On that day humans start to face a crisis of destruction... A new title from the RPG "METAL MAX" about the story of human and tank is here! "METAL MAX Xeno" now here on PlayStation! Taking place at the ruined metropolis known as "Death Tokio" the story is one that actively involves the protagonist and tanks (vehicles) starting with the R Wolf. Numerous possibilities for the tank customization awaits, containing features such as weapons, engines and equipment. So enjoy this reincarnated true post-apocalyptic RPG now!
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This game is okay, maybe even good, if only it’s not called Metal Max.
I like some stuff in this game, like the artstyle, the tank customization, the enemy design, and the best of all is the seemingly infinite power scaling (obviously there's a cap, but it will take hours to get there).
There’s level, at first you start with max level of 99, then you can get items to increase your max level to 999.
Then the tank customization, it feels like I always get better weapons in every playthrough, even though I’m not doing much different. Even after you get the best weapon, you will still be able to increase its power through modification.
There’s also chips (I think this is the name, I forgot) that you can equip to your tank to give it skills like firing weapons multiple times or firing every weapon you have at once.
Not only that, your characters will also have skills of their own depending on their class level.
And there are maybe more stuff that I forgot to mention, the main point is that this game has a lot of grinding and customization.
But that’s the only resemblance with the previous Metal Max game. Xeno might seem like an open world game, but it is actually very linear unlike the previous game. The world is also empty of people, so no side quest or quirky NPC to entertain you, the only NPCs are the people in your base and they’re mostly boring.
There are dungeons, they are the worst part of this game because they are so long winded and boring to explore (+high encounter rate, but this has always been the case with Metal Max), there’s almost nothing interesting to discover in the dungeon except for the occasional tank.
Then there’s the story, it exists. It’s very basic but the character's motivation and conflict are so artificial it’s annoying. Okay so the basic gist is that humanity is going extinct, there are less than 10 people in the world (presumably).
The MC is Talis, his only motivation is that he wants to get revenge against the monster because they killed his parents, that’s his only motivation and he will tunnel vision with only that in sight for the rest of the game. Then on the journey he met a lot of other party members, the most notable is Toni, because she's the first girl the base has ever seen, and what does that mean? Reproduction.
Okay but Toni doesn’t wanna do it with anyone else except Talis, but Talis doesn’t wanna do it with her because he doesn’t care about anything other than hunting monsters, it becomes a longass drama, even though it can be solved in 5 minutes. Then there’s the fact that Yokky (another party member) likes Toni, but Toni doesn’t want him.
God it’s so annoying because none of them are even willing to make a compromise even knowing full well that extinction is on the table.
Then you found Maria and Ittica, both girls, but Ittica is still too young (and also the fact that she comes from an experiment tank). Maria is the perfect age for reproduction though, but I don’t think anybody ever mentions anything about reproduction anymore after the Toni debacle, it’s bizarre.
Overall, I enjoyed the multiple playthroughs just mindlessly grinding for the platinum, but it’s a far cry from the previous Metal Max game.
I like some stuff in this game, like the artstyle, the tank customization, the enemy design, and the best of all is the seemingly infinite power scaling (obviously there's a cap, but it will take hours to get there).
There’s level, at first you start with max level of 99, then you can get items to increase your max level to 999.
Then the tank customization, it feels like I always get better weapons in every playthrough, even though I’m not doing much different. Even after you get the best weapon, you will still be able to increase its power through modification.
There’s also chips (I think this is the name, I forgot) that you can equip to your tank to give it skills like firing weapons multiple times or firing every weapon you have at once.
Not only that, your characters will also have skills of their own depending on their class level.
And there are maybe more stuff that I forgot to mention, the main point is that this game has a lot of grinding and customization.
But that’s the only resemblance with the previous Metal Max game. Xeno might seem like an open world game, but it is actually very linear unlike the previous game. The world is also empty of people, so no side quest or quirky NPC to entertain you, the only NPCs are the people in your base and they’re mostly boring.
There are dungeons, they are the worst part of this game because they are so long winded and boring to explore (+high encounter rate, but this has always been the case with Metal Max), there’s almost nothing interesting to discover in the dungeon except for the occasional tank.
Then there’s the story, it exists. It’s very basic but the character's motivation and conflict are so artificial it’s annoying. Okay so the basic gist is that humanity is going extinct, there are less than 10 people in the world (presumably).
The MC is Talis, his only motivation is that he wants to get revenge against the monster because they killed his parents, that’s his only motivation and he will tunnel vision with only that in sight for the rest of the game. Then on the journey he met a lot of other party members, the most notable is Toni, because she's the first girl the base has ever seen, and what does that mean? Reproduction.
