RPG making goes portable

[09.21.99] » ASCII's latest installment in the Japan-only series brings RPG creation to your Game Boy Color.

    RPG fans were widely disappointed when ASCII decided earlier this year to pass up localizing RPG Maker, instead opting to bring Fighter Maker to the US. Unfortunately, fighting fans showed little desire to spend hours painstakingly creating and tweaking their characters when quality pre-built fighting games weren't hard to come by. RPG fans, however, have long demonstrated such anal-retentive qualities as arguing over the color of a character's hair and making death threats over a hero's last name. That being said, poor sales of Fighter Maker appear to have rendered a US version of RPG Maker extremely unlikely.

    The series will now be moving on to Game Boy Color (in Japan, at least) with the April release of RPG School GB. Gamers will once again be able to build an RPG from scratch, and while the scope is sure to be somewhat limited from the PSX version, plenty of customization options will be available. With the growing strength of the Game Boy RPG market in the US and recently announced translations of Dragon Quest Monsters and Pokémon Card, some brave publisher might just be tempted to translate this new RPG creation title when it hits Japan next year.