>RPG maker 95- is an RPG creating and editing program originally made in japanese but now has been translated and is fully usable to the public. The program of course, allows you to create your own Role playing games, in the style of Dragon Warrior or Final Fantasy. There are 4 tilesets included, which are used to create the towns, maps, etc.., which can be later edited by hand or added with different ones . You can change everything from magic spells how much damage they do to the name of towns aswell as stats and pictures of all monsters you choose. The RPG maker 95 uses mainly MIDIs and WAVs for the sound.

>Rpg Maker 2000 (2k)-Role playing game creating and editing program Rpg Maker2000 is the successor to Rpg Maker 95. Rpg Maker 2000 is in Full English. You must get the RTP Package also from program download page if you wish to make games with preset monsters, chara sets, tilesets, battle screens and animations, and the system graphics, and some music. Basically its all fairly straight forward, you can learn more about it and how to use it by reading the ReadMe and the FAQ's on how to use the program.

>RPG Maker 2003- was released by Enterbrain - now no more a subsidiary of ASCII, but an independent company - on 2002-12-18. It is more or less an upgrade to RPG Maker 2000, and to a certain degree backwards compatible. You can import RM2k games into RM2k3. As soon as you edit them in any way however, they will run no more under the old program.

If you are looking for resources like chipsets or charsets, or for tutorials dealing with the basics or even with advanced game mechanics, you should head over to the RPG Maker 2000 section, since none of this has changed. The only real new resources are battle charsets (of which there are still few), and the only thing that was really changed is the battle system. And even here, all the old battle events still work.

In general, I do not recommend switching to RM2k3, unless you want to buy it (a commendable motivation), or you really, really, absolutely want to have a Final Fantasy-type, side-view, action turn based battle system. I will outline my thoughts on this subject at a later date, right now I have just gathered all the information I could find.

>Rpg Maker XP-With the newest RPG Maker product, you can make a better RPG than ever! With an interface similar to that of other RPG Maker products, RPG Maker XP carries forward the RPG Maker series's reputation for approachability. Modelled after RPG Maker 2000, the map and battle graphics, as well as the included premade graphics, have been upgraded. By popular demand, this edition introduces new "scripting features". Now both beginners and advanced users can get the most out of RPG Maker!

Minimum System Requirements
OS: Windows 98 / 98SE / ME / 2000 / XP Japanese Version
CPU: Intel PentiumIII 800MHz or better
RAM: 128MB or more
Video: 1024x768 High Color
Sound: DirectSound Compatible card
Hard Drive Space: 100MB or more

They are still planning for Rpg MAker 3D for PC and I anticipate that it will be better than Rpg MAker 2 on PS2. Because you can get better (and more) resources than the pre-loaded crap on the Sony version. Lets just hope it gets translated soon. And if anyone gets info on the new maker please PM me.

I don't really see the longterm point of these RPGMakers. If your planning to market a game using these commercial RPGMakers, no one is going to buy it. If your only planning to distribute it too friends, it won't be that fun and it wil eventually be a waste of time. It might give you some coding experience and graphic design experience, but thats quite about it.