Exit Fate – and what you shouldn’t do when you’re making an RPG

I think you’re selling short what rpgmaker is capable of in the right hands.

Have a look at the (unfortunately only episode 1 was ever completed) Wilfred, the Hero: http://www.brandonabley.com/?page_id=5

Or Sunset over Imdahl:
http://db.tigsource.com/games/sunset-over-imdahl

That’s an interesting article, I’m just a little confused by the title and closing sentence: Do you mean to say that the developer made the same mistakes so many others make when developing their RPGMaker games, or did you rather mean that there are problems with this game because of RPGMaker limitations, which you didn’t mention in the article itself?
I suppose it’s the former, but when reading your article’s title I actually expected the latter :)

Not to enforce the negative elements of this review, but…

There are piles upon piles of places to find composers for games. Internet forums (bloated with them), Craigslist, friends of friends, school mates… If you ever leave your room, you can find people willing and eager to make music for you.

I appreciate the one-man effort of any project, but if you’re going to spend the time drawing 70+ characters, not acquiring original music doesn’t make sense. And in an artistic sense, it’s inexcusable.

I laud the creator for his enormous effort and accomplishment. But if using the same plot and BGM from other games isn’t the very definition of “rip off”, then what is? When it goes from “inspired by” to “carbon copy of”, there’s no chance I can enjoy it.

Last autumn I completed Last Scenario, and while the fact that I played it until the ending proves that it is a sufficiently entertaining game, I would never ever touch it again. The game had many qualities (bug-free, consistent, long storyline) that other RPGMaker games don’t have, but on the other hand, the characters were often one-dimensional (with Hilbert, the main character, often being plain stupid), the military background felt simplistic and the storyline had so many twists in it, popping up on a regular basis, that you came to expect them, thus effectively demolishing your suspense of disbelief.

Personally, I was a great fan of RPGMaker 2000, but ever since 2003 and XP and whatnot came out I just… lost all interest.

I get it, they’re better programs, you can script everything and such, but… that’s not what I want to do. If I want to program an RPG, I’d do it in… Java or C++ or something. I just wanted to have a program to practice writing dialogue and making some semi-balanced, fun battles for myself in, not a cheap version of Game Maker. =/

Haha, look at the screenshot. The face (emotions) is so out of sync with the words it made me laugh. Go go jRPG !

@MisterX: I actually didn’t think about how that might get misunderstood, but it was definitely intended to be mistakes others make when developing RPGMaker games rather than limitations. I might go back to the old title I have that’s still in the link. Thanks for the input!

@SEH: It isn’t quite as bad as that. Especially if you’ve never played the older Suikoden games (though the themes are certainly similar to other games, like Ar Tonelico or Final Fantasy IV), so it’s worth a play at least.

Infact I get the feeling I might’ve used Exit Fate just to make an example of one, but that’s simply because despite being a well accomplished game, it has a number of failings where simply it didn’t try to succeed on its own.

What does TIG think anyway? Is RPGMaker an amateur’s tool? If so should we make certain concessions or judge them like any other indie release?

Should be on a case by case basis IMO. If you generalize then you could make a similar (not identical) argument for Game Maker, etc. since those tools also reduce the barrier of entry into game development. I’ll take a graphics API and C++/C# over that stuff anyday but that doesnt mean we should discriminate against our friends that want to make games without having to be hardcore coders first. Then again, I am not too familiar on just how easy RPGMaker makes things. Still… case by case.

@Xander: Ok, I see. It can be so easy to criticize people’s work, rather than fulfilling my own visions.

I think the better ones deserve a post, meaning those that are enjoyable. Personally when I play a RPGMaker Game I couldn’t care less about ripped Music, Sprites or Tiles as long as the game itself is fun.
Personally, I had a lot of fun with “Vampire’s Dawn I and II” or “Unterwegs in Düsterburg”. But I think those are exclusively for a german speaking audience due to a lack of english translation.

