This was great! I booted this romhack up with the expectation that it'd be "Explorers of Time/Darkness, but different". It definitely follows the contours of the main EoTD, much more faithfully than I would've hoped in the beginning. It's a slow start, but once the story kicked off, I was very pleasantly surprised by the story beats and the custom changes made throughout!

As for the gameplay, it feels punched-up, like a more-lenient Super Mystery Dungeon. As a Phanpy/Shinx team, enemies felt tougher but nothing ever felt unfair (esp. giving Phanpy real moves).

My main complaint is with the pretty abrupt ending, which fell a bit flat for me, but I really enjoyed the ride and I think it does a good job of being a spiritual successor to the Explorer games.