This is the fourth issue of RPG Maker Magazine Digest. Enjoy it below.

Villains are the cornerstones of good games. Stories are created from conflict and the villain supports that conflict. If you have a weak villain, you'll have a weak story. It is, regrettably, very easy to make a lackluster villain. This is especially true when you work backwards and create a villain out of a need, for the plot. The three things that a good villain needs are: plausibility, emotional attachment, and spotlight.

The RPG Maker series is one of the best things to ever hit the gaming scene. In the 6 years since its arrival on the Playstation, it has been used to create dozens upon dozens of different games and concepts. Creative juices have flowed, and the dreams of gamers who have wanted to create their own unique masterpieces have been manifested.

Though RPG Maker is a fantastic tool, it is also a limited one. Developers have struggled for years against the base set of tools given in the RPG Maker titles and have found and used countless tricks to manipulate the software into creating some of the greatest user-made software in RPG Maker history.

This article, written in celebration of RPGMM's 100,000th hit, is designed to showcase just a sliver of the magnitude of talent that dwells in the RPG Maker community. While few people ever agree with lists, this is only the opinion of one mere mortal (Ixzion). Make sure to read our reviews and our user ratings to find the best games out there by developers! Some developers, when the game told them "Hey, you can't do that!", spit in the game's face and told RPG Maker that it better do what they want. RPG Maker then complied with their demands and that how these games came into being. True story.

Or maybe not. Still, these games break the rules, and that's all that matters.

Over the course of the year 2007, RPG Maker magazine (the Mag) has undergone some changes. And while some were for the good, it seems as though for every good aspect that came into light, at least two aspects of ill intent would raise their ugly head to the community. And all you are left to do is figure out why.

Well, let's try and see if we can't do just that.

So I felt like trying out that Mario game-hacking I've seen done in various Youtube videos. You know, like that "Mario Frustration" game with the invisible coin blocks and near-impossible jumps. I downloaded two editors, one for Super Mario Bros 2 called "SMB2 Transmogrificator", the other for Super Mario World called "Lunar Magic". SMB2 Transmogrificator is the one I was interested in, as it seemed that SMB2 is the least-popular Mario game to get hacked.

So, after a few days checking out what it's capable of, what's my opinion of it?