[UNITY] UNITY 5 IS OUT

I've been waiting hooray

Honestly I would go with Unity either way. The only way I would use Unreal would be if I was going to have high-poly mega-high-quality HD graphics.

author=Yellow Magic
I'd probably stick with Unity because of more varied platform support (e.g. mobile)

FWIW, Unreal supports mobile platforms - how robust that support is, I can't say. Unity's is pretty darn good, if you design for it (your game has to be designed to handle two different types of input).

author=Happy
So if I wanted to develop a PS1-era-esque "2,5D" (3D with limited camera, and sprite actors) or just full 3D j-rpg with instanced battles, should I roll with Unreal or Unity?....

If you know either C++ or C#, I'd definitely recommend Unreal or Unity respectively.

If you're starting from scratch:

Unreal blueprints seem to work very similarly to RM eventing (although more complex and in-depth). If you want to script or customize blueprints, you have to delve into C++, which is generally more tricky than C#. My admittedly little knowledge suggests that Blueprints alone would be enough to make a game, but they lean towards FPSes, and they're meant to be expanded on.

Unity doesn't have anything like blueprints - it provides you with some example player controllers for first-person and third-person, but not enough to make a full game with. You pretty much have to learn C# (or JavaScript) to make a game in Unity, but the overhead is a lot lower than learning the Unreal C++ source. Unity does have a lot of free scripts and plugins available (way more than, say, VX Ace) but if you want to customize stuff, you'll probably need at least some C# knowledge.

Making an RPG in general is a very time-consuming process, because there's so many individual, complex systems involved that you can take for granted with RPG Maker (ugh, just try making an inventory!!) In general, I'd still recommend Unity for it's lower barrier-to-entry for coding and Unreal if you want raw power and control. That kind of game is definitely possible to make in either engine, however.


EDIT: I've worked with Unity way more than Unreal, so someone with more UE experience can probably sell you on that better.

author=JuurianChi
Unity has a plugin that works like blueprints. :0 It's called Playmaker. I've toyed around with it a lot, and it's pretty simple. It also has support for a bunch of other plugins so that you can expand your command options.

Having used both Playmaker and Blueprints, there's really no comparing them. Playmaker is not nearly as easy to use as Blueprints and it's a lot harder to manage complex systems with it.

Also you need to buy Playmaker.

author=Yellow Magic
I'd probably stick with Unity because of more varied platform support (e.g. mobile)

UE4 supports (probably) every platform you care about.

author=Happy
So if I wanted to develop a PS1-era-esque "2,5D" (3D with limited camera, and sprite actors) or just full 3D j-rpg with instanced battles, should I roll with Unreal or Unity?....

You could easily use either engine for it. If you feel like you're not a skilled programmer, UE4 is probably better due to the Blueprints system.

Deltree, if you got the Pro License just before they announced it was free, I believe Unity has been giving out refunds. Might be worth looking into!

author=slash
FWIW, Unreal supports mobile platforms - how robust that support is, I can't say.

author=Sailerius
UE4 supports (probably) every platform you care about.

I've read contrasting stuff about UE4's mobile support...as someone with a budget phone myself, I'm concerned about resource utilisation and how UE4 may be overkill for the type of games I want to make.

Currently, I'm making a simple shmup in Unity and am really liking it so far, despite how it encourages some...interesting coding practices. I have a lot of catching up to do on stuff like shading and particles, though.