New Game > Start! Welcome to [insert isekai game/anime/novel title] An epic journey begins…with YOU! Become a master game developer with RPG Maker MV. With an arsenal of tools at your fingertips, create elaborate, exciting, and memorable video games straight from your console! Let’s make a great RPG ourselves (or fail horribly).
RPG Maker
RPG Maker, known in Japan as RPG Tsukūru (RPGツクール, sometimes romanized as RPG Tkool), is the name of a series of programs for the development of role-playing video games (RPGs), created by the Japanese group ASCII, succeeded by Enterbrain. The Japanese name, Tsukūru, is a pun mixing the Japanese word tsukuru (作る), which means “make” or “create,” with tsūru (ツール), the Japanese transcription of the English word “tool.”
The RPG Maker series was initially released primarily in Japan before later versions were also released in East Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia. It is a popular game development engine, with hundreds of games created using RPG Maker released on Steam every year, including hundreds of commercial games. And we tried to make one as well (not commercially of course, since I’m not a master programmer).
MV – The Seventh Son
RPG Maker MV is the seventh installment in the series, dating back to 1992 (most of which never saw the light of European day). The original version was released by Degica on October 23, 2015, and includes a large number of changes over previous versions, having multiplatform support, side-view battles, and high-resolution features. Originally it was released for PC only, but it’s making the jump to consoles as well (PS4 and Nintendo Switch).
New in this edition is the use of JavaScript instead of Ruby, with the addition of plugins (luckily, you don’t need to be fluent in either language, since the game helps you a lot). Completed games can be played on PC, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and mobile devices. RPG Maker MV also goes back to layered tilesets, a feature that was removed in RPG Maker VX and VX Ace. However, unlike RPG Maker XP, which allowed users to choose which layers to build on manually, RPG Maker MV automatically stacks tiles on top of other tiles.
It was initially announced to only be on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch but was later revealed to also be on Xbox One. This release was later canceled. It was released on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in Japan on November 15, 2018, and is scheduled for release in North America on September 8, 2020, and Europe on September 11, 2020. And here we are, typing away at this review, which has shed no light on how the game functions! And that’s because it’s not as easy to define as one might think. I’ll explain in the next paragraph.
Not your typical.. game
Usually, when I write a review, I do a little intro with some history about the studio or game, followed by some gameplay. RPG Maker does not have gameplay, since it’s a program, not a game. Sure, it offers you the option to download and play games made by others, and this will probably be the feature I use the most. Aside from that, it’s programming, and you probably need to study up on your programming skills before diving into this game. The tutorial of the game explains the basics, how most of the screes function, what you can do with each different menu and typeset etc.
When I finished the tutorial, I tried to make a typical Final Fantasy-type of town with some NPCs – fast forward a few hours, and I created a mountain range that looked decent (and not copy-pasted with the same sprite set all over again). I made an NPC walk and talk, and I got my ‘hero’ to move. All by myself, with a lot of elbow grease. And … that was about it. I could not move forward since I did not have an understanding of the mechanics. Luckily there are a lot of tutorials (video and text) on how to make this program do its magic. And if you are anything like me, you’re going to need them.
Complaint
This brings me to my ‘point of complaint’ since I’m curious about how well it functions to program a game on the Nintendo Switch (as in doing it this way). I wouldn’t say I like to use Adobe Photoshop on the Nintendo Switch (not that its possible), since I don’t have a mouse and keyboard. When programming games like these, with a lot of menu options, I would prefer a keyboard over the Pro controller. Maybe I’m wrong since Super Mario Maker (1 & 2) are also big hits on the Nintendo Switch. Yes, I can already hear you say ‘THEY ARE NOT THE SAME, HOW DARE YOU COMPARE THESE GAMES’ – well, excuse meeee princess since they share a common goal; making games (platformers and RPG’s I know, potato – potato).
Conclusion
So, when looking at RPG Maker as a program, instead of a game – it clicks. If you have the knowledge and understanding to make an RPG with given options (which are a lot), you can go all the way with this edition. I could not test the ‘play games by others’ function, since I had to log in on the Nintendo Network to do so (and I reviewed this under embargo, which means no online showcasing). It will all fall down to ‘do I want to develop games on the Nintendo Switch’ if the answer is yes; this is a game for you, and don’t be shy about searching for some video tutorials by others on the internet. If you are looking for a Final Fantasy fix, get a Final Fantasy title – or try some kickstarted games made by this program.
