Metal Max Xeno - A review

[Blake81]

So, few months back, the magic of Amazon suggestions landed THIS on my lap, and gave me a reaction I hadn't had since the Spice and Wolf novel sequel was announced...
(Said reaction was SQUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!)

The Metal Max series has always been a favorite; considering they invented the idea of a free roaming exploration sandbox back in the days of the NES, and pulled it out masterfully. For those more unfamiliar with the franchise itself, take a copy of Fallout and Metal Slug into a creative blender, and spread the resulting mix into the mold of a Final Fantasy game to give it a familiar shape. Sadly, almost none of them ever came to this side of the pond, and the few that did through official channels were never widespread outside of a few cult followers. Even more sadly, however, was the fact that its parent company, Data East, went broke on the early 2000, so I had counted this franchise as dead.

But now, Kadokawa Games fished their IP out of the pits of despair and created this new installment of the series, following after the events of the very first game, and released it on the 25th anniversary of the franchise, to put a proverbial cherry of respect on it.

So, now that I've gotten the game, and sunk some good 12 hours on it, I must say that a lot has changed in many ways, so here's my ''First Impressions Review'' of it, conveniently compartmentalized for your perusal.


<The Good Old Stuff> - These are the things that stayed the same as in the previous games (improvements to these on the next section)

-The Tanks
They are the franchise's selling point, so I expected no less. Many of the usual suspects are backs, namely the Red Tank (now called the Red Revenger)and the Buggy. On my 12 hours (and I've barely gotten out of the tutorial), I've unlocked 6 tanks, so I am to presume there are many more, so tank variety is right there. And they still function mostly the same, having Cannons, Engines, Vulcans and S-Es (the computer is gone, tho), and you can improve them in a great variety of ways. More of this on the new section as they added lots of new stuff here.

-The Setting/Map
Dystokio.... Remember how in the first game there were subtle hints you were in a familiar place, which finally revealed themselves when you end up exploring the ruins of the Tokyo Metropolitan Building, the Tokyo Tower and the Military Bases full of undead SDF soldiers? Well, this time, they went full Fallout 3 from the start with the landmarks; the Rainbow Bridge, the Sumo Building, the Akiba Electric Gate, the Tokyo Big Sight, and many more I don't recognize. Native Tokyo players must feel like native DC players on FO3, or Bostonians on FO4. So the settings is right there, and flawless, just like it was before.

-The Enemies
Everyone's back; all the old baddies, now with high-fidelity graphics, and with all the unique quirks, strengths and behaviors of previous games (so get farming those Gold Ants and Metal Eaters). There are more than a few newcomers, too, but so far all the baddies have been the same ones (in the same order, too. In fact...), so the monster variety remains large, but without feeling samey. The bounties are still there, with lots of old faces, but I'll mention this one on the next section as they added a lot to it.

-The Soundtrack
All the epic songs, remade in full metal rock power... ''Wanted'' is still the best of them, although new ones like ''Road of Steel'' are strong contenders...


<The Good New Stuff> - New additions and polish to already good things

-The ''Shooting System'' on Map
When on the map, instead of classic JRPG fade-in-fade-out random encounters, now the baddies spawn on the actual map, and you can shoot at them with your tank guns. This make the old, tedious grinding of JRPGs into a pants-creaming wet dream of ease, as if you're geared up right, you can usually kill them one shot, or wound them enough that the battle doesn't last more than one turn. Almost like they unearthed Earthbound's similar feature in the combat system, and brought it back. However, if you see a baddie you know it's too tough, you can just skip it, or use this chance to scan for it weaknesses and equip the right gear for the battle. Needless to say, loving this one.

-The Combat - Tank
The old system was great, but now it was polished to a mirror shine. Tanks no longer have ''plating'' but a shielding system that recharges overtime (albeit slowly), and baddies (particularly bosses) also have these shields. Breaking a boss's shield make them more susceptible to attacks and duplicates their drop rate (YAAAY!!)

