RPG Maker

"Impossible? Nah...you just need some patience"

There are a few people out there who don't seem to ''get'' the idea of RPG Maker. Although there are a few valid criticisms that can be made against the game, for the most part all the negative reviews seem to have been written by people who expected to be able to program their own ''Chrono Cross'' within two or three hours and were seriously ticked off when they just couldn't produce those sorts of results.

Forget all the garbage you may have seen that tries to tell you that this game (creation tool, actually) is bad. It ain't. Like the song says, ''you get what you give.'' (If you hate the song, don't worry; the point still holds true, and you can pretend it came from a different song.) Make an effort, be rewarded with a fun game that carries an extra impact because YOU did everything on your own (or with a friend or two). Race through, and you'll probably heave the poor little disc into the wall.

The first time you open the package, you'll be confronted with two (yes, two) manuals that raise the documentation's page count to a whopping 112 pages. 112 badly written and/or translated pages. Large portions of the manuals are actually comprehensible, if you take the time to read them more than once, but with chunks like this one on book 1 page 43, it's no wonder that some people have felt extreme despair:

''Here you'll create a dungeon map on which the main character actually engages in action.'' (Like you'd want your character to enter a map area and just stand there for two hours.) ''You can create an original map by combining different parts, such as towns, castles, and dungeons.'' (I can't decide whether this could refer to the world map or to an actual dungeon map. It also doesn't help that the game refers to all maps barring the world map as ''dungeon maps,'' simply because they all come out of the same editing function.) The manual then goes on to suggest that you take advantage of the editing function to produce an interesting dungeon map. No, thanks, I wanted to produce a mediocre one.

All right, that's enough of the ''being picky and unfair about the manuals'' bit. Ordinarily, a somewhat convoluted manual wouldn't be a problem, but the interface in this game is something less than intuitive. It's not that any of the functions work badly; once you've gotten used to them, they're easy to use and do their jobs well...at least in system edit mode. It's just that, when you fire this baby up for the first time, you'll probably have no idea in hell how to use some of these functions.

However, once you've conquered the problem of obscure command names, you'll find out that the game is much easier to manipulate than it seems, for the most part. A basic character can be designed within literally minutes, if you use the presets; all you have to do is name him or her, pick a sprite, pick a color palette, set his or her beginning stats and starting level, set a ''class'' (i.e., is this person a knight, healer, or janitor?), and you're all done. It took me less time to do basic character designs than it took to read that section in the manual. It'll take more time if you're one of the lucky few who own a PSX mouse, but more on that in a little bit.

Better yet, most of the creation functions follow this basic pattern--you tell the program the name of the item or spell you're creating, set its effects, tell the program who can use it, pick a graphic (or graphics), and you're set.

Only dungeons follow a more complex route, mostly because, for each section of your dungeon (or town or castle or tower or forest or...), you have the option to manually create everything onscreen from a preset selection of tiles and/or wallpaper. As you can guess, this tends to be slow going, but you can always take the lazy way out and rely on the preset ''sample'' graphics to build your world. This isn't such a bad idea on your first attempt, obviously.

The scenario editor is a more temperamental area than the system edit. The plethora of switches, page settings, and event types were, again, hopelessly confusing at first glance, and are still somewhat unwieldly. On the other hand, I can't imagine a more streamlined approach would work much better. The upside of all this work is that you can have an amazing amount of control over how your story unfolds. You can create cutscenes galore here (although if you go overboard you'll need a second memory card to start a new second scenario that goes on from the first one, similar to the way in which Square enjoys having its customers swap CDs all over the place in its games), and at the very least, you can design some fun puzzles this way. Hey, you'll need to play with this mode if you hope to ever buy anything, stay at an inn, or find an item in a treasure chest. As long as you're patient and test all your events thoroughly, it's only time-consuming, not impossible.

Finally, there's the Anime Maker, which is fun but somewhat pointless. I suspect the main reason the developers left Anime Maker on the disc is that you can create character and monster designs from scratch in the RPG mode (and edit the color palettes for the characters and monsters you've designed using the presets). With the controller, this is almost impossible, but with a mouse, it may not be so bad for the more artistically inclined fans of RPGs. (You can also create really pointless little animations that have nothing to do with the main game in the other modes. Even though it's the most pointless thing I've ever seen in a game, I still had fun with Story Mode, at least for a few minutes. Make a group of schoolgirls and some hapless small animals hop around like they've just overdosed on stimulants and laugh cruelly! [At least until you get bored and go back to the main program.] You can even set some text windows here, in case you're under the delusion that it might be fun to tell an actual story.)

As for what's left:

--The Gobli scenario (criticized by some 'Net reviewers elsewhere as being ''too silly'') is kinda sorta fun and gives you a good idea of what you can do with this game. It's also nice and short, so you won't waste much time here.

--The graphics have also come under fire, but they're solid early-to-mid-era Super NES 16-bit graphics. They do the job and give me warm fuzzy memories of my first time playing Final Fantasy II (or Breath Of Fire for that matter). They ain't as gorgeous as ''Chrono Cross'' or ''Grandia 2,'' but they're just fine anyway. Solid 2-D art is always welcome in my abode. And the tile graphics make it easier to create your own dungeons, not harder. I don't know enough about code to produce a passable 3-D game without some sort of fancy level editor, but I can do fine with this game's tools.

--The music isn't of Nobuo Uematsu quality, but it's pleasant enough and fits most generic RPG settings well (if not an SF one, unfortunately). I wouldn't buy a soundtrack for it, but I don't mind listening to it.

--The sound effects are pretty good, if generic, and are very clear and without any real noticeable hiss or clicks.

--The battle system is vaguely reminiscent of both ''Phantasy Star'' and ''Dragon Quest'' (first-person battles, anyone?), though you don't need to enter a menu command just to open a damn door. (Thank you, God.) It's simple but solid, and unless you crave extreme novelty in all your RPGs, you can live with it.

All in all, is this game worth it? I'd say yes. You might be able to do a better job with an editing tool on a more advanced platform (like the Dreamcast or PS2 or even a PC for that matter, which would really allow a lot of editing options), but for what it is, it's fine. If you've ever wanted to design your own games, or muttered ''I could make a better game than that piece of crap,'' this game is very much for you.

Assuming you haven't bought it already.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/28/00, Updated 09/28/00