https://rpgmaker.net/games/12678/
Classic indie RPG from 2002 finally translated. Has a reputation as one of the best RPGMaker games.
Started playing this yesterday and it’s real solid. Rather difficult meat and potatoes RPG focused on exploration, combat, and secrets. You need to use “crystal” items to activate save/teleport points, and your ally party members are all “genies” (they work a little bit like pokemon with elemental strengths and weaknesses, and they even have little houses you can visit inside their bottles). All enemies are visible on-field in the Chrono Trigger style and you are encouraged to avoid most battles by running past them.
In the first dungeon I could only handle basic green slimes who give almost no gold/XP. There was a mandatory blue slime fight blocking the way (next-easiest slime), and I was able to beat it but it was basically a boss battle, it took twenty turns and 6 healing herbs. I cleared the dungeon by mostly avoiding or running away everything else, and I discovered four or five secret chests behind hidden passages, and came back to town with a bunch of single-use items and at level 2.
I checked the resale value of my items and I noticed I got a “soma” single-use level-up item, worth far more than everything else at 2000 gold. Good item but like 300 green slimes worth of gold sounded like an even bigger time save. I sold it and, after some deliberation and save scumming, spent it all the second-strongest weapon in the shop, a Claymore (crush+slash dual type, tripled my attack stat).
I tried it out against a blue slime and this time I killed it in two turns. I went back to the secret treasure room full of blue slimes and grinded them for 10 minutes, coming out at level 8 and with 3000 gold