Miwashiba's Adorable RPGs

Today, I'd like to talk about a lesser known game developer called 'Miwashiba.' This Japanese developer has created various games in an RPG Maker program, specifically the WOLF RPG Editor. Miwashiba's games were initially released for free, but have since been released on Steam for a small price. In this article, I want to talk about said games - in a sense, this article will be a collection of mini 'Some Thoughts About' segments.

LiEat

LiEat on Steam is actually not one game, but a collection of 3 short games in the same series. It was released on Steam on February 26, 2016. LiEat takes place in a world where humans and dragons coexist; but the dragons in this world are magical, humanoid creatures that are each born with a special ability. The protagonist of all three games, Efina, is such a dragon. When people tell lies, she can allow them to manifest as physical creatures and eat them.

The LiEat games set a few standards that all of Miwashiba's future games adhere to: they're mainly focused on story, have bad endings you can run into if you fail critical battles or miss vital details and they all have truly adorable artwork. In LiEat specifically, the game looks alright in general, but the unique scenes drawn for important story moments are especially charming.

LiEat's gameplay is pretty basic. Outside of battle, you walk around and interact with objects and people from a top down perspective. Battles are much like in any turn-based RPG, and about as basic as it gets. The range of abilities is limited to attacks that hit single enemies, attacks that hit multiple enemies and healing. Aside from bosses, of which there are few, the enemies are also all the same.

The real fun comes before battles. After all, where would a lie detecting dragon be most useful? When solving crimes and mysteries, of course. At certain points a character will make a few statements, and these statements will manifest as little lie creatures. You need to fight the correct one to progress the story, although there's no penalty for fighting the wrong ones as well. The concept of listening to "testimonies" and figuring out the lies would return in 1BitHeart, but we'll get to that one a bit later.

There's a separate mystery in each of the three games, but there is an overarching story as well about Efina's true purpose. Dragons are always born to a specific human, for a specific purpose. But I don't want to spoil the story or its conclusion, so you'll have to play it to find out what it all leads to. Will you be able to find Efina's true purpose?

To summarize it briefly, LiEat is a set of 3 short RPGs with a focus on story, cute art and some light exploration and battling.

Alicemare

Alicemare was released on Steam on 22 November, 2016. It's quite different from LiEat and a lot more like other popular games made in RPG Maker and Wolf RPG Editor - it could easily be listed with games like Crooked Man, Mad Father, Ib and so on. While you can explore and interact like in LiEat, it has no combat and is purely based on exploration and puzzles. And while it still has cute art, it is tagged as horror and has some disturbing scenes.

In Alicemare, the player takes on the role of Allen, a young boy who ends up at a mysterious orphanage. Allen explores the dreams, or nightmares, of the other children at the orphanage and learns dark secrets about each of them as a result. As the name implies, the game draws some inspiration from Alice in Wonderland and its dreamlike setting, even featuring characters such as the White Rabbit and the Cheshire Cat.

The game has a good atmosphere, but is very simple in terms of actual gameplay. It also has many endings depending on a difficult choice you have to make at the end, but like so many RPG Maker games, a 'perfect' ending can be reached by collecting all the little items hidden in the dreams.

All in all, I really liked the game's atmosphere and visuals, but its gameplay was very basic and its story rather ambiguous. But it's a short and easy ride, so if you're looking for something a little spooky and atmospheric, you won't regret trying it.

So, in short, Alicemare is a purely exploration based Wolf RPG Editor game with light puzzle solving and a mysterious and spooky atmosphere.

1bitHeart

1bitHeart is Miwashiba's largest and most ambitious game project... as far as I know. It was released on Steam on August 28th, 2017.

The game is set in Japan, in the nearby future, where technology has progressed to a point where it dominates the lives of everyone. In this game we take on the role of Nanashi, a young man who spends most of his time indoors. He's quite intelligent, but rather socially awkward. He meets a girl called Misane and learns of a frightening plot to take control of people via hacking, which is entirely possible in this technology-dominated future where everyone is hooked up to technology one way or another. Together, the two set out to stop this evil plot and hopefully make some friends for the rather lonely Nanashi.

1bitHeart shares some fundamental qualities with the prior games, like the cute art and characters and mystery aspect, but there are many notable differences and improvements. First off, while the game is still mainly exploration based, it's a 2D side scroller now instead of using the top down perspective the other games did. I think this was a good decision; it makes going from A to B a lot more straightforward, and it allows for larger side view portraits of the game's many characters, which really allows the game to emphasize's Miwashiba's incredible skill at designing cute characters. The portraits themselves are also larger and much more detailed during dialogue.

The game doesn't have turn-based battles like LiEat, but it also doesn't solely hinge on exploration like Alicemare. Rather, it has its own unique systems. First, when hackers attempt to hack the player characters, you defend yourself with a series of directional inputs; it's pretty basic. The real fun happens during investigations and the subsequent confrontations. There are various cases to solve in the game's chapters, during which you gather evidence and information. You subsequently use this evidence in discussions with suspicious characters, in what is more or less a rudimentary version of the Cross Examinations in Ace Attorney or the Nonstop Debates in Danganronpa. Miwashiba clearly expressed an interest in mystery solving gameplay in LiEat, and 1bitHeart takes the next logical step.

