Grand scope, but shallow world. Some pretty nice sprites (e.g. the Dragon or Mega-Scorpion) and a characterful lo-fi map, but grindy combat and flavourless dialogue. A decent music track, but it's loud and forceful and plays constantly. The fact that you can just kill a pirate crew and steal their ship is fun, and the developer gave all the settlements character through layout alone, e.g. the narrow alleys of the vaguely-seedy southern town, the fancier central road of the port city, the rigid castle interior, the isolated village and shrines... However, the start of the game is time-wastingly brutal. For something similar, but better, try Anteform, made in the same engine by the same developer.
My progress: finished at level 15 with $3111 and 2226 EXP