RPG Maker 3
Score: 94% ESRB: Everyone 10+ Publisher: Agetec Developer: Tommo Media: DVD/1 Players: 1 Genre: RPG/ Editor
Graphics & Sound: RPG Maker III is an interesting game; as the name implies, it allows you to try your hand at creating your very own role playing RPG game, which you can then play or share with your friends. Tommo's approach to providing "something for everyone" with the graphical elements used to make games was to provide three distinct types of stock artwork to be used to represent characters and items. For each item you create, the associated icon/avatar image must be selected from a selection of artwork from three types: realistic anime, cutesy anime or graphic novel. While this allows you to select your favorite style from these, it presents you with a problem. If you mix and match, you lose the consistency of graphic style that helps to support the gamer's suspension of disbelief. If you stick to only one style, you cut your total options of artwork by 66%. This leaves you with a much more limited selection of artwork. You could, of course, write a reason into your storyline that explains the change of artistic style, such as having different styles for characters in different lands or having some event occur that, after which, you encounter people with a different artistic style (a la "The Wizard of Oz" -- think about it.). Luckily, this problem is sidestepped in the environment selections and the characters' and enemies' 3D representation. All of the models in the game are of the same artistic styling, a classical medieval/fantasy environment in 3D. This may limit the artistic creativity, but there are several different versions of each type of building to choose from. For example, when choosing to add a dungeon, you can select a white tower with a certain architectural style, a black tower with a different architectural style, or several different cave entrances, etc. They share a similar graphical style, but their architecture is different. Much like in real life, it is unlikely that the house down the street from you looks like it came from a cartoon or an oil painting, regardless of how different the house's architectural style may be. The music in game (for example, what's in the sample game) is a nice variety and sounds very high quality. You can get an almost cinematic felling at certain points with the proper music selected. Unfortunately, you can't select what music you want to listen to in the editing mode - which you'll spend a lot of time in. The music is good, but it isn't long enough; it feels a bit loopy after a while.
Gameplay: There are two different aspects to "gameplay" in RPG Maker 3; the process of creating your RPG masterpiece, and the process of playing through one of these RPG games. Most of your time is likely to be spent in the editing part. As many hours as RPG's typically provide in gameplay, you'll find that even with an easy-to-use editor, it takes significantly longer to create an RPG. This is a truism of game development. You must remember that when you purchase a new RPG in a store and take 60 hours or so to play through it, it was created by a team of people (possibly more than 60), who each put much more than 60 hours into the game's creation. Expect to spend a good deal of time fleshing out your game in the editing mode. Even if you have been brooding over your plans for an RPG for quite some time, you'll need to either plan it all out and then create it based on your plans, or just build it piece by piece and explore the editing system as you work. Mind you, taking a complete plan and simply entering it would be significantly quicker. When you're editing your game, you'll find that using a keyboard for data entry will greatly reduce the amount of time required. Also, if you know what classes, characters, enemies, etc. you want to use throughout the game, it would be more efficient to create all of your classes at the same time, then all of your characters, etc. This will allow you to apply a sort of "assembly-line" processing to your work-flow. (This speeds things up quite a bit.) When you actually play your game, you will be presented with a 3D RPG where you can move around in a vast area and enter different buildings and interact with characters there. Combat is handled in a turn-based manner; once the order of turns is established, each character or enemy takes their turn whittling their opponents' health away. There are melee weapons, ranged weapons, magic items, multi-targeting attacks, healing spells, offensive spells -- everything you'd expect in an RPG. You can also have several people in your party and you can script events to have new party members join the party as you encounter them along your adventure. If you get tired of editing and you just want to play a dang RPG game already, you can play the sample game that is included. It's not the deepest storyline, with places such as Sample Castle (which is ruled over by King Sample, of course). What it does do is provide a good example of how to create your own RPG. For one thing, there are tutorial parts that demonstrate different various aspects to making your own RPG's. Additionally, the entire sample RPG is simply an RPG maker "Saved Game"; when you load it, you can play it or go right into editing it and tailoring it to your own whim.
Difficulty: Patience. Creativity. Determination. and... Patience. These are the prerequisites you'll need to play (and enjoy) RPG Maker 3. While it's true that RPG Maker 3 is simple to use and make something... it will take a good bit of time to make something cool. Aspiring game developers who are interested in Role Playing Games should check out RPG Maker 3, as it does provide a fairly easy way to create your very own RPG game, without having to worry about creating a game engine or graphics engine, or for that matter, even art assets. All you have to worry about is weaving the story connecting the dots. If you really need some help, you can load up the sample game and try editing that in the editor to get a feel for how things are laid out in the game and to see how the different game elements interact with each other. Then, play the game with your modifications and see what you think. When you get the hang of it, you can try starting from scratch and building up your new world to your own design.
Game Mechanics: It's not an easy thing to sit down and whip out an RPG game. It takes time. RPG Maker 3 helps to reduce this time a lot with its easy to use editor mode, but the sheer size and complexity of the task means that you can expect to spend a great deal of time editing and probably not as much playing -- especially since you'll know your own game forwards and backwards. RPG Maker 3's keyboard compatibility really helps to make editing quicker and easier, however. One minor issue I noticed is that the help text was not populated for all of the editing screens. In particular, I noticed that the help text at the bottom of a text entry screen said, "Default Help Text". Luckily, the text editing feature is not overly confusing and the text didn't seem to be needed, but simply displaying the default help text felt a little less polished than I would have preferred. The little things are easily overlooked -- and if the music in the editing mode gets too repetitive, you can simply turn it down and listen to something else. Overall, the game is excellent, taking a lot of the technical aspects of building an RPG out of the way and letting you concentrate on creating your own RPG world.
-Geck0, GameVortex Communications AKA Robert Perkins
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