Nocturne: Rebirth is a freeware RPG Maker game developed by Cogwheel and translated to English by eplipswich
Story: The premise of the story is that the villain protagonist, Reviel, is invited to a village because he's mistaken for a hero. He plans on taking advantage of the villagers' misplaced trust in order to eventually kill them, though you can probably guess whether or not he'll follow through with this.
Gameplay: Despite the presence of ATB bars in the screenshot, this game tries to avoid being a cookie-cutter RPG Maker game in terms of its battle system. YMMV on how much it succeeds in that regard, though I think it's very impressive for a freeware game, even moreso than many of the commercial RPG Maker games on Steam.
- For Reviel and Luna, EXP is treated more like skill points for learning and upgrading skills than its more traditional use in RPGs. After a character allocates enough EXP, they'll level up.
- Leveling up doesn't increase base stats other than HP and MP, but upgrading skills will.
- Most physical skills don't require MP, but they all have cooldown times to prevent spamming. Spells cost MP, but tend to have lower cooldown compared to physical skills.
- Random enemies have a chance to drop a Core Object, which allows you to summon them as familiars. When summoning them, you can attach Sorceries to them in order to alter their stats and give them new abilities, which reminds me of some Shin Megami Tensei games. The downside is that their leveling system is more traditional compared to the main characters and they tend to gain EXP slower.
- You can change your party's formation in and out of battle, which changes the party members' position on the battle grid, gives them a passive skill, and gives them stat multipliers. Most formations require at least two party members, but one of them works specifically for a solo party.
- Characters can change equipment without using up their turn, which is a helpful feature if you plan on doing a NG+ solo run.
- If a character lands a critical hit, they'll get their next turn faster. Accuracy/Tec affects the chances of landing criticals while evasion affects the chances of preventing criticals. Given that this is an ATB based game, you definitely shouldn't neglect these stats.
- You can use certain keys to fill up the ATB gauges of all characters without your side taking action. You can also switch between active characters if more than one party member has a full ATB gauge.
- The Brave Clear system rewards you extra drops for beating bosses at or below a certain level, which is no mean feat. Beating these challenges will require you to be smart about using your skill trees.