I really enjoyed the story. The battle system was fun at first but then didn't really offer much depth or player expression as the game progressed. Maybe that's why you got tired of it?
Yeah perhaps they got bogged down with all the other stuff (graphics, music, settings, etc) and for that the story and mechanics suffered. Now that they have a game engine and experience, a second attempt might leave more time to flesh it out a bit more.
They also perhaps wanted to make it accessible but weren’t skillful at knowing how light to keep it.