I certainly would enjoy reading about quality RPG Maker Games but would also prefer if only the best were posted about. Otherwise it would be a can of worms with so, soooooo many bad RPGMaker Games being pumped out every day.

i agree that original music, or at least less cliched music than ff/crono trigger/etc stuff would add to this game, and certainly a game designer of this guys talent could find someone to help him

that being said- this review is unreasonable harsh, it pays homage to suikoden ii but is its own game, the battle interface is more sophisticated than the typical rpg maker games with a unique magic, position based and non-turned base system, even tactical elements

this is the kind of game that rpg maker should aspire to, and with original music and a little more balancing in some areas (this is v. 100 afterall), could easily be sold for $20 or so in the indie scene

to judge this by a commerical standard when it is the free release of one individual is so unfair to the artist that i feel obliged to defend him

@AmnnEn: I’d definitely be interested in playing some recommended titles. I do have a kind of education in German, maybe not enough to understand a full RPG but possibly to work my way through it.

@Greg: I do somewhat feel bad, though I wouldn’t presume to call this a review because I clearly didn’t play it for that long, but I didn’t think I was really being unfair. What I say ultimately doesn’t matter, its free which means everyone who is a fan of the genre should just play it and decide for themselves. Whilst the battle system might be interesting, I just didn’t enjoy the game enough to really explore it and comment on it. Hence why I focussed on the elements of the game I had a fair grasp of so far.

In short, my criticisms weren’t just of the game itself but rather they were the reasons why I didn’t want to play further through it. If that makes sense. If there are later developments that make it more interesting, either plotwise or in battle, then it’s my loss.

I have played only the first parts of it. I’m starting to like it, but I agree that it’s been a slowly process. But I think yours is indeed a bad review (although you don’t consider it a review now, as of your last comment, oh well…). Here’s because: You don’t say anything about gameplay -the most important part of any game, i think that everyone here agree on that-; about the story you say something like: “the first part is very suikoden (note: the author himself has stated that it is heavily inspired by that game), then in the rest the story picks up, BUT THE FIRST PART IS VERY SUIKODEN” -hey, at least tell something about the rest of the story to your readers, since you’ve already bothered to say some spoilers of the first part -how well is it? do characters evolve and how? how about the script?, etc). I only see 2 criticism in your review: the portraits (I agree completely with you -notice that in Last Scenario it was different so the author did know how to do better) and then the similarity to Suikoden (in my opinion that this is not an important criticism, it seems to me very personal of your part). But the game has other interesting points: the most commendable to me, I think is the strategy in fights (placing your characters in the grid, waiting to spend the numbers of spells you have -you have a number for battle, so it becomes very strategic, what kind of attack, etc) and the battle system, which is very polished. it also has an interesting bribe system. I think that games works well, if prejudices are left out. Now, i was expecting more, and I can say in all honesty that I’m a little disappointed, not with the overall quality of the game, but mainly because I was expecting the author to overcome one of the flaws of Last Scenario: the main character (those of you who played LS will understand), but I think that he’s made the same mistake (although I still am in the first parts of the game). Anyway, my 2 cents.

Cripes! You’re tearing into an indie RPG for recycling plot elements? Why not lay into Square, which has been recycling the exact same plot for decades now?

I found Last Scenario decidedly mediocre, so this already was off to a rocky start, but hearing about how the first hour is basically the first hour of Suikoden 2 but worse has made me decide that I’d rather not play this.

It does make me want to play Suikoden 2 again though, so I automatically love this article, since that game is pretty fantastic.

jrpgs need to be outlawed and the authors imprisoned

Oh I will Mischief Maker! Just as soon as I get my damn hands on Tetsuya Nomura for recycling character designs. EVERY character in Dissidia has at least an unneccessary belt or some pointless dangling accessory. Or if you’re Squall, two belts and a dangly thing on the end of your GUN/SWORD. Gah. I hate that guy.

And Nessie, to try and explain some of your problems with my criticism, what I actually said was that the opening hour was pretty much how the opening of Suikoden II plays out. I didn’t say that it WOULD pick up later, because as I later explain I didn’t play it further than the Mist Monster. Being an RPG it isn’t a game which is easily penetratable for someone who isn’t engaged with it. Whilst I can play a platformer for an hour and a half and have a fair grasp to review it, it’s simply not possible for an RPG and hence why I didn’t try here. I would have if the opening gripped me, but it didn’t.

