I wanna like it! I really do!
I like the idea, and you have some interesting story stuff going on here, but my problem is all of the crazy mouse use. I tried playing on my laptop with my touchpad, which became an exercise in patience. It was beyond frustrating, but even when I plugged in my mouse I found I was still having to wave it around way too much. It sticks out in two areas...
1.) Moving forward the dialogue. I don't mind clicking an arrow to make the dialogue move forward, but it would be a lot better if the arrow was just at the bottom corner of the screen. I hate trying to chase around some small arrow. With how fast I read it ends up making the whole experience take about twice as long.
2.) The combat! Arg! Trying to fling the mouse around the screen trying to hit certain buttons is hard enough, but then when you add on the timing required in the combat it becomes maddening. If the combat were mapped to the keyboard it would actually be a lot of fun. As it stands, I just can't get into it.
I love the idea you have going here. It is a fun extension of the hand-held Mario RPGs, but the execution just isn't cutting it. If you got rid of the mouse controls (or at least made them optional) and mapped the game to the keyboard, I would gladly return to finish the game!