I would not touch anything engine related unless it was reasonably mature.
You mean bugs, optimization, et cetera? True enough. Despite all that and the early stage of development, I'm still surprised it's not getting more interest. Maybe classic style cRPGs are even more niche than I thought?
I have not tried this but
https://nightmare-82.itch.io/rpg-tools
...
It does have that awful RPG maker asset pack look....
Cool, a Jeff Vogel simulator! Seriously, though, thanks for the tip-off, I'll check it out.
I've got it into my head to try and work off my midlife crisis by hacking together an old fashioned cRPG. The aspiration is to find something to handle the basic mechanics while I focus on the world building, art and exploration crafting. If RPG Maker had workable on-map battles with movement, I'd use it. As things stand, it looks like I might have to bite the bullet and learn C# or whatever.
Extremely Dubious even 1 of those is implemented properly.
I'm sure you're right. I'm not really qualified to say. But the dev here does at least have a good pedigree. He's a onetime Chief Technology Officer at DivX and spent years developing 3D software. So, let's see. Fingers crossed.
As an aside, here's a screenshot to show the kind of pseudo and node based 3D he's talking about. It's definitely not an attempt to compete with modern 3D engines.