RPG Maker

"Now you can finally prove your assumption that you can make a better RPG than Quest 64..."

OPENING STATEMENT
Let’s face it. If you have played a video game, you have dreamed of creating a masterpiece of your own. The perfect game. And everyone’s idea of the perfect game is different. Unfortunately, a little more than zero percent of the video gaming population has been able to realize that dream until now. Now you can make the RPG that you always knew that should have been made. And with my hundredth review, I will convey to you whether or not I think it is a worthwhile experience.

GAMEPLAY--9
A good one word description of the gameplay would be complex. You are given the opportunity to customize absolutely everything about your game. The music, the images, the level designs, the character statistics, the rates that the enemies statistics raise at, the items, more than you ever wanted to customize, you can. And that is good.

The entire RPG Maker game takes a little getting used to. There are more menus than a restaurant with fifteen different serving hours. There is a good system to the order of doing things though. I recommend you follow that system. Basically, you can do anything in any order that you want to, but I would suggest getting the characters, enemies, items, etcetera, out of the way before beginning the actual levels.

Of course the gameplay has its problems. The biggest of which, in my opinion, is that when creating your own city, you cannot make any of your buildings able to be entered. This can make it very difficult to find the perfect map for that scene you just cannot screw up. Also the Anime Maker, is sort of difficult to use, and it caused me to mainly use the choices provided by the developers.

GRAPHICS--7
The graphics seem to be straight out of one of the Final Fantasy games on the Super Nintendo. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but I feel that some more time could have been spent on the graphics. For instance, at times the textures seem diluted, and they blend together in an endless stream, and pretty soon they just look like one solid color, unless you stick a character, building, tree, etcetera, in to break the monotony.

That is not the biggest problem with the graphics. The largest problem is one I vaguely mentioned before in the gameplay section. And that problem is having to do with making your own cities. The first problem is that you cannot make real, three-dimensional buildings. You can only make false fronts like you do in the movies. And these false fronts cannot be entered. Basically, this makes all your hard work designing the perfect town decoration only. You cannot actually use that town to have your characters stay at the inn or shop at the item store.

The other than the false front issue and the texture issue, the graphics are quite impressive for a game creation program on the PlayStation. The fact that the graphics are from the Super Nintendo Final Fantasies hardly hurts it, as they were some of the greatest graphical showcases for the console. I was most impressed with the coloring in the graphics. All of the colors are very bright and vibrant.

MUSIC--7
SOUND---9
The music that you hear on the menus while you are creating your game is not all that impressive. It is basically a short orchestral tune that you hear throughout the game, except for that this short song is repeated over and over endlessly. I generally muted, except for when I was testing my levels and applying sounds to them and attacks.

The sound effects in the game are far more impressive. There is a fairly large variety of noises for the menus, which helps make the menus more enjoyable. Other then the menu sounds, there really are no other sounds in the game--not that there need be. The fact that the entire game is made up of menus except for when you are play testing makes the menu noises suffice nicely.

The music selection for your scenes is quite diverse, and as a whole, well done. All of it is orchestral, staying in with the traditions of the great RPGs. Some of the songs are eerily similar. I know they wanted to have the game be customizable for us, but I would rather have a completely different song, than a song that is exactly the same as another, except for the fact that it ends on a different chord.

The sound effect selection, was quite sufficient as well. Basically, you are only allowed to add sound effects to your magic spells. You are given a list of choices that easily satisfies your sound effect needs. My main problem is with the graininess of the explosions. They at times really do sound like a Super Nintendo game...an early one at that.

CONTROL--9
Operating the zillions of menus was made as easy for you as it possibly could be. The buttons are all set up nicely...mainly like all of the menus are set up like in other games. ‘X’ is accept, ‘O’ is cancel, etcetera. The buttons and their actions are the usual suspects. When you are actually testing your RPG or playing someone else’s game, the control works well, also.

FUN--10
You would think operating millions of zillions of menus would be painstaking and not fun work. Well, au contraire! RPG Maker is one of the most fun video games ever. Because creating your own game is the dream that you never believed you would be able to realize, and all the while that you are, no matter how tedious the process that you are currently working on, you are having a blast.

CHALLENGE--HIGH
Creating the perfect RPG is by no means a quick and easy task. On the contrary, creating an excellent game may take well over one hundred hours. And lots and lots of patience. Finding the right blend of everything for the perfect game may be the most challenging process in a video game ever. Good luck!

REPLAY VALUE--LOW TO MEDIUM
Chances are after creating your masterpiece, you will never want to create another game again. Except for on the off chance that someone wants to make a sequel. Chances are the only time you will be playing RPG Maker after you finish your game, is to play your RPG, and others, for the fun of it. But, this by no means says that RPG Maker is a waste of money. If you are that involved in a game for that long, you certainly got your money’s worth.

PROS
*Thousands of images to choose from to enter into your role-playing game.
*Backgrounds for basically any plot.
*Your imagination can be as wild as you want it to be.

CONS
*Anime Maker is confusing.
*Quite often difficult and frustrating to make yourself find the thing you want to in the menus.
*All buildings are just flat fronts.

CLOSING STATEMENT
RPG Maker is the kind of innovative game that I sincerely hope we will be seeing more of as we enter the Twenty-First Century. Take advantage of this innovation, as games like this do not come around everyday.

OVERALL--9

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/16/01, Updated 07/18/01