Story of Innocence by Ultima187

 

Lyanna is a meager young woman with a streak a bad luck: due to a series of unfortunate events she ends being sold into slavery. However, after a failed escape attempt, she meets Joseon, a mysterious one-eyed swordsman with a golden armor who buys her freedom. They then start a journey to go back home that will lead to several strange encounters with various monsters, a ghost ship and many other incredible adventures.

 

 

Story of Innocence is a classic story-driven Rpgmaker adventure and rpg with puzzles, stealth sections and many locations to explore, for hours of adventures. It's a pity that this is just a demo, but for the rest we have a really well made classic rpg with many maps and lots of edited assets and custom animations.

 

WARNING: remember to disgregard the tutorial! It makes the game crash!

Download Link

Rpgmaker.net

Rmarchiv.de 

 

Random Fact: unfortunately the story of the second protagonist, Fiona the Commander of the Maridan Knights, was never implemented. The game was in fact supposed to have two different protagonists and storylines, that could be selected after starting the game.

 

 

Final Verdict:  this is another good demo that can provide hours of fun. It plays like a typical jrpg game but the narrative is excellent, mapping is amazing and the gameplay is classical old school rpg with some neat features.
In the end there are really few things I can complain about this game (I was not a big fan of the ghost ship part for a couple of reasons, including some questionable mapping choices, but maybe it's me, the overall quality is still high). Probably if it was completed it would get more since it's the kind of memorable rm2k3 game from a talented maker that rarely happens. Try it yourself, I'm sure you won't be disappointed...

PS: I don't know why, maybe it's me but Darius reminds to me a lot Gaius from the Way series by Lun Calsari: they both are magically inclined mysterious warriors with blue hair (nearly identical hairstyle) and clothing, and also the name is quite similar. But yeah, this may be just a coincidence.

Raciela by Ultima187

The game starts with the scene of the daughter of an indian chief being ambushed by some soldiers, luckily the warrior Wilu comes to the rescue, but the event is cut, anyway we'll see later what happened there. Meanwhile Quintessa the pirate captain of the ship Lady Raciela is trapped in Bayford by Captain Goodjellow of the Imperial Navy. She fears someone ratted her out, anyway she decides to act quick and devises and escape plan. Playing as two crew members, the young Wesley Burrows and the roguish Corsair Blackburn, we have to set this plan in motion. Later parts will see the introduction of new characters of a brave redhead girl named Scarlett and the return of Wilu from the prologue, and these will cross path with Wesley and Corsair in their adventures.

 

Raciela is a story driven adventure rpg with multiple protogonists. The game includes various tasks, combat, naval combat, and some custom menus. There are no random battles, but there is an indicator on the screen that fills as the character walks. Changing place (like entering a cave) resets the counter, anyway when the counter is full, the shape of a ship will elegantly change the screen to initiate the combat encounter. The party includes also guests that do not partecipate to battles but add various bonuses to the party and gunpowder that is used to perform powerful firearms attacks, but Raciela has also classic aspects like boss battles and save points, represented by ships inside a bottle. Find this masterpiece here:

Download Link

Rpgmaker.net

Rmarchiv.de

 

Random Fact: Raciela unfortunately is incomplete since it only includes 2 of the 3 chapters that were planned. However this project was originally just a test for custom sprites, that later became a real side-project. 

Final Verdict: Raciela is a great game. It's not completed, true, but it will still provide hours of fun. I had no issues except for a couple of typos, few map errors (you can walk over some desks), an empty window that appeared covered the view of the battle during one of the last bossfights, and also the game freezed once during the sea battle, but these issues happened just one time, and then everything went smoothly.

The story is very interesting, varied and well written (I liked the flashbacks and cinematic feel of some parts), and there is a lot too see and explore. There is a large cast of many different actors and playable characters, and the whole adventure is mature and articulated (and clearly inspired from popular movies and books, as you can see both for what regards the pirate and natives storylines).

Many parts of the game are classical (combat and equipment managing) and not so different from the usual jrpgs, others are quite innovative for this kind of game, and the truth is that everything works perfectly. In the end this is a good demo, and it's still an excellent experience even if not complete and a bit rough in some parts!

Eternal Star by Ultima187

Seiron is an adventurer that together with his friend Lance and his boss, Brocks, found an item that let them access some mysterious ancient ruins. The trio decides to explore the place, hoping to find some kind of treasure, but the place is flooded and infested by various monsters. After facing some challenges, the three scavengers start searching the abandoned place until they see a couple of armored knights... how did they enter the sealed place before them? But soon they hear a scream. The adventurers run away, except for Seiron that decides to investigate, and he later rescues Airionne, a mysterious young girl, from the knights.

 

Eternal Star is a rpgmaker story driven adventure that was unfortunately left incompleted at early stages, meaning that it's possible to find typos and some bugs, but also some pretty good ideas and interesting aspects: for example the save points can be not only used to save and heal the party, but also act as vendors for consumables. Still the selection will be reduced compared to the items available at the real shops. Moreover he game lets you increase the movement speed if you believe that the default one is too slow. 

Download Link

Internet Archive

Rpgmaker.net

Rmarchiv.de

 

Random Fact: the save points and traders sell consumables, some shops also sell armors and accessories, but in this game you will never buy weapons, and the reason is simple: in this game weapons are always upgraded by the smiths rather than bought like in other games.

 

Final Verdict: I really wanted to like Eternal Star, as a demo is pretty long, still there are many imprecisions and some game breaking bugs. For example when visiting the three district of the city DO NOT leave the east district/theatre as the last one because it will make the cutscene crash, I started from there and did the west and central district and all went smoothly. Sadly this ruins an otherwise pleasant adventure, because for the rest the game is good, mapping is excellent and the story is really captivating.

Anyway even if I know that the average rpgmaker player won't probably have as much fun as with the other games made by Ultima187 I mentioned earlier, I can technically recommend this game to those who want to look like how Rpgmaker 2000 works. Yes, there are many neat ideas and good aspects that can be borrowed from this game, in my opinion.