rudra – RPG Maker Historia

Created By: Legacy001
Release Date: March 2006 (Original Release)
Engine: RM2003

RM authors were known for their naughty game rips. Typically if you wanted graphics from an existing game, there would be resources fitted to RM’s specifications. If not, there’d at least be a sprite sheet online somewhere to edit from. Except the game Rose Chronicles took from didn’t have that luxury. The author ripped the sprites directly from a game called Hoshigami, then formated it to rm2k3 himself. Not only that but the characters were isometric. Since rm2k/3 can only do diagonal movement in special cases, Legacy001 opted for some comprimises. The payoff? The game ends up exhibiting a distinct look compared to other rm2k/3 games.

Yes. You have no idea how much pain I had to go through playing that game to get the sprites. It’s also as bad as trying to stick nonconforming sprites into a 24X32 charaset. (which doesn’t work by the way).
Legacy001, GW post circa November 25, 2005

Rose Chronicles follows Roselle as she goes 7 years into the past to prevent a tragedy from occurring. The game plays similar to a 2005 GBA game: Riviera. In which you are not able to move a character around the map, but rather drag a cursor around clicking on nodes to advance the story. In-between all of that are some battles done in RM2K3’s DBS which I might add contain a lot of neat details. The background interchanges between edited chipsets meant for top-down RPGs and backgrounds from Legend of Mana. It somehow comes together cohesively.

What I love about this demo the most is the characters. The way future Roselle collides with herself from the past and how loud mouth Marise disrupts it a little, makes for a fun RPG party to follow. There is a very Ivalice-like atmosphere to the world, and yet this isn’t a tactics game. I think this jumble of genres proves why RPG Maker needed to exist. There were only so many games mainstream JRPG developers could make, and once the trends come and go there was little chance for them to experiment. With the aid of clever ripping, RM allowed waves of games to follow up on that.

This started just as a side project Legacy001 worked on to take a break from doing the Naufragar series. Though it’s understandable why the project took too much effort to continue working on. In the end it ended up being one of the more memorable demos of the mid-GW era.

Estimated length: 4-6 Hours

Misao Award 2006:
Best looking (graphically) game for 2006

Download 3.2 Version (3 Chapters) (Archive)
Download First Chapter Demo 1.1 (Archive)

Why Rose Chronicles is the Perfect RPG Maker Project (GW Archive Post)
Mention in RPG Maker games you should try Part II
Mention on a Polish site as the top 3 RM English games

Youtube Sample Playthrough

Created by: Carius
Date Released: Nov 2005 / Early 2007 (Demo Remake)
Engine: RM2003

The author Carius was usually known around the GamingWorld community as a keen event programmer. Usually making tech demos for contests and tutorials on how to tackle RM2K3’s many limitations. Despite this reputation he did manage to crank out a more conventional JRPG called Wings of Origin. Starting out as a DBS contest entry, it’s essentially a visual novel with no player exploration with a few battles here and there.

Angel-like people known as “Airfolk” rule the skies. However, the protagonist Takeo is banished from flying ever again. An emotive and vengeful story combined with the use of Brave Fencer Musashi tracks made this small demo stick with me. It’s a ride full of twists and turns all in 18 minutes. What I like most about the writing is that we’re never quite sure of Takeo’s exact motivations for wanting to abandon his grounded life for revenge. The plot presumably sets up Takeo’s son as the actual protagonist. There’s a mysterious figure that appears at the beginning and my hunch is that it might be Takeo’s son from the future. This game will never be completed so we’ll never know! But it says a lot about how much this game accomplishes in such a short time.

There’s actually 3 versions of the game. The DBS contest entry, the 2005 story demo, and the 2007 remake of said demo. The 2005 one is the one I remember, even now I still prefer it though. The music choices are just better in my opinion. The art/mapping might be slightly improved in the 2007 one, but it’s still a general mishmash of Star Ocean / Tales of Phantasia / Rudra. There is interesting DBS experimentation in it but I really just like this demo for the story and the abundant night sky atmosphere.