Oh! RPG! is an RPG maker game of upper quality , which is rather rare in this ocean of RPG Maker games available. The music is really good. The graphics - or rather the choice of tile sets used - are very cute, colorful, crisp and clean.
Where the game truly shines is in the gameplay - or more precisely WHO you play. You don't play the heroes - who are mainly selfish brats anyway - but the background-second-roles-NPCs you generally meet in these types of games: for example in the first chapter you play a goblin; in the third one an old lady! Telling you more about these characters would be huge spoilers but just know that even though they're very limited and one dimensional, they're very endearing with their reckless bravery. All want to stand and fight for different reasons. I'm amazed a small RPG maker game managed to make those tiny characters so interesting, funny and attaching.
About the combats, those characters are indeed weak but fear not, you'll be able to call the 'heroes' for help - if they do indulge to respond lol! For this part you'll have to juggle with a very limited number of loot (healing potions included) and a limited number of heroes calls. At first the learning curve is a bit stiff but you'll be satisfied as your NPC characters will slowly grow stronger and be able to fight on their own. You'll also find equipement and upgrades but be careful as the upgrades parts are very limited. So what I first thought out to be a casual RPG game turned out to be very interesting, rather challenging and kept me on the edge of my seat. i.e. nothing more satifying than managing to take out 3 huge rats all on your own when you play a tiny weak goblin!
The story is divided in 8 chapters, 3 (IIRC) of them are only a small narrative sequence. The 5 playable chapters are quite long, requiring an hour each. The story have all the usual classic dramatic clichés from J-RPGs: Evil Emperor taking over the world, world which is 'dying' and slowly collapsing etc. But it's sprinkled with a ton of humor: funny item descriptions, heroes with an attitude, funny dialogues, small details everywhere... I really liked it! It's a perfect balance for a second degree narration: a spoof of RPGs with a challenging gameplay.
You can replay any chapters whenever you want to make better scores to unlock a couple of stuff - like heroes to cast during combats. Some chapters features mazes so you'll have to be patient and cautious. There's a zone with puzzles. There's also some achievements to make and secrets to find and you'll have to replay the previous chapters to unlock all the secrets.. So the gameplay never gets dull. And you can play with your XBox Controller (very important point to me). Be warned that the game gets very hard toward the end but this makes winning the game even sweeter! My Playthrough lasted 9 hours and I still have a couple of achievements to make that should add a couple of hours (at least), so the game length is very decent.
Article is good but there should have been some images. To show how the game looks like.