Okay but Toni doesn’t wanna do it with anyone else except Talis, but Talis doesn’t wanna do it with her because he doesn’t care about anything other than hunting monsters, it becomes a longass drama, even though it can be solved in 5 minutes. Then there’s the fact that Yokky (another party member) likes Toni, but Toni doesn’t want him.
God it’s so annoying because none of them are even willing to make a compromise even knowing full well that extinction is on the table.
Then you found Maria and Ittica, both girls, but Ittica is still too young (and also the fact that she comes from an experiment tank). Maria is the perfect age for reproduction though, but I don’t think anybody ever mentions anything about reproduction anymore after the Toni debacle, it’s bizarre.
Overall, I enjoyed the multiple playthroughs just mindlessly grinding for the platinum, but it’s a far cry from the previous Metal Max game.
Review on Reddit with Images
IMPORTANT THINGS TO NOTE
-Turned Based JRPG
-Battles on foot and in tanks
-Only JP voiced dialogue
-Has NG+ with option to turn off story events for subsequent playthroughs
INTRODUCTION
The Metal Max franchise is a long running series with the first game being released in Japan in 1991. Metal Max Xeno is actually the 6th entry of the original series. While I'm not an expert on the previous games or anything, Xeno appears to be mostly a standalone game despite likely being a direct sequel of the prior entries. Knowledge of the prior games are not needed to understand the small amount of story in Xeno.
The premise is different from a standard JRPG. Xeno takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where a man created A.I. called NOA had began thinking for itself and desires to exterminate all humans on the planet. At some point in the past, NOA was destroyed, but its robotic creations (SoNs) still roam the land continuing the NOA's mission to exterminate the humans. In addition to the post-apocalyptic situation, it is also a doomsday scenario where there are barely any humans left (at least in regards to this game's location).
STORY
The game's premise and background is interesting, but unfortunately, the story itself is relatively minor. It starts off with the main character (default name Talis) wandering around the Tokyo wasteland to seek revenge on the SoNs who had killed his mother. Eventually, he stumbles onto the secret and highly advanced "Iron Base" that was home to a few survivors. These survivors tasked Talis to look for other survivors and to defeat the SoNs.
The story doesn't really get much more than that. There is very little story development after that outside of finding more survivors and defeating the main SoNs. Players looking for a heavy story driven game here will be very disappointed despite the interesting premise.
CHARACTERS
Similar to the story, the characters here are relatively simple and forgettable. Every subsequent survivor comes with a unique background, but after their introduction, they get relegated to mostly the background without much relevance. There are a few cutscenes that depict some dramas between the characters and some of the issues they deal with, but the game provides little to no resolution to these developments.
The main character in particular had a pretty important subplot, but the consequences and development gets dropped. The characters' subplots are essentially left "open ended" much like the story at the end. A quick research of the prior games seem to suggest that this is a recurring aspect of the Metal Max games. For me personally, this aspect comes off as very disappointing since characters and story does not mean much in the end. There's little reason to get invested in such things.
SETTING
As previously mentioned, this is a post-apocalyptic game with a doomsday scenario. Ruins and wasteland are what the players will mostly see during the game. Despite having a lot of ruins in the game to explore, all of them look nearly identical between each other. There is overall, little diversity in its locations and they aren't memorable at all.
GRAPHICS
At first glance, Xeno was clearly a low budget game. If people didn't know any better, this game could easily be mistaken for a PS3 or even a PS2 game. Character's animations are stiff and awkward at times. Not much details are given to the the environment and don't look very good. The character models are better though and does look decent with its cel-shaded graphics for them.
Well, this game was also developed for the Vita so it would partially explain the subpar graphics. As a side note, the character artwork in the CGs are great, but there aren’t that many of them in the game.
MUSIC
The music was much better than I expected. It felt like a good portion of the budget went into the soundtrack. Based on the Japanese soundtrack, there are about 59 tracks in the game. Overall, the tracks range from heavy metal/rock compositions to the creepy atmospheric scores. I don’t care much for the latter ones, but the former ones and also some other event tracks are pretty great. With that being said, there are a few tracks that are used for most of the game which makes it hard to remember some of the other good tracks.
GAMEPLAY
This is the one area where Xeno really shines. What really sets Xeno (and the Metal Max games) apart from other JRPGs is that you fight in tanks during battles. The degree of customization allowed on tanks is superb ranging from engines, weaponry, and basic tank structures. You can decrease the weight of weapons, modify its attack power, change the weapon slot to allow either cannons, machine guns, S-E, etc... You can also build and find weapons, make tanks based on blueprints and attach special chips that affect battles and performances. There's a lot to consider when customizing each tank and seeing what they can be used for.
