A lot of people often don't have professional/gaming PCs or laptops, especially to specifically play roms/fangames... I however have somewhat of a makeshift set up. 16gm of ram on my laptop at base (unmodified). Taking about 60% cpu+memory but that could also factor into other things I've open, though its also relatively around the same when I play minecraft (but I get like 60 - 200+ fps on average even with shaders/etc. (of course depending also on mods or if vanilla etc. etc.);
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6300U CPU @ 2.40GHz 2.50 GHz
Installed RAM 16.0 GB (15.9 GB usable)
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
I do believe the issue is heavily on graphics and animation; which this game is relying on in means of storytelling greatly. I believe most roms/fan games have abandoned the 3d art style (as per performance issues but also compatibility and many more creative means, outlets and capabilities it offers vs. the latter); [as well as] most simply prefer a more simplistic style to Pokémon. However I don't mind either, but in the case where it's (to my assumption) effecting performance this heavy, it'd be something to consider.
Really glad I've got this thread sending notifs to my emails :-p ! Keep doing what you're doing! Really excited to continue supporting this project. Also; to answer your other question yes it eventually loads (as per the delay I mentioned) but I've found it loads slower at a *extremely,* more noticeable pace if entering from a certain part of the map vs. other parts on the map into a new loading zone.
I'm really enjoying the difficulty spiking (though I have won most fights thus far by cheesing with Wigglytuff and Onix, because of being criminally under-leveled and not knowing where/how to grind properly; I hope to get more strategies soon ! )
Some things to note; although Nurse joy seems to claim @ the starting area 'you'd see her throughout the journey' it isn't til you get to the 1st major city vs. no nurse aid being along the routes (which are tedious to travel between @ the start and as a common joe wouldn't know if they'd not talk to every NPC, that you can heal at fountains). A nurse aide in the school yard of the academy would make sense to me, as well as in the daycare/'doggie daycare' perhaps?