Just checked out your Trello. As someone just wetting their feet in UE4 and Maya, this is very helpful and inspiring. Please keep it up, for my sake 
One critique, however: the trees in the Dragon Quest screencap you posted have much more cohesive groupings of leaves, which are more nebulous and less like the cubist orbs you are working with. I think it’s this sense of mass, combined with underlighting on the branches, which really gives them a sense of tree-ness. Any ideas on how to get a similar mesh?
Also, another question – I see the normals are re-oriented here so as to not create odd dark spots, but what are they mapped to? Are they sprites, always facing the player?