Because of this I decided to try and find the reasons why I didn’t enjoy it, which are listed above. I didn’t mention the battle system beyond the introductory paragraph because I didn’t have too long to get to grips with it, and again if it did become more entertaining later on then its my loss. I also mentioned the bribery system too, which while smart in that it pre-empts encounters, is not too different to simply doing so during battle or fleeing.

The problem here isn’t a problem ‘with RPGMaker games’. The problems you had seemed to be with the creator’s design choices. The problems you cited (recycled music, portraits with expressions that didn’t match the tone of the dialogue, derivative nature of the plot itself) would have still been present even if the game was coded in C++. So why even mention RPGMaker at all?

It’s possible to turn out crappy, derivative games in Gamemaker (for example), too, but I don’t see anyone characterizing that as ‘the trouble with Gamemaker games’, or implying that everything made with it is somehow tainted. Games made with the RPGMaker apps deserve the same treatment. Look at them in terms of their own merits and failings, not some strange bias against the application they were made in. :p

@Blade: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with using a program that’s easier for people to get into. Heck, two of my favorite indie games (Knytt and Knytt Stories) were made in Multimedia Fusion 1 and 2. I’ve wanted to play Yume Nikki, which was made with RPGMaker, but it swore at me in Japanese and killed itself. I think Xander is just trying to say that RPGMaker lets people make a game engine with less effort (coding wise) so they’ll put less effort into making the game original and engaging. I’ve seen people bash on Game Maker and some other apps, so it’s not an RPGMaker exclusive.

Hey guys, this game is pretty fun.

I’ve never played a Suidoken game (Gasp!), so I might be able to enjoy this.

Then again, I tend to completely fail to get into most JRPGs.

Speaking of JRPGs, where’s Barkley 2?

There are so many indie RPGs out there with entirely original content: no recycled sprites, music, etc. I don’t understand why there is this apparent desire on TIGS to give publicity and a spot in the database to games that rip off old, commercial JRPGs. (Other examples of this: Sunset Over Imdahl and The Frozen World.)

There’s nothing inherently bad with RPGMaker games. They just have this stigma associated with them. There’s a lot of BAD RPGMaker games out there, just because it’s so easy to get the tools and try to make something outta it, especially considering the rampant piracy around RM2K years back.

There are some genuinely great games out there made with RPGMaker, some free, some not, it’s kind of a matter of sifting through the not-so-good ones to find them. I’ve seen some of them that you can’t even tell it was made in RPGMaker, as they built their own custom menus, custom battle system, and everything outta it.

I really like Last Scenario a lot. Yes, it was simple and kinda derivative. But there was something about it that pulled me back. I guess in this age of tactics RPGs and ridiculously proportioned characters, it was nice to find a game that didn’t do any of that.

And yes, Hilbert was an idiot.

I’ll check this game out because it looks so beautiful…and I’ve never played a 2D Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger or any Suidoken games.

The German and French RPG Maker Game Community does have some good stuff. But the better ones are rarely finished and stay eternally in a demo state.
And the games that get done quicker are oftenly the worst. Like this one.

I also feel really bad criticising this game, because the production values are just so incredibly high for a one man team. The battle systems, the character recruitment, everything – it’s an amazing achievement, and must have taken countless hours of hard work. Still I think suffers badly from the same gripe I had with Last Scenario – the plot is largely bland and derivative, I didn’t find the characters to be particularly endearing, and the ‘world’ felt stale.

However, I don’t think that re-using *some* sprites or *some* music in RPG Maker games is inexcusable (although here it is a little unsubtle), because you can still come out with a great experience.

In fact, if you want an RPGmaker game that’s less ‘pretty’ but has a greater level of innovation in gameplay and that has a much much stronger and unique storyline, you folks really need to check out The Way. (http://www.crestfallen.us/download.html) Episode one is a little slow, but overall – at least in terms of narrative – it’s arguably better than commercial games such as Chrono Trigger, FF7, the Persona series, &c.
The Way did the “gain mana over time” thing before EF (and differently to Skies of Arcadia) and has a completely different levelling system, in that you don’t ever “level up” as a character. The Plunge (sword duelling) system also becomes really awesome from the end of episode 3 onwards.

