well it all on what you wanna do
legally you cannot use any copyrighted material of course, which, I believe includes RPG maker stuff because thats all stuff from commercial 16 bit games.
so, if you use that stuff and “release” your game, by law, they could sue you. however there are soooo many fan games and the worst I have ever heard was a “cease and desist” - and that only because the games also share the name, like “Megaman: Rofl Edition Fan Game” (not a real game, example =P)
but if you game is mainly for “educational purposes”, you learning to make games, i wouldn’t worry too much at first.
also - whatever you use can be a proxy/placeholder - you can replace it later…
@question: there isnt really that much good “free” stuff. especially when you do real game design, you have an idea how things should look - you never find exactly what you want, of course.
so in case of your game getting big and famous, you can still replace the stuff