E. - Eve return the Eden by Osahal (japanese)

Hundreds of years ago, a new virus spread on the ground, and human beings at that time abandoned the ground, and started living underground. 
The protagonist is a soldier that works for a corporation, and during an operation where they eliminate e group of rebels, he finds a little girl that he decides to adopt. Unfortunately the corporation now wants the girl, since she seems to possess special powers. After the death of his wife, the protagonist decides to search for the rebels and protect the little girl from the three powerful corporative agents that are on his tracks.

 

 

E. is a cyberpunk rpgmaker adventure, a violent tale of revenge with an original futuristic setting and religious overtones. The developer used Rpgmaker 2000 and a lot of resources consists in RTPs, but there are also lots of edits and original custom made cutscenes, facesets, enemies and portraits made by the author. While in some place the art is a little stylized (like the portraits, but for the sequel Osahal really improved the art of the game!) it gives to the game a unique flavour and a dark cyberpunk anime feel of series like Akira and Ghost in the Shell. The futuristic setting is pretty dark and bleak, very different from the usual rpgmaker games, and this makes the game stand out. E. was followed by a stand-alone sequel that improved the game structure and aestetics under every aspect, and for this reason was quite more popular: D. Doomsday Door.

Download Link

Mirror Link 

Rmarchiv.de

Original site (via Waybackmachine)

 

Random Fact: the design of the armor of the corporative soldiers (worn also by the protagonist in the first scenes of the game) is clearly a homage to Mamoru Oshii's Kerberos Saga, know also as Hellhounds. The series primarily follows the Special Armed Garrison, nicknamed "Kerberos", a heavily-militarized counterterrorist police tactical unit operating in Tokyo. They role is pretty similar in this game, they are basically the enforcers of the corporation, and initially the protagonist belongs to one of their squads.

 

Final Frontier by Bottomline2k

Final Frontier starts with a cutscene about betrayal: the city of Kydor is attacked thanks to some inside help, and a gloomy dark figure watches from afar as the city is destroyed. Then begins the adventures of three distinct characters, that can be played separately in any order, scenarios that were surely going to converge to a single storyline. I any case the three characters and scenarios are these:

Nathanael is a sorcerer that is searching for an ancient relics for his patron: the adventure starts with the exploration of a tutorial dungeon, and later moves to a town where the protagonist has to meet his boss. That part includes also a minigame.

Gaidan is the tiger-man that discover he can summon the power of the Gods to protect his hometown from an invading army (maybe the same evil army that attacked Kydor). Together with his friend Farnham, a dog-man archer, will have to infiltrate an enemy base and perform a mission to sabotage their enemies.

Will is a young gunslinger that is searching for his father, a vicious killer. He is capture by the elves when he trespass their territories, but he befriends them and start working as an adventurer. He later joins Raiza the mercenary and Chester the thief to explore a dungeon, looking for an ancient relic. This part includes not only battles but also a couple of puzzles.

 

Unfortunately only two early demos of Final Frontier were released, so there is no indication that the three heroes would have met, but it's highly probable, since some loose connections may be made between the three scenarios. This is really a pity, since the game looks good thanks to good maps, a good use of the graphic resources, many edits and some animated custom made sprites (a water dragon, a polar bear, etc). Final Frontier seems to introduce some original mechanics like the rat catching minigame or Will's gunslinger abilities, but unfortunately in the demo most of these aspects are never explored fully, so the result was a promising introduction to a game that never was.

 

Download Link (2000 demo)

Download Link (2001 demo)

Rmarchiv.de (both versions)

 

Random Fact: as I mentioned before there are two versions of this game, in fact one is the 2000 demo, and the other the 2001 edition. I played only the more recent one, the one subtitled Boundless Heart, that's available from the last two links. They differ not only for the main title screen (you can see the old one below) but the newer version has also 39 more maps. So I guess that has more content to offer, of course.

 

The Puppet by Rei/Happy

The games begins with a long narrative about how evil was dispatched and sealed away, and this great evil has a name and title: Lucius the Vampire Lord, commander of the undead hordes. 

Many centuries later the real game begins with Ansem, a former member of the Dragon Warriors, starting a personal quest about searching for a cave in the snowy mountains in the North, a place that he keeps dreaming about. Even if this voyage will let him learn something about himself, he will also make a powerful enemy. After a tragic return home, Ansem will start a new quest, a quest for revenge.

 

 

The Puppet is a classic story driven Rpgmaker adventure: expect exploration, puzzles, battles  and the occasional optional sidequest, if you are looking for extra loot. The game stands out because it's mainly a single-person adventure about revenge, unlike most games that present a cast of characters working together in a party of four or more to save the world. At least this is what happens in this first chapter, because this is an incomplete version where  unfortunately many areas are locked or unfinished. For the rest it's surely a high-quality demo of a dark fantasy adventure with lots of edits, custom sprites and nice maps.

 

Download Link

Rpgmaker.net

Rmarchiv.de

Random Fact: the author of this game is well known for two other games: Ascendance, a demo of an epic techno-fantasy adventure that involves multiple protagonists, and Elegy Eve, a short complete event game with suggestive visuals made for the Gaming World Halloween event in 2008. These two works, like The Puppet, are really high quality game and they will be featured here sooner or later.

