How mkxp-z gave my old RPG Maker trilogy a second life

How It All Started

We’re talking about the Our Hero! trilogy, which I published on Steam a few years ago:

• Our Hero! First
• Our Hero! Two
• Our Hero! Omega (formerly known as Our Hero! Last)

Before landing on Steam, these games had only ever been released on a few niche forums and websites, exclusively in Italian, with somewhat dated mechanics, and built back when I had little to no programming knowledge.

Then one day I decided to pick them back up, dust them off, and bring them to Steam properly.

Here’s what I did to prepare for the release:

• Added multilanguage support: Italian, English (and French and Spanish for Our Hero! First)
• Touched up graphics across HUDs and menus
• Redid all illustrations for promotional materials (game titles, Steam assets)
• Replaced all the music
• Worked on several scripts to improve gameplay fluidity and mechanics

Those were the main changes I made to all three games at the time, and they were meaningful improvements. But there was one thing I couldn’t fix: the fundamental limitations of RPG Maker VX, the engine all three games were built on.

RPG Maker is a clunky, constrained engine. It was simply the only one I knew when I first made these games. Over the years I learned Unity, and later Godot, and I’ve gone back and forth many times on whether to remake the trilogy from scratch on a modern engine. In the end, I always reached the same conclusion: too much work, too much time, for games that hadn’t exactly set the world on fire, and that were already finished, just running on dated tech. I should’ve felt satisfied just getting them onto Steam.

Instead, I released them and let them gather dust. Marketing isn’t my strong suit, and the number of players who have ever discovered the games is decidedly small.

But honestly? That’s fine. This is game dev, and this is my passion. If I’m going to make something, I make it for myself first.

So yes, I took these old games, improved them a bit, and put them on Steam. But I never truly gave them the justice they deserved.

The RPG Maker VX limitations were still plain to see:

• Massive black bars on every side of the screen
• Extremely low resolution
• Severe lag on many maps, to the point of making them unplayable
• Windows-only compatibility, and by then, Steam Deck had launched, which stung

Then one day, a friend of mine asked (thanks, Simone!):

Why doesn’t Our Hero! have Steam achievements?

My immediate answer: “Because in an RPG Maker VX game, it’s probably impossible.”

I looked into it anyway. Turns out there’s a way, but it’s complicated. Was it worth pursuing? I wasn’t sure.

Some time passed.

Then I thought: “We have ChatGPT now. Maybe if I ask it step by step, I can actually pull this off.” So I asked. And among other things, it pointed me to a project called mkxp-z.

A whole new world opened up.

The New Our Hero! Release with mkxp-z

What is mkxp-z?

mkxp-z is an open-source player for older RPG Maker versions (XP, VX, and Ace) that:

• Drastically improves game performance
• Increases resolution, with full HD support if desired
• Makes RPG Maker projects truly cross-platform, running natively on Windows, macOS, and Linux (Steam Deck included!)
• Enables Steam achievements integration

I was genuinely excited. Finally, it can be done. I picked the trilogy back up with a new goal: a proper Definitive Edition.

Toward the Definitive Edition

The original plan was modest: integrate Steam achievements and re-release the three games with mkxp-z. Clean up the black bars, fix the performance, add achievements and Steam Deck support. Done.

But one thing led to another.

Once I started improving things, I couldn’t stop. I’d spent years toying with the idea of a full remake on a modern engine, and kept talking myself out of it. Now, with mkxp-z, I had a different path: a true Definitive Edition of the games as they already existed, no engine switch required.

I’ve always felt a little embarrassed showing these games to people. “Yeah, I’m a game developer, these are the games I made…” and then there are the black bars, the pixelated graphics, the characters that look like they’re limping when they walk.

That embarrassment became the fuel. I set out to build the final, definitive version of the Our Hero! trilogy, not to chase sales (all three games combined have sold a few hundred copies), but to make something I’m genuinely proud of. Games I can play myself and actually enjoy. If others enjoy them too, even better.

Here’s everything that’s changing:

• mkxp-z integration across all three games, which brings:
  • Steam achievements, finally!
  • Native Windows and Linux builds (macOS is technically possible, but €100/year for Apple’s developer license isn’t worth it)
  • Full Steam Deck compatibility
  • Higher resolution, goodbye, black bars!
  • Massively improved performance, goodbye, lag!
• New professional illustrations for all promotional materials (by Satsume , thank you! ♥︎)
• New scripts to remove the clunkiest mechanics from each game
• Fully redrawn character sprites with improved animations
• Modernized HUDs across all three games
• Lighting effects to enhance the atmosphere of every map
• Additional language support

What started as roughly a month of work (just the mkxp-z integration) has turned into nearly a year 😆

I started about two months ago, and I can almost say Our Hero! First is done, currently in final testing and last-minute polish. After that, I’ll move on to Our Hero! Two and Our Hero! Omega, which are more complex and will likely take longer 😮

I started this devlog to document the journey and share the technical side of things, how I integrated specific scripts, handled localization, got mkxp-z running, and wired up Steam achievements in an RPG Maker VX project.

Do you have a game built with RPG Maker XP, VX, or Ace that you’d like to add Steam achievements to? Curious about the mkxp-z project? Let me know in the comments!