It's funny that you word it like that. "Something that's more VN than RPG, but more RPG than VN" is exactly the game I'm making (it's called Firmament). I didn't find anything that was exactly what I wanted when building the game (there are Unity plugins for the dialogue system, but usually with tradeoffs that favored features I didn't want in the first place).

I ended up writing an engine to do this concurrently with the game itself. Here's a picture of a scene opened in the engine: https://i.imgur.com/jEhw1QR.png

Here's a link to the Discord server where my friends and I who make games hang out. If you're interested in these kind of half-VN hybrids, then you should come say hi: https://discord.gg/pbX9tVuW

I am doing something close to "storytelling-focused games like some I've played, stuff that's more like a VN". And to do that I am only using HTML and CSS. The result is a webcomic of an unusual kind illustrated with pixel art designed for RPGs.

This way it does not require programming and hence I can focus on the story. You can check out one of my stories here : https://drdru.github.io/twc/twc_save_aryn/01_intro.html (it's in Japanese, click on 次 at the bottom to go to the next page and get a feel for it).

There are also Javascript framewrok that allow you to create RPGs in the browser. You might want to check them out.

This reminds me of an old web comic called Kid Radd (https://www.bgreco.net/kidradd/)

It used a bunch of animation and pixel work to tell a massive story (although it takes a while to get there)

Old versions of RPGMaker go on sale quite often at Steam, I got mine for like a dollar or two. It's old but just to tell a story works :P If I wanted to customize every aspect I'd be better off with a game engine.

Oh, thanks for the tip! I must've been looking at the wrong version, which ones are the best bet if I'm looking for something good but don't need the latest and greatest?

Depends if you prefer Ruby or JavaScript for (if) scripting. RPGMaker XP uses Ruby and RPGMaker MV uses JavaScript. MV is a bit newer but both are quite old and really cheap in offers.

If you want you can always wait for an offer and get the latest, which uses JavaScript, although the price difference is quite steep.

Ren'Py is better for making VNs than RPG Maker and is free.

RPG Maker goes on sale often especially older versions.