What's it about? I've never heard of it
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Cave Story Tribute Site Forums
X-Calibar
It was the Cave Story of RPG rpgmaker games to me; in how lasting an impression it left.
The Way... "What is the way?"
It's a community award winning RPGmaker game released in 5 episodes.
What's it about... In my words, it's about a character named Rhue, a character who singularly seeks a girl named Serena. With unsteady memory, and a sharp blade he continously travels through a world of shifting dangerous mist, that forces people to migrate often to avoid being swallowed by the unknown. Along the journey, he will cross paths with a large cast. Perhaps joining forces temporarily as goals align, or crossing blades with the plunge, a duel system. He'll find himself entangled in plots and troubles, and I believe there are a variety of meaningful choices to be made which have some far reaching consequence.
Here's the official description for ep1:
Ep1:
"The Way follows the story of Rhue of Landorin, a young wanderer on a quest to regain a piece of his past. He's been searching the Way for many years already as Episode 1 begins. With his hopes diminishing further and further each day, he is setting a frantic pace for himself, desperate for a simple clue that might help guide him to that which he lost so many years ago. However, his situation and that of many others is about to become quite deadly as a shadow killer begins a murderous spree of destruction along the Way."
The creator of The Way has gone on to work on several other games that I know of:
The Way is a raw experience. RPGmaker graphics with occasional impressive rendered backgrounds, a large range of midi songs from various games however some nice originals; complicated RPGmaker events, mini-games and unique systems, along with classic RPGmaker battles... It was a very expansive experience at the time. He had a way of telling a compelling story that grew more refined and larger in scope each episode, and to this day I'll still attest to its worth against modern offerings. (Though, it has been what, 14 something years??? So, I'll have to replay it sometime to prove it still deserves such praise.)
Anyway, I think it was pretty popular in the RPGmaker community once upon a time... It doesn't even have downloads up on the official site anymore, huh.
RPGmaker.net appears down but it has a filehosting link here which appears to have it: https://rmn.rmarchiv.de/
It would probably make a good let's play~
The Way... "What is the way?"
It's a community award winning RPGmaker game released in 5 episodes.
What's it about... In my words, it's about a character named Rhue, a character who singularly seeks a girl named Serena. With unsteady memory, and a sharp blade he continously travels through a world of shifting dangerous mist, that forces people to migrate often to avoid being swallowed by the unknown. Along the journey, he will cross paths with a large cast. Perhaps joining forces temporarily as goals align, or crossing blades with the plunge, a duel system. He'll find himself entangled in plots and troubles, and I believe there are a variety of meaningful choices to be made which have some far reaching consequence.
Here's the official description for ep1:
Ep1:
"The Way follows the story of Rhue of Landorin, a young wanderer on a quest to regain a piece of his past. He's been searching the Way for many years already as Episode 1 begins. With his hopes diminishing further and further each day, he is setting a frantic pace for himself, desperate for a simple clue that might help guide him to that which he lost so many years ago. However, his situation and that of many others is about to become quite deadly as a shadow killer begins a murderous spree of destruction along the Way."
The creator of The Way has gone on to work on several other games that I know of:
The Way is a raw experience. RPGmaker graphics with occasional impressive rendered backgrounds, a large range of midi songs from various games however some nice originals; complicated RPGmaker events, mini-games and unique systems, along with classic RPGmaker battles... It was a very expansive experience at the time. He had a way of telling a compelling story that grew more refined and larger in scope each episode, and to this day I'll still attest to its worth against modern offerings. (Though, it has been what, 14 something years??? So, I'll have to replay it sometime to prove it still deserves such praise.)
Anyway, I think it was pretty popular in the RPGmaker community once upon a time... It doesn't even have downloads up on the official site anymore, huh.
RPGmaker.net appears down but it has a filehosting link here which appears to have it: https://rmn.rmarchiv.de/
It would probably make a good let's play~
Jade
The trailer looks so of its era but wow it's pretty ambitious all things considered. I honestly miss when games tried to mix 2D and 3D that much, it's mostly gone away now that 3D is so accessible. I'm a sucker for classic-style JRPGs so maybe remind me to play it after I've moved out 
That sparkling star thing looks familiar.....
Oh hey I have that learn japanese game wishlisted on steam, it's awesome to see it finally came out!
