come back to, since like I said this isn't really my thing, but everyone else seems to dig it so I hope you can keep building on this world and these characters when you pick the story back up again. Despite what the wall of text might suggest, I did still have fun with this, and that's the most important thing.
Final score of 5 steamy cancer-curing makeout sessions out of 4 tutorial NPCs.