Ruina - Fairy Tale of the Forgotten Ruins by Shoukichi Karekusa

The basic story of Ruina involves the search for the root cause of an enigmatic calamity as it strikes the Kness Dukedom. The player will meet a diverse cast of characters and fantastic races as various forces work to understand the purpose—and perhaps the benefit—of a network of sprawling, underground ruins, which just so happen to be situated directly beneath your hometown. 

 

Ruina contains four origin stories to play, each with events, CGs, and an area unique to themselves, along with New Game+ features. 

 

 

Ruina is a JRPG inspired heavily by classic adventure role-playing video games like Dragon Quest and tabletop role-playing games. If you’re familiar with anything in the RPG Maker 2000 engine, you’ll find that its battling is not terribly customized beyond what’s included in the program. The main draws of Ruina are its intricately-woven story and its gorgeous original artwork, including portraits, backdrops, event CGs, maps, and more.

Official Site

Rmarchiv.de

Youtube Playthrough

Soundtrack

TvTropes 

Random Fact: the game is going to be remade. The release is planned to be through Steam, and you can find the page here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3185060/_/

And the gameplay trailer of the new version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNUunY8ZM7s

 

Final Verdict: An award-winning free-to-play Japanese RM2k game, now available in English! The game is around 40 hours long, has an original exploration system and many party members (but you can only have 3 characters at one given except in escort missions or special scenario). A really unique game, inspired by gamebooks! 

You and I by Makiokuta, Racheal & Indrah

Two heroes, Fermat the necromancer and Victor the warrior, have been summoned by the heavens to vanquish an evil Overlord who is about to break free from the prison he was sealed in. However... not everything is as it seems.

 

 

You and I is a short complete fantasy adventure made in few days: the game is pretty much a lighthearted comedy with classical rpgmaker battles and some added tasks. The best parts, besides the art, is the funny dialogue and banter between the two protagonists.

 

Download Link

Rpgmaker.net

Rmarchiv.de

 

Random Fact: while the game is a linear adventure, it lets us choose our alter ego, leading to some changes during the adventure. However one choice isn't really better than the other since we will control of both heroes, but the two routes will be a little different.

  

Final Verdict: You and I is a pretty short game that a player can complete in one sitting, it's also linear and pretty easy, but there is ONE little problem: near the end you will have to destroy a magical force field by visiting different planes and well that part is boring: some parts can be done without battles, others have mandatory fights, there are a couple of simple tasks/puzzles, a labyrinth, and an annoying "teleporting maze" but overall it's a part that feels like a filler or time-waster, not fun nor interesting like the rest of the game, the humor and its quirky characters. I mean I liked the humor in this game and I'd have likes a bit more fun cutscenes/tasks/events rather than that mini-dungeon. But that's the only complaint I have with this game, for the rest it's pretty good and enjoyable! Well done!

Bluegaia - The Demon and The Spyglass by Cok-Roach Gaming

The story tells us about our protagonist, who lives in Frostfell with his mother. His mother was recently put in jail by the senate for doing illegal sorcery. As he speaks to his mother in jail, she asks him to deliver a package for a friend of hers in Jadenburry. And this is the beginning of a great adventure...

 

Bluegaia - The Demon and the Spyglass is a RPG based on tabletop rpgs like Dungeons & Dragons. It uses some resources (such as Facesets) from games like Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate. The game has a day-night system and although it's a short game, it focuses heavily on the story. 

The demo has only one chapter of seven. It uses the standard battle system, but it also has a night-day cycle and a crime system, where you can go to jail after stealing items from shops, for example.

Download Link

Rmarchiv.de 

Random Fact: this game seems to be inspired by Fallenwood, but that's not just a supposition, as it actually mentions Fallewood more than once, beside using the same styled windows and font. It was probably another attempt to make a Crpg with Rpgmaker.

Unlike Fallenwood this game lets you choose your name, and also gives more class options: Warrior, Barbarian, Rogue, Mage, Cleric and Bard. Moreover there are six possible portraits to choose from.

 

Final Verdict: another example of a Rpgmaker game that tries to do something different from the usual fantasy jrpg adventures. Even better than Fallenwood.

Fallenwood by Red Commi

 

The adventure starts in the quiet village of Wooded Heavens, inside the Robewood forest: here our protagonist is informed by his friend Nillia that his mentor Gariod needs to talk with him. This will be the last lesson, then Gariod will have to leave for some unexplained task. But after he left our protagonist is suddenly attacked by a mysterious assassin...

 

Fallenwood is a game that takes inspiration not from classoc Jrpgs like the Final Fantasy series but rather from Crpgs like Baldur's Gate. The game begins with the choice of the name between Flint, Busnin and Furuk, and then the class: Fighter, Mage, Rogue or Ranger. Facesets are taken from the Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights artworks, and Fallenwood comes as close to a western cRPG experience you’ll likely get with the RPGMaker engine. 

 

There are optional side-quest, dialog-trees and the feel of the demo reminds me of old AD&D cRPGs. There are no random battle encounters, the bane of most jRPGs, and the whole thing has a very polished feel. Sadly, after you leave the first village and the woods there’s not much you can do anymore and you’ll get stuck.