That sparkling star thing looks familiar.....
Oh hey I have that learn japanese game wishlisted on steam, it's awesome to see it finally came out!
X-Calibar
I'll try to bring it up again. It may be a relic of a bygone indie RPGmaker era xD But it had a spark...
Which reminds me I still need to get Moon RPG which was recommended to me by Mint... a while ago... That looks like a prime example of mixing 2D and 3D? (A game that influenced Undertale apparently.)
Oh and yes, I can vouch for that learn japanese game x) It's silly but, probably one of the better story based (if not the best language games I've tried.) Way... more comical, but a similar style of writing as the... Way. (And helped beta test a bit!)
Which reminds me I still need to get Moon RPG which was recommended to me by Mint... a while ago... That looks like a prime example of mixing 2D and 3D? (A game that influenced Undertale apparently.)
Oh and yes, I can vouch for that learn japanese game x) It's silly but, probably one of the better story based (if not the best language games I've tried.) Way... more comical, but a similar style of writing as the... Way. (And helped beta test a bit!)
Mint
Moon mentioned, sorry for the wall of text.
About the whole 2d+3d thing, Moon shows that it used to be a PS1 game because it used prerendered backgrounds just like Square's games (ie Saga Frontier or Final Fantasy, worth noting that a lot of the devs were ex-Square employees and a bunch worked on SMRPG).
A number of characters (the monsters you have to help and some other characters) are a bit more unique in that they use claymation instead of just CGs and sprites, which defenitely did give a 3D effect back then.
The Undertale influence mainly comes from the "RPG deconstruction" angle.
The plot centers on a hero that sets out to defeat a dragon that stole the moon and does so in typical JRPG fashion by going around massacring monsters for EXP (which is highlighted as a negative thing).
The game itself is more akin to a walking simulator where you're just walking around doing quests and saving monsters' souls to raise your 'Love Level' (which increases your stamina, wander too much without sleeping or eating and you faint and game over). Essentially youre given more of a NPC perspective than one of the rpg hero.
It's a little on the vague side (Being a product of it's time, you'll really want to read a manual) but it's an interesting experience if you like walking sim-esque games with a bit more purpose.
Perhaps worth mentioning that some of the people involved are now working on a new game in what looks to be a similiar vibe (rpg deconstruction aside) to Moon. (Of which the director said it would be his last game before retiring)
About the whole 2d+3d thing, Moon shows that it used to be a PS1 game because it used prerendered backgrounds just like Square's games (ie Saga Frontier or Final Fantasy, worth noting that a lot of the devs were ex-Square employees and a bunch worked on SMRPG).
A number of characters (the monsters you have to help and some other characters) are a bit more unique in that they use claymation instead of just CGs and sprites, which defenitely did give a 3D effect back then.
The Undertale influence mainly comes from the "RPG deconstruction" angle.
The plot centers on a hero that sets out to defeat a dragon that stole the moon and does so in typical JRPG fashion by going around massacring monsters for EXP (which is highlighted as a negative thing).
The game itself is more akin to a walking simulator where you're just walking around doing quests and saving monsters' souls to raise your 'Love Level' (which increases your stamina, wander too much without sleeping or eating and you faint and game over). Essentially youre given more of a NPC perspective than one of the rpg hero.
It's a little on the vague side (Being a product of it's time, you'll really want to read a manual) but it's an interesting experience if you like walking sim-esque games with a bit more purpose.
Perhaps worth mentioning that some of the people involved are now working on a new game in what looks to be a similiar vibe (rpg deconstruction aside) to Moon. (Of which the director said it would be his last game before retiring)
Jade
OHHHH SHIT ok that's pretty fucking awesome.
I'll 100% be checking out the way once I've settled into my apartment, I haven't sat down and played through a game in a while ngl
I'll 100% be checking out the way once I've settled into my apartment, I haven't sat down and played through a game in a while ngl
X-Calibar
Thanks Mint, I approve of that wall xD.
I've been patiently holding out for a big discount, (maybe one of the symptoms of collecting too much) ...but it is right up my alley. I'm always looking for games that try something unique.
(I can't help imagine it would make for a wild animated movie from my impression...)
I'll shout out "catch!" when I finally play it
That new game is looking good too btw... hope it comes to PC...!