As for the characters, every character starts in one of the 5 job classes, but can freely change classes. Each class comes and is able to learn certain skills that are useful for particular situations. Job classes also limit the type of armors and weapons that they can equip in battle as well. Overall, there's less customization for human characters compared to the tanks, but that's generally fine considering that most of the time, you'll fighting in tanks.
The battle system is mostly a standard turn based system regardless of in tank or on foot. You do have to input all of your character's commands first and the turn action will be determined by every character's speed.
The overall gameplay loop is pretty simple however. Ride your tank through the wasteland to get from point A to point B to activate the next story event. Along the way, battle any enemy that appears, locate buried treasures, explore ruins and acquire the treasures inside. There's also a number of tough sub-bosses that are treated as bounties that the player can fight. They can be challenging early and throughout the game since most are optional. Outside of these parts, there's not much else to do, but upgrade and develop new equipment from parts acquired from enemies. It's simple and can be repetitive, but the grind can be entertaining, especially to long term JRPG fans.
It is worth mentioning that this game has a number of difficulty spikes and remain above average in difficulty throughout. This is especially true if you don’t understand how to equip/customize your tank. There’s only the default normal difficulty at the beginning so you’re stuck with it even when things get tough.
REPLAY VALUE
The main story isn't very long. Probably about 20-30 hours only, but there's a NG+ option that allows you to keep everything and acquire new equipment and bounties that are exclusive to NG+. There's also multiple levels of difficulties that are unlocked after each subsequent playthrough for further replayability.
The option to play the game in "Hunter Mode" is great to avoid the story distractions. In this mode, you play through the game, but most of the story cutscenes and developments are ignored. It focuses on beating the bounties and acquiring new equipment portion of the game.
FINAL REMARKS
Metal Max Xeno is a JRPG with a good premise, but with an open ended story and not much substance. The characters had potential, but ultimately lacks much development or resolution to be really invested in. The gameplay is great, particular the ability to customize tanks which isn't seen much elsewhere in JRPGs. There's also a lot of replayability. However, outside of the gameplay, Metal Max Xeno is pretty subpar and forgettable. This game isn't recommended to a casual JRPG fan, but probably for those that want something different like being able to customize and use tanks.
IMPORTANT THINGS TO NOTE
-Turned Based JRPG
-Battles on foot and in tanks
-Only JP voiced dialogue
-Has NG+ with option to turn off story events for subsequent playthroughs
INTRODUCTION
The Metal Max franchise is a long running series with the first game being released in Japan in 1991. Metal Max Xeno is actually the 6th entry of the original series. While I'm not an expert on the previous games or anything, Xeno appears to be mostly a standalone game despite likely being a direct sequel of the prior entries. Knowledge of the prior games are not needed to understand the small amount of story in Xeno.
The premise is different from a standard JRPG. Xeno takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where a man created A.I. called NOA had began thinking for itself and desires to exterminate all humans on the planet. At some point in the past, NOA was destroyed, but its robotic creations (SoNs) still roam the land continuing the NOA's mission to exterminate the humans. In addition to the post-apocalyptic situation, it is also a doomsday scenario where there are barely any humans left (at least in regards to this game's location).
STORY
The game's premise and background is interesting, but unfortunately, the story itself is relatively minor. It starts off with the main character (default name Talis) wandering around the Tokyo wasteland to seek revenge on the SoNs who had killed his mother. Eventually, he stumbles onto the secret and highly advanced "Iron Base" that was home to a few survivors. These survivors tasked Talis to look for other survivors and to defeat the SoNs.
The story doesn't really get much more than that. There is very little story development after that outside of finding more survivors and defeating the main SoNs. Players looking for a heavy story driven game here will be very disappointed despite the interesting premise.
CHARACTERS
Similar to the story, the characters here are relatively simple and forgettable. Every subsequent survivor comes with a unique background, but after their introduction, they get relegated to mostly the background without much relevance. There are a few cutscenes that depict some dramas between the characters and some of the issues they deal with, but the game provides little to no resolution to these developments.
The main character in particular had a pretty important subplot, but the consequences and development gets dropped. The characters' subplots are essentially left "open ended" much like the story at the end. A quick research of the prior games seem to suggest that this is a recurring aspect of the Metal Max games. For me personally, this aspect comes off as very disappointing since characters and story does not mean much in the end. There's little reason to get invested in such things.
SETTING
As previously mentioned, this is a post-apocalyptic game with a doomsday scenario. Ruins and wasteland are what the players will mostly see during the game. Despite having a lot of ruins in the game to explore, all of them look nearly identical between each other. There is overall, little diversity in its locations and they aren't memorable at all.
GRAPHICS
At first glance, Xeno was clearly a low budget game. If people didn't know any better, this game could easily be mistaken for a PS3 or even a PS2 game. Character's animations are stiff and awkward at times. Not much details are given to the the environment and don't look very good. The character models are better though and does look decent with its cel-shaded graphics for them.
