The sheer amount of work put into this was impressive! Especially considering it was made for a jam. There's a lot for me to comment on here, so please forgive my walls of text! xD
The overall presentation is so fun, colorful, and the character interactions match the energy, too! There's an adventurous nature in going on a treasure hunt in search of the golden fish. Along the way we encounter some side stories involving the large assortment of characters we meet and some we are even able to befriend and gradually grow closer to (platonically of course, because the MC is a child). Yet there's also a hidden depth to it underneath what lies on the surface. And I like that as we gradually delve deeper into the ocean, things become more dark and mysterious leading up to the ending where we make a life-altering choice.
My favorite aspect has to be the characters and their interactions with the MC. I can tell a lot of consideration was put into making each of the many colorful cast of characters into an individual. They felt very relatable, real, and fleshed out each with their own motivations and backstories. Even the minor character that were only on screen for a single scene, there was enough present in terms of the designs, facial expressions, dialogue, and mannerisms for me to get an idea of what their character was like in an instant.
Scyllarus was my personal favorite character. I love his brilliant design and backstory. As well as his personality and motivations towards self-improvement. Though there's not a bad character in the bunch, and I enjoyed all of them to various degrees, But if I had to choose a favorite, it would be him. :3
I enjoyed the gameplay mechanics. Specifically getting to choose which companion to handle negotiations when dealing with all the various sea creatures or to help us with a specific task, allowing us to get to know them better and increase their friendly bond with the MC.
The composition of each scene was well done at the beginning and the end. With the use of various animations, textures, and techniques. However, I feel this aspect fell a little flat in the middle and it became a little more stagnant at times by comparison. I would prefer if the CGs and animations had been more spread out to make it feel more consistent all throughout. Rather than just being used to highlight the introduction and conclusion. It makes the scenes in-between feel less eventful and more neglected. compared to the presentation of the beginning and endings.
In terms of GUI, the textbox for one is so adorable. And I liked the GUI during the rock, paper, scissors mini game. It was so fun and fit the vibe of the story well. I really enjoyed the point and click mechanics. Always love to see that in a visual novel, as it makes it feel a little more interactive. However sometimes the text was too small, such as the names of the fish during the point and click segments. Or difficult to read, such as when it was in bold lettering. Don't know if it was intentional, but I couldn't understand any of the bold words at all. I could at least guess based off of context. There was also times when the MC sprite was blocking the text, which is just an eyesore. I think the alignment of the text could've been moved over to the left more and the issue would've been easily fixed.
Which brings me to my constructive criticism. Most of the things I saw were small, but repetitively problematic. Lots of typos, sentences being incomplete, missing words, or not making sense, lack of proper capitalization and punctuation ... Little things that might not be problematic individually, but when over abundant, it becomes more noticeable and clear that this could benefit from more editing and playtesting. Especially towards the end. Sprites were overlapping one another, and I even got a "couldn't find file image" notification during the Shell Shooter scene.
Also in terms of audio, the music was good when it was present, but there were times where it would randomly die off and the long periods of silence that followed was awkward and felt out of place.
Overall, even though it's lacking in that final polish, I did enjoy the experience in getting to know the characters and story. It's incredible what the team was able to accomplish here in such a short amount of time. I can tell a lot of thought and care was put into it. Very impressive work!