🟢︱Steamed Hams, but it's RPGMaker2003 Review
※ Preamble
To start off this wonderful month, I decided to take a good gander at my backlog to see what other phenomenal games I could be playing at this moment. To my surprise, I found one that is very short and could have been played at any time! The game I'm featuring is Steamed Hams, but it's RPG Maker 2003. It is a JRPG that heavily uses FMV to display scenes taken from the 21st episode of the seventh season of the popular 1989 cult classic TV show, The Simpsons. For those who've never seen this episode, it's quite literally twenty two short films about Springfield, a series of vignettes featuring the legendary, meme-worthy interaction between Principal Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers that this game faithfully transforms into a surreal and hilarious turn-based experience. I honestly don't know why I didn't think about this playing it sooner, but let's get right into talking about it!
※ Story (4.5/5)
The story for SMRPGM is the exact same as the original short in the show, but it's been carefully adjusted to the length of a traditional JRPG. And honestly, even though I don't really play JRPGs much (I wish I did), the panning for this one isn't shown to be dragging since it fits quite nicely.
For those who're unfamiliar with the story of Steamed Hams, it follows the characters Superintendent Gary Chalmers and President Seymour Skinner. The latter invites the fomer for an "unforgettable luncheon" at his house, and as they sit down to eat, Seymour checks his oven, only to be met with a blazing flame plaguing it. Gasping in fear, he proposes a suitable alternative to the lunch which is secretly escaping the house to go to the local Krusty Burger, but as he takes his apron off and climbs out of the window, Chalmers opens the door wondering what the heck is going on.
Seymour then tries to divert his attention by claiming his escape was nothing but an "isometric exercise," and asks if he wants to join. Of course, being the stern superintendent he is, he blatantly ignores his request and asks what is going on in the oven, but Seymour dodges back claiming that he's steaming some steamed clams. That got him to leave the door, prompting Seymour to escape.
After some time, he comes back through the window, to say that he finally got the hamburgers, but Chalmers quoted his previous response, saying that he remembers it being called "Steamed Clams" like Seymour said. He actually was meant to say Steamed Hams, calling them an alternate name to hamburgers. Chalmers responds with some suspicion, saying "You call hamburgers steamed Hams?" and of course, Seymour says yes, and that it's a regional dialect. The former asks what region, and the latter? "Upstate New York."
Despite Seymour's answer, Chalmers counteracts his response saying that he's from Utica, a place in New York, and despite that, he has never heard anyone from that place used Steamed Hams as a way to refer to hamburgers as such. Seymour actually was meant to say that "it's an Albany expression" and as Chalmers sees his point, they start eating, only for yet another conflict to rise from the air. As Chalmers takes a bite from his sandwich, he notices that the taste and the looks remind him of Krusty Burger, and Seymour brings up another card up his sleeve, saying it's a patented "Skinner burger" and that it's an "Old Family Recipe." Chalmers with a stern look on his face, asks again if this was for the Steamed Hams, and Seymour yet again responds with Yes, and the climax of the story begins: Chalmers points out the raw evidence: Even though these are "Steamed," Chalmers opens up the burger and shows that they're "obviously grilled."
Now this leaves Seymour with silence. Utter silence. He couldn't beat the hamburger allegations, he was absolutely cornered by his blatant lying, and as a last resort, he goes into the now burning room but that's the least of his concern as he quickly comes out saying that it was a good scession, a "good times has had by all." As Chalmers agrees to end the luncheon, he quickly notices the burning flames in the kitchen, and screams "what's happening in there?" Seymour, with a twist of words just mutters "aurora borealis."
This gets Chalmers spiraling. He goes all out, questioning that borealis being "At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localized entirely within your kitchen????" Going back to his roots of responding with a vague yes, it rather calms Chalmers down and he wanted to see the aforementioned Aurora borealis, but of course, he didn't want to open the cracks, and Seymour rejected his offer.
As the two go out of the house, Seymour's mother shrieks and screams as the interior of the house was on fire, and even though it's clearly shown to the eyes of the gamer, Symour just calls it "the northern lights," trying not to get Chalmers wondering the truth, and as the Scession comes to a close, even if it may seem that Seymour is an off fellow, he proudly calls the whole luncheon, a steamed good ham, and walks off to his business. His mother wasn't out of the blue however, as he screamed again asking for help, and that's when the story ends as Seymour goes to help his mother.
After going through this game, I can understand why this had managed to make a cultural impact on the memdustry, considering it's all about good jokes, good humor, and good vibes. Honestly, it makes me miss this kind of humor. Most of the time I see modern memes or viral trends, it's nothing more than just a source being provoked, or made fun of would be a better way to say it. Microslop at the begining of 2026? It's a perfect stem for what I mean. Even though it's a perfect portmanteau of the company Microsoft and the AI hat's commonly referred to the bad disgusting use of the tool "slop", it has a rightful but also not so rightful place to be used as it basically established a new word for users of other Operating Systems such as Linux and MacOS to make a good laugh at the folks at Microsoft and, even sometimes the users who still cling onto using Windows and stuff like that. There's other modern day memes I could reference for this point alone, but I just wished that we could go back to the days when memes weren't all centered around making fun of something but just having fun with laughing at media we all like. And Steamed Hams is a perfect instance of such.
※ Gameplay (3/5)
The gameplay for this one is incredibly simple. You gotta put in some actions into the sequences that matter, as if it's a glorified quick time event.
※ Replay Value (3/5)
On my first playthrough of this game, I felt just recreating the script of Steamed Hams, but one thing you're able to do is bend that to your liking, where at any given point that youc an, you can divert the script for you to get multiple endings. From what I know there's three: The bad ending where Chalmers sees Skinner as a filthy liar, and as a result he has to give into everything and leave off on his motorcycle into the abyss, the true ending where it's the same as the original script, and then the best ending where the duo glazes their eyes on the beloved Auora Borealis.
※ Graphics (3.5/5)
The graphics are the exact same as they are as the original part of the show but compressed to fit within the limitations of RPGMaker 2003. I don't think I need to say anything about this one cause we all know that The Simpsons is a wonderful looking American cartoon, right?
※ Soundtrack (3/5)
I find the soundtrack for this game to be a little bit weak. I think it could use a bit more work with the MIDI-fied theme of the peculiar Steamed Hams theme as well as the other themes that occured through the game, but meh.
※ Verdict/Other Thoughts (5/5)
Ahh, the glory of days of working on joke reviews... Oh how I've missed them...
Even though I'm usually taking the defensive stance on not getting myself fooled on this particular day, April Fools is a day to happily trick your friends into hyping up something that isn't going to actually happen. Sometimes it can be your favorite Youtuber quitting their career, or a brand new game in this niche gaming series! Or, it can be a return of a character everyone mostly forgotten about, even the developers forgotten about their existence.... It's never meant to be taken as a malicious day, and in the case of me, I just felt like playing and reviewing a game of a meme that I really liked as a child and as an adult. despite me never watching Simpsons, this meme has always been one of my favorites of the plenty of memes that I saw my childhood, and I continue to have nostalgia and happy thoughts against seeing these as it reminds me of the golden age of memes.
Anyways, as for the next review I'm going to do, I don't know! It's up to you to figure that out :)
Thanks for Reading!