Battle Encounters
My personal preference (by a very long way) is the exact system you've ruled out. Although, given you're working in one of the RPG maker iterations, I can understand why you'd want to avoid it.
Just as a thought, have you played
Breath of Death VII or
Cthulhu Saves the World? The system they use is basically the classic random encounter model but after winning a certain number of battles in a given area it's considered cleared, with an option in the menu to re-enable encounters there temporarily, IIRC. I've no idea if that'd be more or less difficult to implement than the system you've planned already.
The Name
I'm hopeless at naming anything but there's a great thread for exactly this kind of question; the
Game Name Clinic, stickied in this subforum. Make sure to mention that it's a comedic game, though.
Sound Effects
On a handheld console I occasionally find them helpful but not on anything I'd be devoting my full attention to througout. That said, unless the particular tone you choose is especially irritating (or too loud) it's not something that significantly detracts from my enjoyment.
Other than those questions, what would you love to see in my style of game? What have you liked in other games my style? Do you have any complaints or praises in regards to what you've seen in my devlog about the game?
I'm sure you already know this anyway but, even more than a typical J-RPG, a comic RPG lives or dies by it's script; it can be very hard to maintain the quality throughout while trying to be funny at the same time.
I'm not sure if it's easily achievable in the engine you're working with but long-ish item\skill descriptions are always a nice perk if they add to the atmosphere.