The ripped music and static sprites are valid complains (Though it’s not usually not as bad as that example. Not that this makes them excusable.), but I found the story to play off the first 2 Suikodens more than straight rip them off.

Like Last Scenario, it starts off as generic as possible for the genre, to later turn these conventions around in interesting ways. The problem with the plot, in my opinion is more that, like Groogokk said about LS, the plot twists, while well thought out, are piled on one after another to the point where they lose effect.

What I have to wonder is why he keeps the horribly outdated dungeon structure of walking through empty corridors with random encouters, when he tries to do some interesting things with other gameplay elements, since the combat system is quite fun, well thought out and balanced.

Though the bribery system is better than a run command, since it allows you to skip the combat transitions, which often make the already horrible pacing of jRPGs even worse.

“The battle theme is pulled straight from Suikoden II, plenty of the town themes are instantly recognizable from Final Fantasy games and when you finish off a boss you’re rewarded by the victory theme from Chrono Trigger.”

What the fuck : it’s a shame to ruin a pretty looking game like that…

It’s still a good game. It’s been a while since I played Suikoden, loved it and enjoyed. I don’t care much for storys and I don’t care if something’s ripped. What is good is good. I found the faces annoying (would have preferred less quality and animations) and I found the prelude far too long. But anyone who likes oldschool RPGs should give it a try.

Yeah, I don’t mean to completely slam the game. It’s good, and the story isn’t completely the same by any means, but it follows it enough that I just didn’t engage with it to the same extent. The issue was that it played off the series so much for that opening that I could guess what was going to happen before it fell.

I think Cobalt hit what I was trying to go for. I’m not quite sure why I can’t really put it into words, but ultimately I think I assumed that because the engine was less work to create the game then that might’ve spread to other parts of making the game, like recycling music or tilesets. It’s great to have such a variety of responses though, so feel free to shout in if anyone has spent longer with the game!

The article is interesting, but here is my thoughts : this game only has the same problems quite every RPGMaker games have. They are made by RPG fans, for RPG fans, and what are the characteristics of RPG games ? Same plot, same characters, same music…everytime. RPGMaker games have the same problems than SquareEnix games, with much less quality, so much more problems :)

So TIG sources position: It’s not Cavestory, it’s not by cactus, it isn’t by an idie superstar, and Somethingawful likes it, therefore it sucks.

Nice to read over a dozen posts saying the same thing.

If you squeeze your eyes really hard and focus on that screenshot, it *totally* looks like Cavestory to me. ^^

@Mike Hawk, @Tim:

True, different people, communities, and reviewers have their own tastes and standards. But I really think that there are different viewpoints in these comments. If you notice, there are both criticisms and praises, for topics as various as the artwork, music, gameplay, plot, RPGMaker, and other games in the genre.

(It’s the people who comment who are obsessed with Cave Story, not the reviewers.)

Whoa, did I just reply to a comment that I hallucinated?

I agree with the many of the posts here that are essentially voicing this basic thought: It isn’t so much the choice of using RPGMaker to create one’s game that’s the problem. The problem is a byproduct of something that was intended as a positive: the ease of use that RPGMaker provides people who don’t want to deal with hardcore coding to make their games. This, of course, still is a positive in the initial respects. But the problem arises because the program is made to be so accessible that anyone, regardless of artistic or creative talents, can try their hand at making a game. Now, I’m not saying that the maker of THIS game wasn’t talented or creative. I’m just pointing out why there is such a large quantity of derivative –and even downright bad– games in the RPGMaker community.

The reason why THIS particular game has such derivative elements can easily be traced to the second issue that arises from the accessibility of RPGMaker: by its very nature, the path of least resistance typically persuades the one taking it to put forth less effort. While there are certainly very real limitations compared with open-ended coding languages, overall, RPGMaker seems to have enough customization features to allow for pretty diverse game creations as long as it’s in the hands of a person who has both the creative vision/talent and the determination to see that vision through without compromise.

+1 @toryoom.

