I finished it just yesterday, I liked it, quite a lot. Not really a game though, in fact it goes further than that, I don't think it would have been worse off at all if it had no interactivity/slapped on game elements. Consider it a graphic novel when you go to buy it. I would say the story is worth it.

I liked the ones by JohnWizard. They don't stand out from the crowds visually, but the writing is excellent.

http://www.johnwizard.com

The entire Aveyond series is typical jRPG stuff, quality is middling but there's a charm to it. Combat system is garbage. Pretty much no other unique systems... just exploring, cutscenes, and fighting. I finished them, but I can't really recommend them unless you love the free demos. Skip Aveyond 1 though. The rest are much better designed and you won't miss anything storywise. Not much experience with the others on GamersGate outside their free demos.

There's a lot of other commercial RM games. Many are terrible, but some stand out. The Aveyond creators help a lot of people sell them on their own website:

http://www.amaranthia.com

"Deadly Sin" was recommended by friends... the developer put some real effort into the combat system, though I've never tried it because I'm not a fan of challenges. "Eternal Eden" I enjoyed enough to pay $20 for, but it's not everyone's cup of tea.

I always thought games 'written' with RPGMaker (2000 or otherwise) were supposed to be freeware, like those made with Klik 'n Play or Game Maker.

Not sure why "professionally made JRPGs" earn default StingingVelvet priority... not that these RPGMaker games are a good place to start. Agreed. Surprised the majority of GOG users don't feel this way...

Stealth Bastard was made in Game Maker...

I wonder if anyone still plays Icy Towers.

Aren't the majority of games that GOG sells originally created in C based engines?

Those people are martyrs.

Indeed. We have Fortune Summoners and Chantelise which are pretty top-notch RPGs but are still very much indie.

RPGMaker is a bit problematic not only because of the tendency of its users to for the most part create poor quality games, but also the poor quality of the buggy RPGMaker runtime itself, which has basically been my main concern. RPGMaker is effectively an incitement to be lazy and Amaranth churns out games with alarming regularity.

That, and having dug around to find out about how the SecuROM DRM is handled, I found that they give you ONE activation, which has to be revoked manually by Amaranth if you want to reinstall on another PC. I say fuck that.
I do :)

Back in my age, people wrote in Assembler. And the games still were full of bugs.
But maybe that was for console games only...

Nah, most C64, Spectrum and Schneider CPC software was written in assembler too. I think a large amount of Amiga, ST and pre-1993 PC software was too.

To the Moon is a game I would recommend everyone to try. It maybe a bit short, and not what everyone my consider a game, but the execution and storytelling is superb.

When you get a narrative like this, delivered in this way, it do not really matter what engine it is running on. If you like a mature, intelligent and emotional story you can't go wrong with it.

Because as much as we tout indies pro games are better 99 times out of 100.

I agree, it feels more like having read a graphic novel or watched a movie (for about 4 hours). The story is a bit deeper and more involving than your average computer game, like a good tragicomedic movie, a bit like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" meeting "Inception" while also reminding a bit of "Chrono Trigger", not least for the graphics, and with some completely new themes thrown into the mix, offering enough food for thought.

But gameplay is hardly existent, it just consists of running around and pressing a single button to interact with things in order to move the story forward, with a simple push puzzle game in between 'levels', plus the controls are a bit clunky. The cinematic story-telling experience was well worth paying for, but I'd be hesitant to recommend it to someone who's looking to actually play a game.

And (thankfully) it's completely different from your average RPG maker game and contrary to the latter I think it's justified to sell this one as an original stand-alone indie *cough* "game". ;)