Category Archives: RPG

Why All the Hate for RPG Maker Games?

I love RPGs, anything with an amazing story that will grab me I’m glad to sit down and play through. One big problem with RPGs though is that there seems to be far too much time in between the great ones, that or if you’re like me you’re too poor at sometimes to buy all the ones you want. That was especially true for me when I just got out of High School. Fortunately I happened to find the RPG Maker Community back then. At the time it was not quite like it is now, RPG Maker games were all made using programs that had been translated to English and thus 90% of the time not legal to sell even if the developers had not primarily reused sprites /music from other games.

That said, the things that some of these people did with their games were just positively amazing. Anyone who has played any of the old RPG Maker Games is familiar with “A Blurred Line” and the sequel “A Line’s End” that will likely never see the light of day. There are a number of other greats from those years that I could mention, but that’s not the purpose of this article. Eventually, about the time of the release of RPG Maker XP, Enterbrain realized they had a vast untapped market in the West. So they translated the software officially and made it available over here. Now people outside of Japan could create their own games in RPG Maker and actually sell them commercially.

Now, over the years the community has grown, and as communities grow they start to become more visible. To the point that you even start to see RPG Maker games on Steam. That’s right, now we’re coming around to the point of the article. All the hate on RPG Maker games. Why does everyone hate them? Most of the time when you see someone bashing an RPG Maker game, they’ve never actually even played the game itself. Often they have not even looked at the screenshots or the videos, they simply bash it exclusively for its connection to RPG Maker.

The reasons I’ve come across vary, but mostly it comes around to people thinking that RPG Maker is the “easy and lazy” way to make games. That the developers don’t have to put any time, passion, or work into making the games. Those people are so very wrong. Are there RPG Maker games out there that were released simply for the chance to make a little money? Sure, but honestly they’re the minority, not the majority. RPG Maker is an Engine, just like any other. It’s the same as Unreal or Unity, it’s just geared toward creating two-dimensional RPGs.

The most recent version of RPG Maker, RPG Maker VX Ace actually has rather in-depth scripting capabilities using Ruby, although technically Ruby has been in it since XP. If you go into the Engine and start looking at the scripts the sheer amount of things you can change and add is overwhelming. Just start browsing around the community, oh and yes there’s a HUGE community. The RPG Maker Community is more helpful and available I’d say than any of the communities for any other Engine out there that I’ve seen.

You have people who have created custom battler scripts, custom characters, maps, all sorts of things. Sometimes they just give it away to anyone who wants it, but it also offers them an opportunity to market their skills if they so choose. People can buy these things from others or even hire them on and work together to develop games. There are a number of amazing games in the works, and yes some of them are being sold commercially, but most of the people who make RPG Maker games are not making a living off of it. They’ve just found a way where they can tell this story that they had inside of them.

A way that they can share their world, their game, their characters with other people. Is it worth giving them a little money for the insane amounts of work they put into it? You better believe it is. They spend just as many hours, months, and years in some cases developing the games as any other developer does. They’re Indie Developers, just because the graphics might look a little old-school, don’t let that fool you. Most of the games have demos or videos available, take a look at it and immerse yourself in the game. You’ll see the passion the developers have for their games and you’ll see why you shouldn’t hate RPG Maker games, you should embrace them.

What Am I Playing? Ar Nosurge

Going to try to keep posting regularly, I figure this is something I’ll do pretty often.  Just talking about what game I’m playing most of the time at the moment.

Game:  Ar Nosurge :  Ode to an Unborn Star

Genre: RPG

System: PS3

I’ve been really excited about this game for a while, because as far as I could tell it was going back to the original battle system that the first Ar Tonelico game used.   For anyone who does not know, this is a prequel to the Ar Tonelico series of games.   If you’re going, “Ar Tonelico, what’s that?”  Then you should go out and find a copy of Ar Tonelico for the PS2 and play it.   I loved the game, it has an amazing story,  an interesting battle system, and a whole lot of comedy tied in to the game in both game-play and story.