Actually the person who made Exit Fate customised the heck out of RPG Maker. Normally RPG Maker XP only has six stats (including HP and MP), a front-view battle system and a menu with five or six options; Exit Fate has about twelve statistics, the alignment-based battle system, positioning, the Way-esque rolling MP increase and tactical battles. In terms of technical polish it towers over practically every RPG Maker game ever made. Then again RPG Maker games are a small and generally mediocre fraction of the independent games community so I guess this doesn’t really distinguish it in the eyes of many.

The best thing that I can say about this game is that it makes me want to try out the actual Suikoden series. After so many Final Fantasies and Dragon Quests it’s a real breath of fresh air! (also the game itself is pretty fun once you get past the first hour)

I’d also like to second the reccomondation for The Way, although since it’s kind of the Neon Genesis Evangelion of freeware RPGs your milage might vary.

PHeMoX wrote:

If you squeeze your eyes really hard and focus on that screenshot, it totally looks like Cavestory to me.

Squeezing eyes that hard voids warranty.

***yamata*** wrote:

*I’d like to second the recommendation for the Way, although since it’s kind of the Neon Genesis Evangelion of freeware RPGs your mileage might vary.*

Hah! I guess that makes “Exit Fate” the Da Vinci Code of freeware RPGs, then?

Malefact: Nah, Exit Fate is more like the Gurren Lagann of freeware RPGs. It’s a loving homage to an entire video-game genre that at times seems overly familiar, but is still a lot of fun so long as you don’t take it too seriously. Both works also have enormous casts of characters that are distinctive but for the most part aren’t especially three-dimensional.

Exit Fate has nowhere near a big enough fanbase to qualify as a Da Vinci Code, I think.

Looks like my leaky memory is paying off again. Although I probably played the classic RPGs EF borrows from, I certainly don’t recall many details like tunes or tilesets after all these years, so nothing impedes my enjoyment. I’d take a good rip-off over a mediocre original any day!

The criticisms of Exit Fate are all more or less true and fair. All I can say in its defence is that none of them really hurt my enjoyment of the game (except the lack of variation in character portraits, which was sometimes distracting). I don’t play a lot of RPGMaker games, it’s been years since I played Chrono Trigger (although I did recognise the victory music) and I’ve never played Suikoden at all, so I guess that’s part of the reason why it didn’t bother me that much. I’m most interested in good gameplay, and Last Scenario and Exit Fate both have that in spades.

As far as the other games mentioned in this comment thread go, I think I lost interest in Exit Fate around Episode 2 or 3: either the combat balance (both regular and Plunge) was terrible, or I was very bad at both of them. After giving up on it, I had the plot spoiled for me and I don’t think I missed much there either. And while The Spirit Engine seems interesting and I’d like to get into it, it crashes every 15 minutes on my computer, which is enough to put me off.

Er, the last mention of “Exit Fate” in that comment should read “The Way”. Whoops!

This kind of thing is annoying. True, there are a lot of bad RPGMaker games, but I wouldn’t necessarily say there are aren’t a lot of bad other games too. So when you shelve something just because you’re angry because it’s not as good a game that have budgets of close to $45,000,000 (Final Fantasy VII, as an example) and so you shut it down and throw your hands up in disgust and cry “Never Again, JRPG!” then it’s particularly mind-numbing.

If you’ve ever worked on a RPGMaker game, you understand how some people spend years into these projects, customizing art, writing scores, penning novels of dialogue. It’s not some kiddie jog into candyland. I’m not defending the lack of originality, nor the fact that the “Amway Syndrome” is bound to happen with a program like that.

Let it be said that I haven’t played this game, however. I merely letting off some steam about the poor reviews of Sunset Over Imdahl, A Blurred Line, Diver Down, and pretty much any of the RPGs that are incredibly original but have failed to capture the hearts of our community. I’m kind of hoping that people play these games with a more open mind. And by people, I mean the ones who have hang-ups with having been slammed against the wall by too many paint can games of the same color.

To be in defense of Final Fantasy games, though, I’m of the opinion that they’ve gotten too weird, having tried to unplug themselves from the FF stigma of the old. Almost inaccessible weird.