And Jade, I really do hope you enjoy it! Oh and if you want me to at some point, I could try to look up modern amenities like soundfonts and potential launchers/upscalers for RPGmaker. Sometimes old games can be a headache to run on newer systems.
I've been patiently holding out for a big discount, (maybe one of the symptoms of collecting too much) ...but it is right up my alley. I'm always looking for games that try something unique.
(I can't help imagine it would make for a wild animated movie from my impression...)
I'll shout out "catch!" when I finally play it
That new game is looking good too btw... hope it comes to PC...!
And Jade, I really do hope you enjoy it! Oh and if you want me to at some point, I could try to look up modern amenities like soundfonts and potential launchers/upscalers for RPGmaker. Sometimes old games can be a headache to run on newer systems.
Jade
Thanks for letting me know, I run Windows 11 64 bit on an AMD GPU and CPU.
X-Calibar
I'm running Win10 64bit on a Nvidia/Intel so can't give assurances with my testing D:
Here's what I found so far: (This ended up being longer than anticipated lol)
Sorry for that massive wall xD In any case, maybe it'll be curious to note my findings.
Here's what I found so far: (This ended up being longer than anticipated lol)
I'd say try running the game vanilla using its RPG_RT.exe and see if that works well. I'd also suggest unless you want the game to change desktop resolution to fullscreen automatically each time, make a shortcut, and under target: add this to it \RPG_RT.exe" "_" "_" "Window"
(The "_" "_" are just ignored parameters.)
However... if you do run into some kind of issue playing it, you can try using EasyRPG - https://easyrpg.org/
Drop its Player.exe into its directory and run it on virtually any device, PC, mobile, even a browser? Though in my short testing, I noticed a couple minor graphical differences in its emulation. (Less fog effect, different text font, etc. Uncertain without playing through the game if any major issues would show up.) I seemed to be able to switch back and forth between EasyRPG and RPG_RT with the save file, so it's probably fine to switch between them if you run into issues?)
(Actually during testing things, at one point I ran into some strange input problems with the vanilla RPG_RT.exe. I'm not certain I figured it out what caused it, though the last thing random thing I did was remove an Amazon Show Device from the network... Alexa are you hacking me...?) I did find that this weird solution helped in most cases momentarily: https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/inde...ames-not-responding-to-keyboard-input.160887/
Probably should have just rebooted, but I wanted to find out what suddenly was causing it.
As for improving MIDI, I went down a little rabbit hole looking at what I could do.
First off, the simplest PC solution in most cases seems to be using Coolsoft's VirtualMIDISynth: https://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth
"VirtualMIDISynth is a software MIDI synthesizer implemented as a Windows multimedia user driver, accessible as a standard MIDI Out device."
This allows you to load soundfonts to replace the default Microsoft synths. I made a video once upon a time:
It should work with Win11. Pretty sure just installing virtualMIDIsynth will make any basic apps that call MIDI generally open it up. There *was* a default MIDI Mapper section that was grayed out, at least before I installed another optional program I'll mention in a minute.
Finally, you'll just need soundfonts to pair with it.
This one seemed average: (28 MBs)
Place that on top of the loaded soundfont chain, active (click the octagon to green if it isn't active.)
And I might suggest putting this one below it
Musyng, which might need a soundfont program to extract the sfpack file D: (1.6 GBs)
(It will look to the bottom soundfont last):
EDIT: Watched that old video and this should be the soundfont from the video, I guess that's the one I used long ago?:
Alternatively, you can just download any soundfont you want and create your own flavor, or enjoy Microsoft's default
...Or instead of soundfonts, if you're a musician who has worked with VST instruments in a DAW (or want to try things); I found a program called VST MIDI Driver.
This alternative will allow you to load up VSTi's to play MIDIs in apps like RPGmaker as well; soundfonts are easier to work with, though less powerful.
If you download that you'll probably need this:
This allows you to choose the default MIDI device for apps that don't specify, like RPGmaker; otherwise it'll just be microsoft or something.
If you wanted a VSTi well... One old one I liked was Edirol HQ Orchestral. Maybe it's free now? I searched Edirol Orchestral, and unless I'm being trolled, it says discontinued and free? Supposedly you can get that too. If you're curious, I'll download it from a link to make sure it's safe.
