RPG Maker

"I can MAKE A GAME? EXCUSE ME?! Oh, yes..."

RPG Maker is here. A game desired for centuries (perhaps millenniums?) has finally arrived. I've seen one average thought on it, too, but that's Incite and they're all biased Final Fantasy VIII freaks. But otherwise, RPG Maker is confusing, primitive, but in the core of it all awesome.

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Design Elements
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Visuals
Yes...mmhmm...Some have completely bashed the visuals of this game, mainly because they ''don't look the FF7/8/9 whatever''. Some have bashed the visuals of this game for looking too primitive. I didn't understand that-they're supposed to be primitive (what did you expect, Metal Gear Solid 2 quality?!)-but then I saw it in action. For the generation the games you make are based on, I'm not very impressed. Environments are very Sega Genesis first generation-y, with not the best amount of detail in areas. Some things are just a little bit of light brown with some dark brown around it. Of course some building and wall patterns, if not astounding, looked nice (especially the steel designed ones). The characters on the other hand, don't have that little extra zing to spice my opinion up. The actions of characters (falling down, laughing, ect.) are pretty much nonexistent. In fact, it's pretty much a walking forward graphic, a down graphic, left graphic and right graphic. And they can turn into ghosts. Great. Characters themselves are semi-large sprites (not fat heads with bodies the size of dust mites, but rather little characters with body parts that all look nice together. Usually no mouth) that have just the level of detail they need (nothing too good). The 16-bit visuals are quite primitive even for the SNES/Genesis days, but that doesn't mean I'm completely bashing them. Just don't expect a Chrono Trigger/Final Fantasy VI level of graphics.
Rating: 5 Average

Music/Sound
Sound effects are the usual old days stuff, but there's plenty of variety to choose from. Cheering crowds are great for level ups, there's a springy boing sound or a muffled punch for collisions, and the classic low budget explosion (pckeeeshheeeeech....). Music, on the other hand (the left?), doesn't have that amount of variety. It isn't very good, either. A majority of the songs are goofy town music, usually sounding like a circus. Out of three battle tunes, only one is truly acceptable, and there are few tunes you'll really want to use. What is good that's there is great-the RPG style adventurous/mysterious/hum-along-to tunes include the 'land' and 'ending' tunes, and there are a couple good dark dungeon tunes that fit the mood perfectly, but there are only 34 to choose from and very few of even that limited number are actually any good. A big mixed bag here.
Rating: 7 Good (Mainly for sounds)

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Gameplay Elements
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Making Your Own Stuff
I've discussed the music and visuals, but I may mention them again in this review, as even those involve the gameplay here. Making stuff will take a while to get used to. There's the populary confusing 'switch' system, the bizarre 'take over' option, and the difficult 'intro event'. Well, this may be one time in your life you may need to read instructions. Or just read a strategy guide, it's better. The instruction booklet usually won't help in this game, isn't that perfect? Well, anyhow, when you get the hang of things, making a game is quite addictive.

System data are the design on your RPG. It includes characters, enemies, random enemy appearence (or with some time and memory card space, making non random encounters in events), world map and dungeons.

Characters are pretty simple. There are 68 designs (each with 4 choosable colors) to choose from, or your own made in Anime Maker (which is a very long process without a mouse-see other reviews for more about Anime Maker, it's something I only recently began to dwell into). You can have 15 main playable characters. You can name them and make their stats (by choosing how much they gain per level) The only problem is that HP and MP are based on your stats, you can't choose them yourself.

Magic is a bit bizarre to make. You can create their 3D design from a limited amount of designs and add them together to create an entire scene. Confusing at first, but you'll get used to it.

Dungeons also include towns. You use dungeon pieces (which range from small squares to large houses already made) to make the ground, walls, houses, etc. The problem is there really isn't enough. There's one, maybe two, house floor designs and there's hardly any futuristic designs. Another problem is that floor and wall designs aren't specified or labeled, it's just a big guessing game.

The world map is in the style of Final Fantasy Tactics. It's litterally a map of the world that you don't walk on, but choose an area to go to. Creating it is fairly simple, also. You can choose one of many pieces of 'map land' which include ones with mountains, rivers, waterside, ect. and are changable in facing left, right, up or down. The map has too looks, a simple look or a rugged map look. Oh, and it's called 'field' on the menu screen.

Monster designs are just like characters. 100 designs, each with four chooseable colors. Name them, create their stats (you can make HP and MP here) and their attacks. Enemies attacks are randomized by percentage. Monster appearance means where they appear in dungeons and how often (on a scale from 1 to 5).

Events are basically how you make the game. After you're done doing dungeons (which include towns and other areas), you can make 'events'. Events are basically everything besides the graphics and music. Get onto the 'event' screen and off you go! Dialouge (which is actually quite easy to input, but a keyboard still would have been more convenient), boss battles, intro, ending, screen shaking, sound effects, townspeople, shopping, ect. Some are very easy (shopping is as simple as selecting the area where the shopping takes place and putting items in it) and others are very hard, but almost all are needed to complete your ultimate RPG.

Switching is the key element to making an RPG. Let's say there's a boss battle. Talk to the boss to begin the boss battle. Beat the boss? That's strange, if you talk to him again you yet again fight him! ARGH!!!! No need to fear, switching is here! Just press Triangle at your event page and make a new page! With the new page, making switch 1 or 2 or 45 or so on a condition and make this new page blank or with a 'man, you beat me, dude' and vallah! Easy as that. People still don't get that, but hey, it took me two weeks.

Taking over switches automatically from one event to another. It's very simple, when you know what it does. Just select take over in the event menu and select another event on screen you wish to take over. Great for switching one characters dialouge to anothers with no pause, and is actually easier than putting it all into one.

Making townspeople is something you should know from the start. Select a character design from the list and make them say something. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Of course, the music may drain from some of the drama of your game (unless you plan on making 'SuperMonkeyNinjas'...like me) and the lack of character actions may screw up those death scenes, but hey, all for RPG Maker 2 right? What's there has been worth the 3458974239867109624981904236904316578437861289659813 year wait (hehe).
Rating: 9 Excellent

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Final Rating
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Good Points
Make your own games!!! When you get used to it, it's quite a simple process. No limit to dialouge.

Bad Points
Incredibly complicated at first, almost useless instruction booklet, most of the music isn't very good, few character visual actions.

Lots of little problems, limited in areas, but worth the wait? Oh yes. Once you get used to everything you'll be cranking out games faster than I crank out reviews (which besides today is slow. Bah, only a few would get that joke). Don't overlook it as another cheap Fighter Maker (BLEH!)!

Final Rating: 9 Excellent

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/24/00, Updated 05/02/02