 

Legendary Legend by Sibhod

Legendary Legend (subtitled "the fantasy genre don't deserve this!") begins in an unusual way: our protagonists (Steve, Nick and Brian) are three normal students that are mysteriously teleported to a fantasy world. Here each one is turned into a fantasy character of a different class (respectively a rogue, a warrior and a sorcerer) and they start working as adventurers, getting involved in several (humorous) battles against the forces of evil. Soon they are joined in their quests by two elven half-sisters, the ranger Rixis and the druid Ruli.

 

 
Legendary Legend is a colorful parody rpgmaker game that consist in funny cutscenes first, then exploration and battles. Well, honestly combat is mostly encountered in random battle encounters, and in some locations the fighting becomes pretty intensive.

The game is a comedy not just for the humorous dialogues and situations that parodies most classic fantasy tropes of games and rpgs, but also for other subtle details like for example some odd placement of the enemies. Graphically it uses a mix of RTPs, edited sprites and custom portraits and battlers, but there are also some nice CG cutscenes. The developer can draw well, and the game really integrates well the custom art, while the humor is a little more subjective, and it may be well received or not.

Download Link

Rpgmaker.net

Rmarchiv.de

 

Random Fact: this game was originally a comic that one of the two authors turned into a game. Unfortunately only this Chapter One was released, leaving the story unfinished.

Finding Forever Eden by Nerow_Alexangelos/Rowen

I mentioned this title last week, when talking about Haze, Daze & Curiousness, and how its resources, made for a game called Eldritch, were in part used for this game. Anyway Finding Forever Eden was never completed, and only four different short concept demos were made available in the course of its development, sometimes changing some aspects and systems.

 

 

In any case we still have these old demos of Finding Forever Eden: they includes just some cutscenes and battles, however with just a couple of maps, few monologues, sample battles and a dream sequence, it's hard to understand what was planned by the developer, anyway unsurprisingly there is mention of "Eldritch" (see? That was the title of the game mentioned when I discussed HDC, and the aestetics also fit the setting here). What's important is that these demons show some really suggestive areas, nicely made battle sprites and an intriguing dark and mysterious setting with angels and gloomy creatures. 

 

Download Link

Mirror Link

Rmarchiv.de

Youtube Playthrough (all demos)

 

Random Fact: in the end even the original title changed: last time it was worked on it had the title of Ghosts of the Arcanum, but soon after it became vaporwave.

 

Huey the Kid by Taylor`y`Josh

Huey the Kid is a game where we play as... Huey the Kid, of course! The basic story is that Huey, a little kid that lives in the town of Puecco, wakes up one day, meets Junior, a boy that dares him to test his raft, so our little hero after a frantic mini-game reaches Goose Village and realizes he's quite far from home. What follows is a little adventure about slaying monsters and being ignored by adults… besides an odd quest of finding out “where he comes from” involving angels. 

Huey The Kid is a little lighthearted adventure of a brave kid with a hammer, rather than the epic quest of a teenager with a big sword and a peculiar hairstyle. It's not bad at all, there are some well-edited and well-used battle characters, pity for some minor issues like immobile npcs without dialogues. For the rest it's a pretty classic RTP game with random battle encounters and some simple puzzles that doesn't offer anything really new or exciting (except for the raft ride and replacing healing potions with candies, PhoenixDowns with wishbones  and save points with... slimes), but in my opinion it's still a cute little game!

Download Link

Rmarchiv.de

 

Youtube Playthrough

Random Fact: Huey the Kid is a complete one hour adventure that was supposed to be the first episode of a series. Unfortunately the reviews were average at best, and in the end it never had a the promised sequel(s) adventure(s). Another peculiar thing is that the game project is titled "Teddy Boy"… the same name of Huey's cat in the game.

 

Franzen by Scumhead

Franzen begins with two characters: Franz, a lizardperson and Lefsa, a cheerful little creature that lives inside a tuba that Franz carries around. These two are amateur technomancers inside a world populated by bizarre creatures, and they are investigating the Scream, a tear in reality that seems to be the origin of an invasion of demons that overran the reale of Brazen. The two are travelling on their airship when they are attacked by flying creatures, however they defend themselves and they later land inside a steampunk city where they will be forced to hunt a dangerous criminal. And tha's just the beginning of a series of adventures, meeting friends and foes as they explore this strange world.

Franzen is a simple linear adventure made with rpgmaker: there are battles but no level ups or experience points, the game is practically a raiload with no real choices and a single ending, but one of the best I've played: story, setting is unique, characters are really brilliant, and the graphics are quite pretty in my opinion. It's not a very long adventure, nor a complex one, still it's very enjoyable and one of the best among the "new" rpgmaker 2003 games. Definitely recommended.

Itch.io

Steam 

Random Fact: the developer, Scumhead, wasn't famous for making other rpgmaker games, but for some first person shooters using the Doom engine and platforms, and all these had a very retro appearance. Frazen was the first rpgmaker adventure an for now the only one.