And just for fun, all that lead me to download loopMIDI, which can create a virtual loopback port. ...Meaning: create a port, change the default port using midimapper, then RPGmaker's music can play through a DAW like Reaper, to use anything under the sun to customize your live music like a pro xD Overkill much?
Though... if *someone* were to just record the best rendered MIDI output; and insert it back into the game... Well then you don't have to worry about anything extra xD (Except a larger download.)
Or just go with Microsoft D:
As for upscaling solutions...
There's one called Lossless Scaling for 6.99$ retail on Steam. Pretty handy little program for all sorts of games that don't upscale well. Moreso if you have a good GPU with some of its options. Though I used to use an older version that was less demanding for my previous PC.
And lastly, there's a free powerful upscaler called Magpie:
It can produce some nice results for games with its plentiful customizable options, but probably needs a recent GPU for some things. Or limited FPS.
(The "_" "_" are just ignored parameters.)
However... if you do run into some kind of issue playing it, you can try using EasyRPG - https://easyrpg.org/
Drop its Player.exe into its directory and run it on virtually any device, PC, mobile, even a browser? Though in my short testing, I noticed a couple minor graphical differences in its emulation. (Less fog effect, different text font, etc. Uncertain without playing through the game if any major issues would show up.) I seemed to be able to switch back and forth between EasyRPG and RPG_RT with the save file, so it's probably fine to switch between them if you run into issues?)
(Actually during testing things, at one point I ran into some strange input problems with the vanilla RPG_RT.exe. I'm not certain I figured it out what caused it, though the last thing random thing I did was remove an Amazon Show Device from the network... Alexa are you hacking me...?) I did find that this weird solution helped in most cases momentarily: https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/inde...ames-not-responding-to-keyboard-input.160887/
Probably should have just rebooted, but I wanted to find out what suddenly was causing it.
As for improving MIDI, I went down a little rabbit hole looking at what I could do.
First off, the simplest PC solution in most cases seems to be using Coolsoft's VirtualMIDISynth: https://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth
"VirtualMIDISynth is a software MIDI synthesizer implemented as a Windows multimedia user driver, accessible as a standard MIDI Out device."
This allows you to load soundfonts to replace the default Microsoft synths. I made a video once upon a time:
Finally, you'll just need soundfonts to pair with it.
This one seemed average: (28 MBs)
Place that on top of the loaded soundfont chain, active (click the octagon to green if it isn't active.)
And I might suggest putting this one below it
Musyng, which might need a soundfont program to extract the sfpack file D: (1.6 GBs)
(It will look to the bottom soundfont last):
EDIT: Watched that old video and this should be the soundfont from the video, I guess that's the one I used long ago?:
Alternatively, you can just download any soundfont you want and create your own flavor, or enjoy Microsoft's default
...Or instead of soundfonts, if you're a musician who has worked with VST instruments in a DAW (or want to try things); I found a program called VST MIDI Driver.
This alternative will allow you to load up VSTi's to play MIDIs in apps like RPGmaker as well; soundfonts are easier to work with, though less powerful.
If you download that you'll probably need this:
This allows you to choose the default MIDI device for apps that don't specify, like RPGmaker; otherwise it'll just be microsoft or something.
If you wanted a VSTi well... One old one I liked was Edirol HQ Orchestral. Maybe it's free now? I searched Edirol Orchestral, and unless I'm being trolled, it says discontinued and free? Supposedly you can get that too. If you're curious, I'll download it from a link to make sure it's safe.
And just for fun, all that lead me to download loopMIDI, which can create a virtual loopback port. ...Meaning: create a port, change the default port using midimapper, then RPGmaker's music can play through a DAW like Reaper, to use anything under the sun to customize your live music like a pro xD Overkill much?
Though... if *someone* were to just record the best rendered MIDI output; and insert it back into the game... Well then you don't have to worry about anything extra xD (Except a larger download.)
Or just go with Microsoft D:
As for upscaling solutions...
There's one called Lossless Scaling for 6.99$ retail on Steam. Pretty handy little program for all sorts of games that don't upscale well. Moreso if you have a good GPU with some of its options. Though I used to use an older version that was less demanding for my previous PC.
And lastly, there's a free powerful upscaler called Magpie:
It can produce some nice results for games with its plentiful customizable options, but probably needs a recent GPU for some things. Or limited FPS.
Great old game. Wanted to give it a facelift, but only did a little work towards it.