I'm desperate to find this free online turn-based RPG from either Newgrounds.com or a site like it. I played it between 2012 and 2013. I was housebound at the time and had nothing else to do. It had very primitive 2D pixel graphics like something from the original NES, but the ending was so haunting I can't get it out of my head and I NEED to know I didn't just dream about it.
Here's what I remember; at the beginning, you're in a castle and your girl gets kidnapped by like a wizard or something. You fight low-level enemies until you get to the wizard who, for some reason is really easy to kill. Come to find out he wanted you to kill him so he could ascend into the ether or some weird reason like that and the girl got taken too. You leave the castle and go out into the world, have some adventures and pick up some travel companions (I think 4), you level up and stuff. I specifically remember that if you try to re-enter the castle without end-game leveling-up the enemies are suddenly so strong they murder you in one hit.
The enemies were mostly pretty standard in the overworld, different names, but same set of monsters. One of them looked like a opossum. Travel and battle screens were reminiscent of early Final Fantasy games.
One dungeon is adjacent to a town. It's really weird and always flashing and it seems like it's technological (is anti-typical of the rest of the game theme).
Finally, the ending has you return to the castle from the beginning and you fight your way back to where you started and can now enter the ether and you battle a god-like ending boss to save the girl. The boss informs you that you can't defeat him and that he is one with the ether and is eternal (paraphrasing obviously). When you defeat him, you have to make a choice to leave the girl in the ether and go home or send her home and stay with your companions in the ether. If you do the former, I think the game just starts over, but if you do the latter, you have a conversation with your companions about what it's going to be like spending an eternity just being there with nothing else and the game ends.
PLEASE tell me someone else has played this and knows the title!