Well, this game was also developed for the Vita so it would partially explain the subpar graphics. As a side note, the character artwork in the CGs are great, but there aren’t that many of them in the game.
MUSIC
The music was much better than I expected. It felt like a good portion of the budget went into the soundtrack. Based on the Japanese soundtrack, there are about 59 tracks in the game. Overall, the tracks range from heavy metal/rock compositions to the creepy atmospheric scores. I don’t care much for the latter ones, but the former ones and also some other event tracks are pretty great. With that being said, there are a few tracks that are used for most of the game which makes it hard to remember some of the other good tracks.
GAMEPLAY
This is the one area where Xeno really shines. What really sets Xeno (and the Metal Max games) apart from other JRPGs is that you fight in tanks during battles. The degree of customization allowed on tanks is superb ranging from engines, weaponry, and basic tank structures. You can decrease the weight of weapons, modify its attack power, change the weapon slot to allow either cannons, machine guns, S-E, etc... You can also build and find weapons, make tanks based on blueprints and attach special chips that affect battles and performances. There's a lot to consider when customizing each tank and seeing what they can be used for.
As for the characters, every character starts in one of the 5 job classes, but can freely change classes. Each class comes and is able to learn certain skills that are useful for particular situations. Job classes also limit the type of armors and weapons that they can equip in battle as well. Overall, there's less customization for human characters compared to the tanks, but that's generally fine considering that most of the time, you'll fighting in tanks.
The battle system is mostly a standard turn based system regardless of in tank or on foot. You do have to input all of your character's commands first and the turn action will be determined by every character's speed.
The overall gameplay loop is pretty simple however. Ride your tank through the wasteland to get from point A to point B to activate the next story event. Along the way, battle any enemy that appears, locate buried treasures, explore ruins and acquire the treasures inside. There's also a number of tough sub-bosses that are treated as bounties that the player can fight. They can be challenging early and throughout the game since most are optional. Outside of these parts, there's not much else to do, but upgrade and develop new equipment from parts acquired from enemies. It's simple and can be repetitive, but the grind can be entertaining, especially to long term JRPG fans.
It is worth mentioning that this game has a number of difficulty spikes and remain above average in difficulty throughout. This is especially true if you don’t understand how to equip/customize your tank. There’s only the default normal difficulty at the beginning so you’re stuck with it even when things get tough.
REPLAY VALUE
The main story isn't very long. Probably about 20-30 hours only, but there's a NG+ option that allows you to keep everything and acquire new equipment and bounties that are exclusive to NG+. There's also multiple levels of difficulties that are unlocked after each subsequent playthrough for further replayability.
The option to play the game in "Hunter Mode" is great to avoid the story distractions. In this mode, you play through the game, but most of the story cutscenes and developments are ignored. It focuses on beating the bounties and acquiring new equipment portion of the game.
FINAL REMARKS
Metal Max Xeno is a JRPG with a good premise, but with an open ended story and not much substance. The characters had potential, but ultimately lacks much development or resolution to be really invested in. The gameplay is great, particular the ability to customize tanks which isn't seen much elsewhere in JRPGs. There's also a lot of replayability. However, outside of the gameplay, Metal Max Xeno is pretty subpar and forgettable. This game isn't recommended to a casual JRPG fan, but probably for those that want something different like being able to customize and use tanks.
How am I the only person in America that's played this game? The cover-art is sick, c'mon.
A simplistic, fairly low-budget turn-based JRPG made special by its setting, aesthetic, artwork, enemy designs, job system, and the uniqueness and depth of tank customization.
Using your characters' special on-foot abilities vs attacking with one of your stronger tank cannons that has limited use vs attacking with less powerful weapons that hit enemies' weaknesses and may break their shield vs grinding to build 5 incredible machine-guns (which have unlimited uses) and equipping them on a tank along with a chip you found while exploring an obscure part of the map that allows for all machine-guns to be fired in a single turn and raining hellfire on enemies makes for interesting decisions both before and during combat. I'm 3/4 through the game so far and I'm reallllly enjoying that last option.
A simplistic, fairly low-budget turn-based JRPG made special by its setting, aesthetic, artwork, enemy designs, job system, and the uniqueness and depth of tank customization.
Using your characters' special on-foot abilities vs attacking with one of your stronger tank cannons that has limited use vs attacking with less powerful weapons that hit enemies' weaknesses and may break their shield vs grinding to build 5 incredible machine-guns (which have unlimited uses) and equipping them on a tank along with a chip you found while exploring an obscure part of the map that allows for all machine-guns to be fired in a single turn and raining hellfire on enemies makes for interesting decisions both before and during combat. I'm 3/4 through the game so far and I'm reallllly enjoying that last option.