RPG Maker MV Review (J☻N▲TH▲N)
If you want to make a game of a decent length, and you're putting it together by yourself, prepare to spend quite awhile working at it.
Just as a reference from my own experience, the 1200+ hours I've logged in MV was to make a single game of roughly 4 hours of play time on my own. That's not counting the handful of past projects in earlier versions of RPG Maker that I worked on, and then abandoned partway through creating them, while I learned more about how the software works and what could be done with it.
The great thing about RPG Maker is that, thanks to already including the basic assets and materials necessary to create a game, you can do so by yourself even without having all the skills, knowledge, help, or budget that usually goes into creating a video game.
If you can't draw to save your life, or you don't have the slightest clue where to begin with music production, that's okay. RPG Maker MV (or any of the other entries in the series) gives you a generous selection of resources by default that you can use to create your own game, and you're free to use them without restriction as long as it is to create something within the RPG Maker software. You don't have to know how to program or code software from scratch either. The game building engine is, primarily, user friendly with a visual interface that allows you to make a game just by choosing from the options in its menus.
There is a learning curve even with that, especially for some of the more advanced features, and there is room for growth if you want to learn how to make scripts and programming, or create your own pixel art for custom sprites, etc. There is also a lot more you can do with RPG Maker by adding new functionality with community-made scripts and plugins though, and even if you do not know how to create those kinds of things yourself, others who do have shared them freely with the community, and you need only understand enough about how to use them to implement them into your game.
Overall though, the power of being able to unleash your creative ideas is what makes RPG Maker alluring, especially when you're just starting out. It takes a lot of dedication, and probably a few practice projects before you tackle a full one, but it enables almost anyone to create something in a visual way with enough patience and tenacity. It's not the kind of thing you're going to be finished with overnight, or in a week, or even a month. Creating games is a very time consuming process. Just know that in order to see any project through to completion, it's going to take a lot of time and effort on your part, even with RPG Maker doing a lot of the heavy lifting on providing resources and user-friendly tools.
It's also not ideal for adapting other types of games outside of the role-playing game genre either. Although there are some examples where it has been done, there are better engines out there if you want to make a differnt type of game altogether. You don't need the latest and greatest version of RPG Maker either. Although the newest one will feature the most bells and whistles, especially when you're starting out, you can do just as well with an earlier version to learn how it works before making the jump to the more expensive latest entry too. While there are of course some differences between them, by and large, the majority of things transition over between versions. And even the older versions of RPG Maker are able to create fantastic games with the right dedication, passion, and folks with the right set of skills to really make their games shine.
I learned most of my early days stuff back in RPG Maker XP when that was new. I would guess about 95% of the knowledge I gained back then applied still to RPG Maker MV years later, allowing me to finally make my own fully completed game. To The Moon is a popular example that uses RPG Maker XP even in more modern times to wonderful effect. It's more about what goes into the project than what game engine version you decide to use.
At the end of the day, even if you just try it out of curiosity, there's something to be said for being able to express yourself in a creative way in a visual fashion that you can see as it comes to life. RPG Maker helps to make that possible for those who want to make their own game, but it would normally be out of their reach, and that's something to praise it for. It helps people make their creative ideas into reality, so give it a try if you find yourself interested at all. You never know, you might end up making your own game with it too.