OPINION ON FANGAMES

For me, a fangame has an advantage. I just don't have the time in the day to go through and look at every game on this site and try them out. So a game has to stick out to me in some way for me to want to try it.

What sticks out the most? A title that I've heard of and love/played! Then, I'll look at the graphics/features.etc and determine if it is similar to the series I love, and if it is, I'll be playing that one!

Nigsek

that is all

I always think that people should always make original games rather than fangames. If they can make good fangames they are just wasting their potential.

What I think is okay however is to take a game mechanic that's not seen that often from another game and use it in your own. Sometimes a game doesn't need a new innovative idea, but rather can just use an existing idea that wasn't used often or just died out the past years (for example I always look for games that play exactly like Shining Force and I also like very generic grid-based dungeon crawlers from time to time).

Fangames feel a bit wrong to me... people shouldn't integrate their story into someone else's lore. At least that's my personal opinion on it.

I've always been a big supporter of fangames. While it's true that a lot of RPG Maker fangames have been pretty awful over the years, nine times out of ten it's because they are made by people who are just starting out and have unrealistically high goals and expectations such as being able to recreate something they loved growing up. Those people always fail miserably.

People with a bit of experience under the belt tend to manage much better, but it's not all about knowing how to map or make characters speak coherently. You have to understand the very fundamentals of the game/series you're basing a fangame on. You have to ask yourself many times over "would the game that I am basing this on do this? Or that? Would this thing work like that? Am I going overboard with this?"
Making a fangame is all about trying to stay true to the original, striking a nostalgic chord, and delivering a game that's fun. In a lot of ways, I feel that setting out to make a fangame is more cumbersome than making an original project because, right off the bat, the reduced audience you're trying to appeal to will automatically have expectations that you have to meet.

Do I think fangames are bad, unimaginative, or any of those other silly things people have said over the years? Not really. In a lot of instances (at least in mine) it's all about paying homage to what you fell in love with growing up. For instance, playing SNES Final Fantasy games was a truly magical experience back in the day, and no other games have replicated the raw emotion and excitement that I got from playing those games. I suppose, in a way, I'm trying to recapture those lost feelings for myself again by making fangames?

In the end though, making a fangame is no small task. It's just as daunting as an original game. It would be like two car manufacturers wanting to make some new sports cars. Manufacturer A decides to go in a bold new direction, totally new ideas and technology. The result is something that is exciting and fresh, something that blows the minds of everyone. Think the Bugatti Veyron. Now, Manufacturer B on the other hand? They'd look back in the past at a car they admired growing up and would decide to pay tribute to the great cars of the past by basing their car on the one that they adored. An example of this? The Eagle Speedster being a total Jaguar E-Type knock-off. It's a total love letter to the E-Type. They loved it and nothing new could capture their love for it, so they brought the E-Type back in the form of the Speedster. It also allowed for a new generation to experience the E-Type without paying an INSANE amount of money for a vintage E-Type today (think fangames costing nothing but the real deal being $60 a pop).

And that's how I feel about fangames in a (long) nut shell.

I don't think it really matters if your making a fan game or an original game unless your expecting to make money off of it. If your making a game with no incentive of money, then you should just make what you want whether it be a fan game or an original game. I think fan games can be just as good as originals, just look at Zelda: OoT 2D, FF7 2D, Mario 63, etc. Of course there are also a lot of bad fan games, but thats usually because their made by amateurs. Usually the best looking fan games never get completed though.

I made several attempts at a Final Fantasy fangame and I can tell one thing: it takes a lot of willpower and dedication to make even a playable demo with a decent story. After that, I decided to write up a summary of a story which was basically a lengthy synopsis of the whole main story. From that I went with writing an actual story, like chapters and all, instead of focusing on current situation. I just find it easier to have a whole scenario written with what each character says, how they behave, locations' descriptions, and all that.

Fangames, where not just simple word-to-word remakes, are quite demanding from the Creator: s/he has to think about engaging story and interesting characters. Even when trying to make a cliché character there's still somewhat of a demand to make the character distinctive; be it unorthodox clothes, way of act (and speech), or something else. Story also demands some kind of derivation from the common concept, also for the sake of distinction. If the game has no notable distinction, how good can it be?

Whatever you do, don't make a fan game that goes in a different direction than everything from the canon series, as this ensures exactly zero people will be interested. I should know; I have hands-on experience.