Back to Ar Nosurge though,  when I got into a battle for the first time I was glad to see that it seemed to be right.   You have a female character in the back row who is casting a Song Magic that you choose at the beginning of the battle.   As time goes on her song gets stronger and stronger until you choose to release it on the enemies.   As for the character in the front line you attack using a combination of attacks, you get a certain number of each and they are tied to the buttons on the controller.  It’s something like the system from Xenogears except that it doesn’t take from a set amount of points for the turn, each attack has a counter of its own.

I was so happy until the defensive round came, and I had to defend the girl in the back row by pressing a button and raising a shield, timed defense just like the second game.   I hated that change they made for that.   If I’m playing a turn-based game, I want a turn-based game, not some amalgam of turn-based and action.    Fortunately it’s more forgiving than the second game’s battle system though.

Anyone who knows me knows I love playing RPG Maker games, because it’s a chance to see what someone came up with on their own.   Usually there are a lot of amazing stories out there.  That said, I can expect at least some issues in those games.   Sometimes they have a window open up incorrectly, the game crashes, a character says the wrong lines.   Something like that, and I’m not surprised.   You just report the error and the creator will fix it and re-release the game.   What I don’t expect is to see those issues in a game like Ar Nosurge.   The translation quality is so much poorer than the first two Ar Tonelico II games.    Sometimes an NPC obviously says the  second part of their conversation before the first part.   Other times an NPC is obviously saying what another NPC should have been saying.   It’s really annoying.

All of that aside though, it still mostly feels like Ar Tonelico and I’m loving it.   This isn’t a full review though or I’d tell you more about the systems in the game.     I would definitely recommend this game to anyone though, even if it is a little on the “unfinished” side.  I might do another post about it once I’ve gone further in the game.

My First Blog Post – CT: Demon’s Revenge

I’ve been following a game on Kickstarter from before the
Kickstarter even began. It’s now down to four days to go and it’s far
short of the goal that it’s shooting for. It’s at just short of
$2270 of a $12000 goal. I’d like to stress that I am in no way
actually affiliated with the developers of the game, aside from the
fact that I’ve backed the project and done a little beta testing for
them so I have actually seen the game and how amazing it is.

The game’s name is Celestial Tear: Demon’s Revenge, and yes it’s made in RPG Maker VX Ace.

Now, that said, why should you take your time to give this game the
helping hand it needs? Well, here’s the Kickstarter page,
taking a look over it might be enough to convince you, if not I’ll
ramble a bit as well to say why I think it’s worthwhile:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/whiteguardianstudios/ct-demons-revenge

This is an RPG Maker game, yes, but one look and you can see that it
looks absolutely nothing like your standard RPG Maker game. All the graphics are custom and they’re a unique blend of a comic book style into a game that works very well. The intro is done in a comic book style as well and it is beautifully portrayed. Now that said, this
is an RPG after all so it being pretty isn’t enough to make it worth
playing or paying for.

So take a look at the Gameplay, a completely custom battle system.
With enemies that can be scaled in level, some characters that can
attack a row of enemies, and eventually a option system to increase
the accuracy / damage of your attack by pressing a button at the
right time. (Something like the Legend of Dragoon system from what
I’ve been told.) It doesn’t stop there though, but you can read all
about that stuff on the Kickstarter page.

The environment is interactive, too, with different characters having
a different “ability” to interact with the environment if they’re in
front of the party. So far I’ve only seen one, he carries a scythe
so he can use it to cut grass and open paths that were previously
closed to you. You can jump, which is necessary to find some of the
secret areas. There’s a breathing gauge for when you’re swimming
underwater, which is even showed off in the demo.

Of course, the main reason I play an RPG comes down to the story.
This game certainly does not fall short there either. Two opposing
factions, both seeing each other as “demons”. Yet you end up with a
party that is composed of people from both sides of the conflict.
Starting the game out as a man who’s wife was killed by a Jeht who
had gone on a rampage. He seeks to make sure that no one else has to go through the same tragedy he faced.

You don’t have to take my word for it though, judge for yourself. I
would appreciate it if you did at least that much though. It does
not benefit me in any way if they get the funding and make their
game, aside from the fact that I’ll get to see this amazing group of
Indie Developers finish a game, which is admittedly enough of a
benefit for me. I won’t see any money or anything, I’m asking this
just because I’d like to see them be able to be funded and complete
their game.