If a game is formatted to be an RPGM game but all there is to do is walk from one event that is nothing but dialogue to the next, then it is "not a VN" but it is most certainly a glorified VN, which is exactly the problem with Lust Epidemic.
In that game, literally all there is to do is walk from one place to the next to do some set in stone dialogue, maybe a fetch quest along the way (literally at one point all you do in a fetch quest in that game is grab a water bottle), but it's basically just a VN with a lot of extra steps in the literal sense because most of the game is walking if you aren't in skippable dialogue.
This is why I don't even bother with RPGM games anymore (except the occasional very rare exception). Yes, the engine is just an engine, you can make any sort of game in it (like a pure kinetic VN) if you try hard enough, and you can make an 'RPGM' game in any engine, but the expectation is that in an RPGM game you
must run around endlessly looking for the next new items to open the next 'lock'. Since it has support for maps (you could almost say RPGM
is maps), if you're making an RPGM game you must make a lot of maps - and then of course there needs to be excuses to make you run around them to see the maps. Like a sandbox, RPGM comes with the built in assumption that 95% of the game is useless padding - of course there are exceptions, but most devs just roll with it.
Heck, ToN was the game that just drove that home. But, EMMV!