-The Combat - Walking
So much has been done here. Since weapons still carry all sorts of unique traits (Element, fire area, explosive damage, spread, etc), now you can equip 3 at the same time per character, which makes for a fun total of 9 weapons in combat, so you can always handle the correct elemental weaknesses. However, DO NOT TRY TO FIGHT MAP ENEMIES, only dungeon ones. As you would expect, outside of a tank, other tanks mince you up. (I learned this the hard way... Ouch!). Sadly, no shooting system when walking.

-Part Crafting
Well... I guess today every game needs a crafting system, because otherwise kids will play Minecraft instead. Now baddies drop parts liberally, and this is your main source of new gear. But still, the system is well made and balanced, and the grind is not tedious. Normal human weapons and gear are not crafted, however, those are still found (thanksfully).

-The Tanks, Improvements
So many things here.... First of all, now tanks come with ''Characteristic Slots'', which allows you to equip special skill chips onto your tank, allowing for a wide variety of special skills, like shooting all your guns of a specific type at the same time (oh baby, oh baby, love this one), unlock special skills, or give you new resistances. Also, we have the Chassis Mods, which allow you to change all your Chassis slots at the same time, sometimes even providing unique (but fixed) weapons to that particular Chassis, as well as Characteristic Skills and advantages, which unlike in previous games, where you just stopped using the starting tanks, now all of them have some use or speciality, ensuring you'll use them forever. Some tanks even come with TWO engine slots, which allow you to take advantage of certain special ''twin'' engines to have more than twice their power. And finally, although this is more cosmetic, now you can customize each tank's color and parts color.

-The Enemies, Improvements
A lot has been done here too. There are two new classes of ''Wanted'' baddie, the ''Sons of NOA'' (SoNs) which make for most of the ''Story Bosses'' and the ''Named'' bosses, which are just a bigger version of a normal monster, with better stats and always some kind of unique weapon or loot. Farming them is very worth it. When on the map, there's also a day and night cycle that changes what monsters are around (the best ones seem to come at night), and most Wanted monsters can be seen walking the map, which helps you both to avoid them and plan against them. Also, some of the ''tank'' bosses can actually be taken over once defeated, (like the Li'l Squirt, which is basically a Metal Slug boss on crack....) which adds a new layer of variety and yet another incentive to hunt them down.

-The Characters
There's quite a bit of them now. The art was made by legendary hentai artist Oda Non (because Kadokawa is Kadokawa, and Kadokawa makes VNs above all), so expect lots of well-defined buttocks, which are this author's signature. Character-wise, a lot has been improved since the original days; when the characters were basically cardboard cutouts with no personality or dialogue beyond the recruiting scene. Kadokawa's VN prowess shines here above all places, as they managed to make the characters interesting without losing that ''hammy'' quality they always had in the way you played them, almost like they played with popular stereotypes. For instance, Talis, the protag, which is two parts Eren Jaeger and one part Edward Elric (you will see why on both) may seem like any other JRPG protag, but his seemingly flat character starts gaining depth as he interacts with other characters, also revealing their own depths. However, it's not all so good, so I will continue this part on the next section.


<The Bad New Stuff> - Sadly, it's not all good news

-Linear Progression
In the original Metal Max, once you got out of the tutorial, you could sprint right to the final boss if you wanted, your only limitation being your capacity to beat him and all the baddies between you and him; it wasn't a quest to defeat it him, but a quest to strengthen yourself and your tanks to be able to beat it (which you may recognize as the same method LoZ: BotW employed, and was good). But now, it's all storyline-led; go explore these places, rescue this ppl, pick up those McGuffings, and don't try to stray from the path or we will erect an invisible wall on you. This is a real let-down as free roaming was one of the biggest selling points of this series, and sure, there are dungeons you can explore but these SUCK MAJOR ASS (more on these soon).

