It seems like I was a little late, but I would like to make a suggestion. It seems like you guys are pretty set on making an RPG. What if you were to make an RPG that could also be considered a platformer, perhaps in a similar vein as the Prince of Persia games? The reason I suggest this is because of the increased interaction with the environment that kind of a set-up would provide. The environment of a game can be used to enhance the mood and feel of a game, and having a large amount of interaction with the environment offers more chances for the environment to change as the story does and enhance the mood and feel even more. For example, let's say you're on a chase of some sort in which you have to catch up to an NPC for some reason. The environment as you go through this area could offer the player more smaller obstacles to overcome as they run ahead, which would help enhance the feeling of quickness as the player hurdles over each obstacle as quickly as they can.

Also, having this emphasis on platforming could be used to make certain parts of the game challenging while still keeping the atmosphere of the area you're setting up. If you wanted that part of the game to be challenging without the platforming, enemy encounters would have to be set up, which would probably break the atmospheric experience of the area. Let's go back to the chase example. While the chase is going on, and the player is supposed to feel like they have to get to their goal as fast as they can, they run into an enemy encounter. That slows the gameplay experience down to a more tactical and strategic experience, and completely interrupts the speedy experience that was going on before.

However, you guys are going for an RPG, and if the game were to be made into a 2D Platformer, that would probably make RPG fans look at screenshots and say "This doesn't seem to suit my tastes." However, a traditional top-down view also wouldn't work particularly well for a platforming experience. If possible, I would recommend an isometric style. It's been proven to work well with RPG fans, and if you were to go with the Platforming/RPG idea, it would offer a decent view of the landscape for the player to play in.

Anyway, whatever you guys end up with, I'm sure I'll enjoy it. I just wanted to offer my ideas.

Edit: Well, this probably ended up coming off as annoying since there seems to have already been some discussion about what genre it should be in. >_< My apologies if it came off that way.