Download Link

Rmarchiv.de

 

Random Fact: it's not a mystery that Fallenwood was inspired by Baldur's Gate, in fact the mentor is called Gariod, sometimes even mispelled Garion, a very similar name to Gorion, the wise mentor from the Forgotten Realms. It's pretty obvious that instead Nillia is a sort of proto-Imen from BG1.

 

Final Verdict: what was unique about Fallenwood was not only its open-ended design, but the choice to go with ambient sounds in place of music. What a pity this was only a 30 minutes demo.

Rezident Evil - it is Escape by twentyfour24

 

Jill Valentine and Tom are escaping the Umbrella on a train, and have to run away and find salvations, fighting zombies, ninjas, demons and russian soldiers, visiting laboratories and sex clubs, meeting various celebrities and solving some puzzles. Oh and do not forget the haunting presence of Matt LeBlanc... 

Their mission: IT IS ESCAPE.  

Will you help them survive the horror?

REISE is a bizarre mess that shouldn’t have been made. 

 

Rezident Evil - it is Escape is a 5-7 hours bizarre adventure inspired to Resident Evil: the game starts with an escape on a train and then leads to a series of bizarre situations and locations with quirky characters, various puzzles and minigames. It's a really unique bizarre adventure that still includes classic rpgmaker battles, many secrets and features. Really impressive.

 

Warning: the game includes violence, some pixellated gore and other sensitive themes. 

 

Download Link

Itch.io

Rpgmaker.net

Rmarchiv.de 

 

Random Fact: the game was originally planned as a serious fangame of Resident Evil, sequel of another fangame made in 2003. But as the developer said, this gradually mutated into a Matt LeBlanc infested fever dream. 

Final Verdict: this... uh... parody game is a bizarre beast: you can say that this is trash, but it cannot be denied that a lot of effort (and love) made this game highly playable and somewhat entertaining. It may be cheesy, but it's not bugged, boring or awful at all. Even if humor can be considered tasteless of even offensive, even if you won't like the non-sense or when things near the end get political, there's a certain charm, a flash of brillance and some clever features in this work, that makes me understand that many flaws were left on purpouse. It's a dark and weird game about a dark and bizarre, confusing world, but it jokes and laughs about it.

RMN Midsummer Dreams 2010 by YDS & AznChipmunk & Ocean

 

"RMN Midsummer Dreams 2010" was created by the community and directed by YummyDrumsticks with the help of AznChipmunk. 

 

In this episode, the RMN crew finds themselves partying away at the resort hotel Casa Del Sol. However, only a single person remembered about the celebration at the end of the holiday! The time is ticking and there is only one day to make the necessary preparations before the end of the day.

 

This game is a simple adventure game with no combat nor difficult puzzles, it's a rather simple lighthearted walking simulator or visual novel with a couple of fetch quests. The game also allows to create the alter ego, that will play and interact with the developer and many other personalities of the Rpgmaker.net site of that time. You may or may not enjoy the humor, that subjective, in any case it's a pretty nice game, with good mapping.

Download Link

Rpgmaker.net

Rmarchiv.de

 

Random Fact: this was actually the second entry of the RMN Celebration series that started with  RMN Christmas Card 2009, a Christmas game that will surely be posted here in december, of course!

 

Final Verdict: from the cute and funny introduction to the equally nice ending the game won't take you more than 15-20 minutes to complete, and I am one that check everything and talks with all characters. All of them! It's also a look to the past and to the Rmk.net world of ten years ago (meet all the legends like Kentona, Liberty, Ocean, Stangeluv, Darken, Solitayre, Max McGee, AznChipmunk, Calunio and many others, besides YDS of course!). Ok, nostalgia time!

Anyway, let's say I enjoyed this little short romp. The rating here is more for the value it had at the time, but even if not everyone may appreciate this kind of work, no one can deny that there are some cool parts in it and YDS always used the RefMap resources really well (it's maybe a cheesy game but that was clearly the aim of the project, it's a parody and sequence of gags that cannot be taken too seriously)! FUN and with a certain historical value too!

K.A.M.R.A.D. by unknown (russian)

 

War: a group of soldiers are fighting a desperate offensive against their enemies. The opposing army may be large, but our protagonists, a group of grunts that for some reason have really big hair, won't stop until the war is won.

K.A.M.R.A.D. or KAMRAD is a really peculiar rpg since it's not a classic fantasy rpg: we play as a blue haired soldier in a warzone, that starts alone with some temporary allies, but later he will be able to add some permanent companions to his squad of maximum four members. As expected the game is a realistic scenario without monsters, magic nor mystery. Just the grim reality of war.

The game uses the classic Rpgmaker combat system with some custom animation, and also the graphics are custom for the most part, giving a peculiar unique look to the game. 

Download Link

Rmarchiv.de

 

Random Fact: the enemies are all soldier sprites ripped from Operation Wolf, a a 1987 light gun shooter video game developed and published by Taito for arcades that was ported to many home systems.

 

 

Final Verdict: a really peculiar and unique game. If you know russian, try it. Surely one of the few games that doesn't use some realistic graphics opposed to the usual chibi or super deformed RTP characters.