-VN-ness of the Characters
Above all, Kadokawa makes VNs, as this is very noticeable in a lot of things that happen in the character's development. Sexual innuendo is.... on almost MonMusu levels; there's some amount of ecchi but that is bearable, what's damn jarring is the near-constant mention of ''Humanity is on the border of extinction, there are like, 3 girls here, and there are as many young dudes too, so when are you f___ing? Did you do it yet?'' in dialogue. This is not bad, but the romance feels sorta hammy here, and not in the usual good way. It feels almost as if some Kadokawa Corporate saw the game and said ''All's good and all, but where's the romance? The ecchi? We had Oda-sensei draw all these girls in sexy outfits, and you don't have any sexual content there yet? You need to add some and quick; pervy teenager boys and lonely NEET Otakus remain our main customer base, and they must be pleased.'' and sorta tacked it there, like most companies here do with Lootboxes. Maybe it will get better further into the story, but so far it feels very, very forced. Also, they added a MG (with a fluffy tail and.... remarkable horniness), which usually count contitude a good thing for me, but I just feel it doesn't fit this setting; Po-M, the android girl already an NPC would've fit much better there instead, IMHO. I dearly hope this ends up improving.

-Only one Town
Another element of the original games' exploration was finding more places that sold better stuff, and every town was unique on its own. Now, there's only one, and it improves itself as we advance in the game and unlock more stuff. And while this IS well written (with mankind being on the border of extinction and all, and the SoNs mercilessly wiping out each and every settlement), it certainly kills yet another element of the exploration that made this game so cool.

-The Dungeons Suck
Oh my goodness.... THIS IS DRAGON AGE 2 ALL OVER AGAIN!!!
On the old games, all the ruined buildings and dungeons you explored had this distinct, Fallout-esque design, where they looked almost indistinguishable from the towns; they looked like places were people lived, worked and enjoyed themselves, which gave them all this uncanny feeling of dread, of subtle horror, that made the game even more interesting. Now, ALL of the dungeons besides the story ones (these ones are VERY good, tho) look EXACTLY THE SAME; gray, crumbled piles of concrete, dotted by the rare electrical box or open shutter, all of them mapped with no sense at all and whose purpose is just to provide chests and monsters. What saddens me most is that almost all of them are supposed to be one specific ruined Tokyo landmark, like the Big Sight, the Shibuya Shopping District, the SDF East Branch, but inside area all the same indistinguishable mass of crumbled gray debris like the devs stole it from the world's most boring FPS.... Why, just... why? Did they blew up all their funding before doing the dungeons or something? Sheesh....


Still, all above all, the game is very good, and I would recommend it. I haven't gotten invested in a JRPG like this in a long time, so that says a lot.

[Feathers]

Legendary artist? Never heard of him (Oda Non), or this game series lol. I peeked at his art, it was rather unpleasant to my eyes.

At first it thought this game sounds fun, but then I saw you have to play as a tank, and that was it for me. I hate playing as a tank, or gundam, giant robot, whatever. Zero romance and weak characters make the game sound pretty dull. I'm surprised you have so much to say about it considering that. Must be all about that tank-play. Well just letting you know I read the review because I'm sure that took a good while!

[Blake81]

Legendary artist? Never heard of him (Oda Non), or this game series lol.

Let's just say he's been in the hentai scene for years. Not a favorite by any chance, but still unique enough to be recognizable (his style is uniquely un-anime-like). And yes, this game series has been mostly ignored in the west; can't think of a single game that was translated officially before this one (I think there were some on the PS2, maybe?).

At first it thought this game sounds fun, but then I saw you have to play as a tank, and that was it for me. I hate playing as a tank, or gundam, giant robot, whatever. Zero romance and weak characters make the game sound pretty dull. I'm surprised you have so much to say about it considering that. Must be all about that tank-play.

Yeah, this is a game where the gameplay is the main dish; it used to be exploration and combat, but now it's mainly combat (unless you like playing spot the ruined landmark). However, despite being classic turn-based combat, it has always been varied enough and challenging to be fun.

And yeah, the character development is completely ham-handed; I've seen cheap-ass hentai VNs with better char development and far more realistic interactions, and it only gets worse and worse as the game advances (confirmed now). Had they removed the dialogue and personalities as a whole and let the player fill the blank with imagination (like the original game), it would've been far more enjoyable an experience.

[Feathers]

To be honest it sounds a lot like Sword Art Online fatal bullet, which I only liked because I can make my own personal girlfriend sidekick haha.

[kukuruyo]

I just found out about this game 2 hours ago and now i see a review here XD