Speaking of Danganronpa, the game takes some structural cues from that series. Between the chapters, you'll get the opportunity to give gifts to the characters that hang around the city and trigger unique scenes with them once you become better friends. This leads to one of the game's most impressive parts: There are actual dozens of characters spread across the city, and each has several fleshed out scenes that form an overarching story with a conclusion - which vary from heartwarming to sad to hilarious. The end goal, of course, is for these characters to become the main character's friends. And as I mentioned before, each character has a unique design. It's impossible to ignore the amount of love and effort that was put into this game. The backgrounds during dialogue could use a little work, though - they look like basic shapes with Photoshop filters applied to them. They do the job, but that's about it. They pale in comparison to the amazing characters.

Even so, there are things to criticize about the character interactions as well. Like I mentioned, you need gifts to build up your friendship with characters, but you need money to buy gifts. You get money by playing Tetris-type minigames. You can spend as much time befriending characters as you want between the chapters, but it'll take a lot of grinding to get enough money to befriend everyone. Fortunately, it seems the developer was aware of this weakness, as there is a secret in the game to acquire endless money, and thus, endless gifts. You do this by interacting with a secret panel in the virtual world where the minigames are played. I recommend this approach if you were planning to befriend all the characters. You probably don't want to be playing Tetris for hours just to get a few scenes.

The game's soundtrack is fine, but I was truly baffled by the clash between the art and the music during the first confrontation - when I was greeted with something I can't do justice by describing it. Just view the adorable characters and colors and then imagine this playing as you watch that:

However, most of the tracks suit the game and its pleasant atmosphere just fine:

Minor gripes aside, 1bitHeart is a truly impressive leap forward for Miwashiba. The game is comparatively long, consisting of several chapters, has a cast of dozens of characters with their own designs, stories and interactions, it has its own investigation and interrogation gameplay for mystery solving and so on. And of course, it has multiple endings, but I'll leave you to discover those for yourself!

1BeatHeart

Miwashiba has created a follow-up to 1bitHeart called 1BeatHeart, although it's focused more on muder mysteries than hacking and making friends. The art is even more detailed in this one, although it sheds some of its cuteness. Note the more muted colors:

This game has been translated, but is not officially released on Steam yet. I don't know if there are any plans to do so, which is why I've held off on playing it for now. If it turns out there are no plans, I may simply download the free version and share my thoughts at a later date. You can try the game yourself, if you're interested: http://vgperson.com/games/1beatheart.htm Do note that it'll spoil some events from 1bitHeart, though, so play that first if you care about chronological order.

The Faceless Double

Miwashiba has created an impressive library of adorable and interesting RPGs, but it's clear the well of creativity has not run dry. In fact, 'The Faceless Double' is currently in production, and is listed on Steam as 'coming soon' as of writing this article. We don't know a lot yet, but I'm already hooked just by reading the description:

"In this world, there sometimes appears a comet that grants wishes.
It is said that the comet will grant any wish – however, payment for a granted wish takes the form of a curse.
The people of this world called the comet “God”.

When Double awakened, he had lost his previous form.
He can’t remember how this happened.
Cloena proposes to Double that they embark on a journey to seek out God, in order to remove the curse."

Having a faceless, cursed figure seek out God sounds like a fascinating premise and invites you to speculate who this character, 'Double,' was before he lost his form and whether the 'God' in the story is benevolent, malevolent or neither. Either way, this journey of discovering one's purpose has been a prevailing theme in all of Miwashiba's games right from the start and I can't wait to see what new form it will take in this next adventure. From eating lies to exploring nightmares to saving the future from hackers to seeking out God - we're definitely going into new and exciting territory!

Closing Thoughts

I've been wanting to write this article for a long time. I discovered Miwashiba's RPGs just last year and immediately fell in love with the charming art and interesting settings. 1bitHeart is easily my favorite of the bunch, pushing both the art, mechanics and story to the best they've been, but all these games are worth playing as far as I'm concerned.

I'm also excited to try the game I haven't played yet, 1BeatHeart. I genuinely considered putting off this article to play through it first, but the game looks and feels so different from the other games that I think it needs its own article. I'm especially looking forward to seeing what Miwashiba makes of The Faceless Double as well, and hope we can expect an English version. Speaking of which...

Translators are often unsung heroes, so I want to give a quick shoutout to the individual who goes by 'vgperson.' If you've seen any Wolf RPG Editor or RPG Maker game from Japan translated to English, there's a good chance it was done by vgperson. They also make original works, and translate many things besides games as well. Check out vgperson's website to see what I mean: http://vgperson.com/

In writing this article, I misspelled Miwashiba's name as 'Miwashibi' and 'Miwashabi' various times, proving that I'm not good with Japanese names. I hope I haven't left any of those errors in here.

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And that's it! Hopefully, I've convinced you to try at least one of these games! Or if you've tried them already, can you let me know what you think? Are there obscure RPG Maker or WOLF RPG Editor games I should know about? All comments are appreciated.

Oh, and if you've come this far, I'm doing a little secret giveaway. The first person who posts "Efina eats a lie" in the comments gets a Steam code for one of the first three games, LiEat, Alicemare or 1bitHeart (your choice). I wonder if anyone will get it...?