@diaskeus

It’s really heartening to hear another person talking good sense about these sort of games. As someone who has tried (and failed) to make RPGmaker games myself, I can say that it is certainly *not* some “kiddie jog into candyland”; there’s so much drudgery and hard work to overcome before you can even deliver a working copy. And that’s *without* implementing anything original. Coding, tilesets, sprites, anything.

I found the that the most recent Final Fantasy game that I’ve really enjoyed has been (sigh) Chocobo’s Dungeon. Then again, I do think Dissida looks very neat.

I’m 2/3 of the way through the game.

The plot and dialogue are actually acceptable, although character development is shallow. However, one redeeming feature on that specific note is that about halfway through the game, a bit of extended development is made available for EVERY member of the army, which was a nice surprise for me, anyhow.

The combat system IS more tactical than your average indy jrpg, although the characters suffer from cookie-cutter-combat syndrome. Significantly differing base stats DO force some interesting situations, as when you meet enemies capable of striking back-row caster-types with physical attacks. That said, battles aren’t too difficult; survival is blessedly less a matter of elemental rock-paper-scissors and more a matter of playing a bit defensively when the situation demands it.

The field battles have thus far been very nicely balanced, perhaps especially because the game itself imposes an upper bound on the player’s power at a given point in the number of characters available. There’s no way to “buff out” the army other than to recruit all the available leaders and organize them well, so victory is largely dependent on skill. My only complaint, again, is that mages are a hair overpowered; their range gives them a phenomenal capacity for damage output, and they’re just not fragile enough in return. Again, I’m still not to the end-game, so I can’t say if future maps will mitigate this advantage.

Equipment progression seems largely linear, with a few one-off items floating around here and there. The Grind Factor ™ is actually very well-controlled, with massive experience bonuses for fighting enemies beyond character level. Essentially, you can bring any character up to a useful level by bringing them along for 2 or 3 random battles, and you can catch them up completely within 2 or 3 more. There IS a serious limiting factor on melee characters; upgrading their individual attack values beyond their base stats costs significant amounts of money. This is exacerbated by the fact that inadequate investments into this area decrease their damage output to precisely zero, as un-upgraded melee characters are entirely unable to overcome monsters’ innate damage resistance or evasion; it also isn’t helped by the fact that magic spells, while expensive, fall into a community “pool” that any character can draw from, making investments in magic far more economical than their melee counterparts. My strategy here is to pick a couple good melee characters, keep them upgraded, and only switch them out when a MAJOR upgrade comes down the line (Ayara, pictured above, has lasted me through 2/3 of the game this way).

Graphically, if you like the look of what’s above, you won’t be disappointed in-game. Origami traded Last Scenario’s variable small character portraits for single, larger-quality portraits; frankly, he HAS improved since the last game (and, from what I’ve seen, Ayara’s portrait is BY FAR the most poorly-matched to her dialogue thus far). Additionally, all combat sprites are hand-drawn, and are generally pleasing.

The worst feature of the game is the soundtrack, and it’s largely been covered above; I REALLY wish the creator had petitioned SomethingAwful for some original work. That said, the game music is simply stored as a collection of .mp3 files in the game directory, and anything cloying CAN be manually replaced with a bit of renaming (good-BYE, Zelmony.mp3).

This hasn’t been a bad game, really and truly. It’s not terribly innovative, but it has polish that’s not usually present in these indy jrpgs. The plot IS acceptable; I’m post-postmodern enough to recognize that humanity isn’t getting rid of the Hero of a Thousand Faces anytime soon, and this isn’t a bad example of the tried-and-true hero tale. There’s enough deconstruction going on to let you know the author isn’t taking it overly seriously, and enough seriousness that it doesn’t just fall flat. The problems I see in this game seem to stem directly from a lack of manpower; with a couple people turning out some music, someone to diversify and comb out the inventory and magic selection, and someone to blend some more uniqueness into the characters’ combat abilities, this would have been a very good free production. As it is, it’s a step below that, worth playing, but not worth replaying.

Since it seems to borrow from the other games, are there any characters as emotionally powerful (in terms of “holy shit”) as Luca Blight?

ie: um… “oink oink oink” “die like a pig” type scenes?