RPG Maker Dungeon #3: Nepheshel
Link: https://vittoneszone.tumblr.com/post/755815563100585984/nepheshel-english-translation
Originally published on November 7 2022
When folks think about Japanese games made in RPG Maker, I reckon they're often imagining horror titles like Ib or The Witch's House. Perhaps they might remember Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea if they were on Tumblr back in the day, or the Towelket titles if they've spent any time on 4chan. The truth is that the world of Japanese RPG Maker games is so much broader than that. Heck, the very first version of Corpse Party was released for the PC-98 back in 1996. These titles are as foundational to Japanese indie games as the Touhou series. Yet many of the most important games in this sphere have never been translated. To English speaking audiences, and even to many hobbyists in the English speaking RPG Maker scene, they may as well not exist.
Nepheshel was first released in June 2002. It's an exploration game where you play as a silent protagonist on an island of amnesiacs. You must explore long dungeons full of enemies and secret pathways, uncovering treasure and joining forces with powerful Djinn. When I say "full of enemies," by the way, I really mean it. The enemies are touch encounters, color coded by difficulty, and there are a lot of them. Even intermediate enemies can be a challenge when you first meet them, and hard enemies will always wipe the floor with you. Weapons and armor are expensive, and you quickly realize that your selection back in town are limited. The best way to become stronger is to find equipment in the dungeon, which often requires weaving between powerful foes as if you're in a bullet hell game. You quickly learn how to dodge, who to fight and when you should run.
Nepheshel is an impressive game in many ways. It relies on RTP graphics, but also features plenty of custom art, portraits and sprites. The music is original and excellent. That said, this is certainly a game from 2002. The mapping can be hit or miss, which is unfortunate for a game about exploring dungeons. The way that different classes of enemies are handled means that you typically have just three different types of encounters in a dungeon sub-section, which becomes repetitive quickly. Personally, I don't know if dodging enemies on a map is a substitute for good encounter design.
On the other hand, it's pretty bonkers that a game of Nepheshel's size and ambition was released in 2002. In the English-speaking RPG Maker scene, only a handful of titles like NigSek and A Blurred Line could compare to it (and the latter ended on a big cliffhanger.) Vampire's Dawn had come out one year earlier in Germany, but that game was not particularly playable for all its ambition. German cult classic Unterwegs in Dusterberg was a 2002 title, and was translated into English just a day before Nepheshel's English release. An incredible 24 hours in the English-language RPG Maker scene!
Just as important as Nepheshel are what came after it. The game provided the framework for a sub-genre of games made in the engine. A handful of titles have been translated into English, like Demon King Chronicle. The rest, including the popular Fanastasis and Alice Hole, are unknown in the United States. I'd love for these games to be accessible to a broader audience, but also: these titles foreshadow so much of what the RPG Maker scene is doing now. Before Weird and Unfortunate Things are Happening built out its carefully designed nightmare city, games in the Nepheshel lineage were already experimenting with hostile dungeons where resource management was key. RPG Maker games are now borrowing from Dark Souls, but Nepheshel was paying homage to King's Field 7 years before Demon's Souls.
We can never experience Nepheshel within the context of its release. I don't even know if I'd recommend it to folks in the same way that I push Ruina: Fairy Tale of the Forgotten Ruins on anybody who likes RPGs. But I do know that Nepheshel is a genuine piece of indie game history. I'm thankful that it has been made accessible to English-speaking audiences, and that folks like melos han-tani are playing it. The version we received has been patched to rectify issues in earlier releases of the game, so you could say the English-language edition of Nepheshel is the best it's ever been.