So, you want to create your own video game? In the past, that may have been a pipe dream for some, depending on your experience, knowledge and budget. However, as time has progressed, a range of development software suites has emerged, enabling even a single person with a dream and sufficient time to develop their ideas into a fully fledged idea. One such series from Japan, is RPG Maker by Enterbrain (now Gotcha Gotcha Games). Although it was officially released in the West many years later with RPG Maker XP, it has been available in Japan since 1992. Generally, the series has been limited to PC, except for a few overly ambitious 3D RPG builders on the PlayStation 2, followed more recently by attempts to bring the classic RPG-making experience to the Nintendo 3DS. In 2025, Gotcha Gotcha Games has partnered with developer Nippon Ichi Software America (NIS America) to offer a new console-exclusive instalment, RPG Maker WITH, for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5. But how does developing a game on console while using a console fare? Read on to find out!
The opening hours of RPG Maker WITH waste no time proving how much of the venerable PC toolkit has survived the leap to the console. Within minutes, you can be painting grass tiles, stamping a cobblestone lane, and populating it with townsfolk pulled from a surprisingly deep starter database, with the familiar layer system, event wizard, and enemy editor all present and accounted for, with some tweaks made for running it typically with a controller. That said, the first cracks may appear quickly if you want to stretch beyond the prefab assets and into customising your game beyond the default. The lack of PC-style scripting leaves specific ideas stranded at the concept stage, and I feel that, given what the community has managed to craft over the years, a variety of combat systems and interfaces would be readily available. You can absolutely rough‑draft a small quest, wire up a basic battle flow, and even stage a cut scene. Yet anything more exotic demands clunky workarounds or outright compromise. Still, for those crucial opening hours, the breadth of tiles, character sprites, and music tracks is more than enough to keep inspiration humming while you discover where the walls are.
Whether you’re nudging tiles with Joy‑Cons on the Switch or a DualSense on PlayStation, controller‑only creation never quite feels natural. The shortcut wheel helps, and cursor speed is serviceable, but the moment you need to rename a variable, reorder events, or mass‑edit database entries, the façade crumbles. Text input via the on‑screen keyboard is outright painful, and even basic menu navigation becomes a dance of mis‑presses thanks to the UI’s bright, fatigue‑inducing palette. Plugging in a USB keyboard – or at least relying on the Switch’s touchscreen – transforms the experience from fiddly to somewhat fluid; without it, expect frequent stutters in your creative momentum.
Delving into the database menus is where RPG Maker WITH starts to feel like proper game development rather than enthusiastic tile‑stamping. It is once again designed with the ethos that anyone should be able to use it to build the foundations of a game without a lick of code. Every weapon, skill, enemy troop, and status effect is editable through neatly tabbed windows, and most parameters are explained with context-sensitive pop-ups. The upside is granular control: you can tweak the slime’s poison chance down to a single percentage point or adjust how sharply a mage’s intelligence curve ramps. The downside is that balance testing becomes a manual grind as there’s no simulation tool, so expect a loop of edit → quick‑play → edit → repeat. Veterans of older PC versions will also miss plugin support, meaning there is no way to “improve” the database menus, so to speak. Furthermore, although there are numerous controls, it can be perceived as clunky when compared to the relatively consistent and uniform design offered in most RPG Maker releases.
RPG crafters can also take advantage of RPG Maker WITH’s response to the lack of being able to download a plugin off the internet, the Maker Plaza. In theory, this is a game-changer, making game crafting potentially even simpler, as it allows you to discover and download an event bundle or asset to slot into your project. In practice, early pickings were a mixed bag, and during my playtesting, I would hardly say there was much on offer from the community, mostly half-finished demos or concepts if that. However, who knows where it will grow in the future?
Out of the box, RPG Maker WITH ships with two broad visual themes, fantasy and modern sci-fi, plus a healthy stash of music and SFX. Yet veterans will immediately notice what’s missing: the modular portrait generator, random NPC maker, and several tile sets and other assets that came standard. Those that return, if they do that, return as paid downloadable content, with pricing up to a staggering three figures. The upside is that every add‑on drops straight into your project with zero hassle; the downside is creative déjà vu if you stick to stock art and sticker shock if you don’t. Especially if you are like me and have one of the PC releases of RPG Maker, you will undoubtedly have more assets at your disposal – either as part of more affordable DLC or completely free via community, self-crafted or through the range of software focused on developing such assets. Complicating matters further is a Nintendo/Sony profanity filter so aggressive that even benign words can be censored, forcing writers to tiptoe or lean on euphemisms should they want their games to be anything but PG.
On a technical side of things, while the more classic styles of RPGs you will typically create shouldn’t test either the Nintendo Switch or PlayStation consoles to their limit, they perform very well overall. However, the inability to export a standalone build, and with RPG Maker WITH, ultimately positions itself within a cosy console sandbox rather than a stepping-stone to commercial release – the experience is solid for tinkering, less so for anyone chasing dreams of offering their RPG on the Nintendo eShop, PlayStation Store or even a PC platform like Steam.
At the outset of this review, I wondered whether developing a game for a console could truly live up to the PC-dominant legacy of the RPG Maker franchise. After dozens of test maps and more than enough time fiddling with numbers in the Database System, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. RPG Maker WITH delivers the core fantasy of solo creation on the couch, complete with a sturdy map editor, generous starter assets and a promising (in theory) community plaza. Yet it just as readily undercuts that dream with fidgety controller input, an over‑protective filter, and the nickel‑and‑dime creep of DLC that should have been stock. If you have no access to a PC and value portability above all else, RPG Maker WITH is a serviceable springboard. However, anyone hoping for the depth, flexibility, and community richness of the desktop versions will hit the console ceiling sooner rather than later.
Final Score for RPG Maker WITH
This review was conducted on both digital PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch versions of RPG Maker WITH, with review codes kindly provided by NIS America to facilitate this.
RPG Maker WITH is now available on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 via the PlayStation Store, and Nintendo Switch via the Nintendo eShop.
