Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: RPG Maker 2

Written by Chris Reiter on July 08, 2003

First Impressions: I'm-a gunna make-a me a nice-a pizza pie adventure, with-a anchovies!

When the PlayStation was nearing the end of its days (actually, it's still alive...barely), gamers' were able to bask in the glory of the machine's last batch of big name titles before the launch of the PlayStation 2 hit and before everything in gaming media hit the mark of "next generation" evolution. For RPG gamers' especially, 2000 was a solid year with major releases from such titles as Chrono Cross, The Legend of Dragoon, Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete, and others. But there was one game that was different. It wasn't like the others because it was unique. It was because RPG Maker was the very first do-it-yourself RPG creation tool. It's three years later now, and Agetec's plan is to take another shot at getting gamers interested in wanting to not play just any traditional RPG, but rather one of their own, with next month's appropriately titled RPG Maker 2.

What is your story? I ask you, what IS your story? If you've ever had a revolutionary idea that you just wanted everyone else to know about, this is where you'll manifest it. Mario and Luigi are locked away in a Pizza Hut located in the center of Manhattan by the evil rat king, Chuck E. Cheese...and you, Master Chief, must save them. Whoever the character, wherever the story takes place, you make it the way you want it to be. If every RPG game seems to become methodical in its practice as of late, why not make up your own? It's your characters...your world...your battles. They'll come to life here and remain here. Why? It's your story after all.

As noted earlier, RPG Maker 2 is basically a creation device for the ultimate RPG adventure: yours. Made up of all the major designing tools required -- terrain, effects, characters, scripts, items, monsters, and maps -- RPG Maker 2 will allow for you to customize your story the way you see fit from both a list of already existing parts or from your own experience with the game's program. Through the creation tool, players will have at their disposal three different difficulty levels. For those players who have never attempted designing anything from a computer module, there'll be a Beginner mode present. For those players who might have a little experience with programming tools as such, an Intermediate level will welcome them. And as for the most experienced of persons, an Advance mode is waiting to be unlocked.

But to build an RPG video game you don't just create one thing or the other -- you'll need to set your game up from scratch if it is to be whole. RPG Maker 2 will be an empty canvas, which you'll be able to paint your portrait on using the various and intuitive tools to construct either an RPG of fantasy or future (like comparing Final Fantasy VIII to Final Fantasy IX). Everything you'll come up with will all be stored on the PlayStation 2's 8MB memory card, making room for more than sixty times the amount of data the PlayStation memory card could consume for the original RPG Maker (and if you've got cash for a spare memory card, this game will be a good reason to pick one up). Castles or towns can be brought to life using pre-made bricks and triangular pieces, or if you prefer to glue them together one piece at a time. Entire world maps can be manifested so you can mark where every dungeon inches and where every town spawns. There'll even be over 200 existing character and monster models that you'll be able to choose from for story related purposes or otherwise.

Speaking of the story, character scripts will now develop a lot faster than before with the PlayStation 2's USB port. By plugging in any old USB keyboard, you'll have a way of writing the "who's," the "what's," the "where's," the "why's," and the "how's" of your game's literature quicker than with the game's preset path (scrolling through letters manually with the PlayStation 2 controller). Fusing the tale together will also involve the little things, which you can also do. Such things as creating your own battle system (one that will act on a 3D stage, you'll be able to customize your own style of turn-based fighting scenarios and add to that an endless number of your own magic abilities, weapons, or items), toggling camera positions (in a 3D world such as this, you'll have the ability to control the camera for battles, story moments, or even exploring the bowels of towns or dungeons), and capturing your fable's narrative points as you want to view them (you'll be able to build multiple story sequences defining where the camera shines, what the characters say, and what the character's actions are during this time) will all help to bring your RPG into a whole new level of real.

Being the maker of RPG Maker 2 with only so many possibilities available at your fingertips, it shouldn't be a surprise that the visuals won't be previously prepared to the level of say Final Fantasy X. But it's not much of a problem when the game can only look as bad as you want it to look as you choose what there is to see from a selection of texture effects, building or character models, and more. Interestingly, players will also have at their disposal the power to harness weather conditions upon their RPG's surface -- and night or day patterns too. There's even an option for loading in user made photographs when Sony's Picture Paradise program is connected to the console. Diversifying background music and audio effects will already come wrapped up in the game, unfortunately, as uploading MP3s or recorded voice tracks won't be a choice.