The JRPG that does everything wrong | - Arcane Raise - Review

Heya! Thank you to everyone that has stopped by to check out this video, and a special thank you to everyone that has been commenting! While I normally try to respond to every comment, this video has blown up waaay beyond what I could have expected, so I apologize if I miss yours! Also because a lot of comments mention this: Yes, I messed up. Dragon Quest should be the Grandad of JRPGs, not FF. And yes, I know that Aurum is Latin for Gold. I still think it's a dumb name though. I appreciate the feedback that everyone has been giving: the good and the bad. It all helps me to improve for the next video! If you came here just for the JRPG content, that's cool, but I hope you'll stick around to see where this crazy journey takes me - see you in the next one!

Nearly all the assets in this game, the character sprites and portraits, the enemy and area art, the menus, even the "nameless shade" text are all default assets from RPGMaker.

This is someone's first RPG maker project. It has no business being sold for money.

Man, I've heard of Steam dumpster diving, but this is like Steam geological core sampling.

You know what, I feel kinda compelled to make my first RPGMaker game just so that I could give Captain Angaelo the game he truly deserves.

This is as pure an RPGmaker asset flip as you can get. Every point of competence of the game is owed to RPGmaker's stuff rather than anything the "developers" actually did.

This is the kind of thing I made in high school while messing around in RPGmaker lmao. No excuse to charge money for something like this.

14:15 The reason why the thing turned into a chimera is that it’s an RPG Maker boss asset. Bosses can’t turn around, they only have one “front” sprite, therefore if you don’t lock their position RPG Maker will try to turn them if you talk to them at a different angle form the default one. That results into the sprite changing to whatever tre software thinks it’s the correct sprite, based on their position on the boss monster asset sheet. If the other assets didn’t already give it away, this’s the definite proof that the developer used RPG Maker to create a shallow game to earn a quick buck, with no care for making it work. I remember when I was in middle school I also tried to make a game with RPG Maker, but I would stay up late to fix the visual issues caused by the sprites or any problem that had to do with events…

The most foreshadowing of the game's quality I can see is at 8:34, the daggers at the shop... None of the characters can equip them.

Praised the game for an RPGMaker feature. Truly a game that is down in the dumps.

I love the idea of the final boss just hanging out in the hub town, there's so much potential in that idea. Like, say, they don't take you seriously and give you a Gruntilda-style taunt every time you come back to town. And the boss' motivations could be something interesting as well, like being your lost dad and secretly wanting you to succeed, or the boss is cursed with immortality and just wants sweet oblivion after watching everything they loved crumble over the centuries, and has started the bootcamp hoping to train a warrior strong enough to finally end their existence.

"And given that Anima is a magical type class, I equip her with a stereotypical mage weapon: a gun."

As an aspiring dev who uses RPG Maker, seeing this game disappoints me. I've played RPG Maker games that are fun and well-balanced, and even a few games that use default assets, but make up for it with lovable, memorable characters, and plots that can make me go as far as to break down in tears because they genuinely move me so much. RPG Maker is a powerful tool in the right hands. My hope is that aspiring devs will learn from games like this and make something better. It's okay to use default assets. I get it. Art is hard. But at least try to make a good game and not try to milk your players for their money.

Also, the reason the final boss reappeared is that there are two ways to remove an interactive element (event) from the map in RPG Mekr. The first is using the "Erase event" command, which removes the event from the map but will respawn it if the map is reloaded (ie. you leave and come back again) The second is using a variable and setting up the event so that it will deactivate when that variable has a certain value. Basically creating a "You beat the boss" variable and then making it so that the boss won't appear anymore if that variable is turned on. It's pretty much the most basic thing you can do in RPG Maker which isn't a basic function of the program that you can access with a single click, and the author didn't even do that.

For developers, it's really hard to get seen because of over-saturation. That is, projects like this and others basically have made Steam have like 70 releases a day. This is why I don't actually think there's oversaturation in seriously developed games. There's no oversaturation of serious developers, because 80% of these 'devs' are gold rushing into the celebrity of the idea of creating a video game. If you've ever been to a gaming convention or a game jam you realize that everyone and their dog is making a game, but few are really willing to put in a decade of sacrifice to it or actually take it very seriously. In the AAA world, there are literally talks about "well, you're going to release an unfinished buggy mess and that's okay you can just fix it later" and in the indie world there are literally talks of "well, you have to scale it back, don't make that ultimate dream project or reach for the stars", and this is where we are today in the industry.

Dev really likes latin. Aurum is latin for gold, umbra means shadow, anima has quite a few meaning (like mind, spirit or even heart), and sanctus means saint. Very straightfoward names for an RPG.

“A nameless shade” says the profile box of three characters each with names 😂 that sets up the quality of this game perfectly

Nameless Shades as rpg protagonists? ...A concept wasted on this game. Imagine: 3-6 possible backgrounds per character, randomly determined early in the playthrough, and as they continue their escape from the spirit world back to life, they remember more. ...This is a concept that would live or die based on the quality of its writing.

Based on the steam reviews it seems that the reason the "give all achievements" button exists is because it gives you in-store currency for steam that allows you to buy a wallpaper.

This game honestly feels to me like a prototype for a longer, better game, what with the unique currency name and the small bit of lore given to you in the town. It feels like a debug room more than anything.