Considering, that out of all the RPG Maker Dante 98 releases out there, I've only played this and Azusa 999, I'm pretty pleased with my very short track record so far. I'm not super familiar with early RPG Maker games, but I do think that they're really intriguing, especially compared to the legacy titles made on later versions have. Not only are the games made on any version of the tool limited in a software sense, but the ones made on Dante 98 are limited a fair amount more by its hardware. So, it's cool to see how people got creative with it all and this one did not disappoint.
This game's pretty short, and surprisingly for an RPG Maker horror game does feature real RPG gameplay, though it's fairly simplistic, which is perfectly fine. I do also like that the simple puzzle elements the overworld gameplay has transfer nicely into the battle system as well.
Besides that, I really enjoyed the writing, and the fact that you could save several of the characters throughout the game. No one felt one-note, which for the size of the cast is great. The art is also of the era, but it looks great as well and is definitely something that makes it very easy to forget this whole game was made by two people using RPG Maker. For sure what surprised me the most, was the game's sense of humor. I thought it was going to be a wholly serious game, and while there are a good number of unnerving and mature aspects in it, there are lines of dialogue that completely caught me off-guard, since they're genuinely pretty funny. Not so much a creepy game for myself at least, but others' experience may vary of course.
A very well-made and engaging game on the whole, and I'll definitely replay it sometime (it's kinda comfy). Check out the English translation here, it comes with a pre-configed version of Neko Project II, and gives some details on the game's history, like some of the awards it rightfully got.
This game's pretty short, and surprisingly for an RPG Maker horror game does feature real RPG gameplay, though it's fairly simplistic, which is perfectly fine. I do also like that the simple puzzle elements the overworld gameplay has transfer nicely into the battle system as well.
Besides that, I really enjoyed the writing, and the fact that you could save several of the characters throughout the game. No one felt one-note, which for the size of the cast is great. The art is also of the era, but it looks great as well and is definitely something that makes it very easy to forget this whole game was made by two people using RPG Maker. For sure what surprised me the most, was the game's sense of humor. I thought it was going to be a wholly serious game, and while there are a good number of unnerving and mature aspects in it, there are lines of dialogue that completely caught me off-guard, since they're genuinely pretty funny. Not so much a creepy game for myself at least, but others' experience may vary of course.
A very well-made and engaging game on the whole, and I'll definitely replay it sometime (it's kinda comfy). Check out the English translation here, it comes with a pre-configed version of Neko Project II, and gives some details on the game's history, like some of the awards it rightfully got.