RPG Developer Bakin Editor Early Access Review

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Introduction RPG Developer Bakin is the "new" RPG Maker-esque engine on the block. I say "new" because it's actually created SmileBoom, who made Smile Game Builder, another RPG Maker-esque engine. They're no strangers to what an RPG needs and it shows with Bakin. However, the question is, does Bakin do what RPG Maker MZ does better or is there some work to be done? Now that Early Access is out for Bakin, let's take a look at what Bakin has to offer. Keep in mind that since this is Earth Access, it means that not everything is finalized and that's potentially more to come. This is an article written by Yanfly. Creating a New Project When creating a new project, we're greeted with this screen. By answering the questions asked of the guide, it helps kickstart your game dev experience. This can become potentially tedious but overall, I like it when using the program casually. Here, we enter the game's title, subtitle, and the name of the creator. Sadly, there's a limit of 18 characters each. This may or may not be a problem for some games, but I know for certain languages (ie. German), this can become a big issue. For other languages like Japanese or Chinese, this is a very small issue. Here, we decide if we want to use assets provided by Bakin or just leave it empty. For those coming from RPG Maker, this is where you decide if you want the RTP (Runtime Package) aka default assets. This can be a time saver for those who want to create a minimalist project or a project with completely unique assets and don't want to waste time having to remove everything. RPG Developer Bakin is interesting in how it handles the player character. In RPG Maker, the player character is determined by the first character in the player's party. In Bakin, it's a separate entity. This can be either a blessing or a curse. It can be a blessing for those who wish for more autonomy with a "leader but not fighter" type of playstyle (akin to Pokémon). Or it can be a curse for those who swap out their party members constantly (akin to Octopath Traveler). Characters in Bakin can be either 3D models that turn as the camera moves or 2D stamps that will always appear flat on the screen to the player's camera angle. This is where things get interesting. You get to choose your camera angle that's best fit for your game. There are four of them and they can all make for some very interesting gameplay decisions. The "Player Central" view is the classic camera angle you see with games like Final Fantasy 7. The "Player Rear View" works best with games that put emphasis on seeing the environment like most Western RPG's. The "First-Person View" works well with dungeon crawlers like Etrian Odyssey. The "Side View" is for RPG platformers like MapleStory. Having the ability to pick and choose from these is absolutely fantastic in my opinion. The Operation Method determines how controls are handled. Top View Operation is classic press left to move left, press down to move down. A lot of JRPG's use this. Tank Controls is where it gets interesting. Press left/right to turn the player and up/down to move forward or backward. This is the control scheme for some classic games like Resident Evil. Side View Operation lets the player travel in a plane horizontally akin to a platformer. I think giving these control schemes to the player is great and opens up a lot of gaming possibilities. Next Topic