Finally a good game by FromSoftware

This is a Japanese game from 2004, so thus it has a lottttta 2004 Japanese bullshit in it. The cameras bullshit, the controls are bullshit, the difficulty spikes are bullshit, the ways to get around those difficulty spikes are bullshit, the lack of actual content is bullshit, the replayability consisting of playing the same level over and over is bullshit, etc.

However, this is among the most batshit video game stories I’ve ever experienced, with a plethora of bizarre voice acting choices and typos and explosions and the fact that it is oddly prescient in a way that they never possibly thought it couldve been. It was very fun but also parts of it were such bullshit

Also RICHAAAAAARD

Metal Wolf Chaos is as ridiculous as it's reputation makes it seem. The story is complete and utter nonsense, yet it's immensely enjoyable. In between the absurdist lines of dialogue in the script are some pretty funny jabs at the American political system that are just as relevant now as it was then which makes it all the more amusing. The gameplay for the XD re-release is also a ton of fun, I ran into 0 frame issues, and the controls were snappy. I wasn't expecting this game to be very good, but I was very pleasantly surprised!

Absolutely fucking stupid game. That's a positive. Fast paced blow-shit-up gameplay with an excellent soundtrack and ridiculous dialogues with absurd voice acting. Port is excellent. Fun as FUCK. Pretty good graphics for its time.

Has some flaws, such as how absurd the final boss can get and how energy pods are usually hidden in random breakables, of which there are hundreds if not thousands in every level (it's not as bad as the spirits in Otogi but it's similar, and I think the Otogi team was responsible for this one too). Also some weapon classes are just straight up useless (actually, about half are).

Can get a bit repetitive but it's super short (6h for me) and doesn't overstay its welcome. Has some sort of NG+, which is nice but idk if I want to deal with that (though I kinda wanna rescue all POWs for the Sword of Moonlight).

I love Jody, I wanna marry her.

As much as I enjoy the cheesy cutscenes and voice-acting, the levels typically either bore me or annoy me. Damage feels inconsistent in that sometimes my bazookas will destroy things in two hits and other times in 10 combined with stomps and machine gun fire. Damage from enemies also feels inconsistent since sometimes I can survive in the middle of a group of enemies no problem and other times i have to run from a couple. This inconsistency combined with the lack of checkpoints gets very infuriating. The levels also just generally feel pretty same-y in both visuals and gameplay with the only differences being some target locations and time limits. I've also had my fair amount of crashes which were very annoying.

Seriously fuck this game man

This game is funny right, funny xbox game with silly voice acting and voice acting and yeah japan made american game haha. I love all that that's all great.

The actual gameplay fucking sucks though. The entire game consist of your big dumb mech running around and slowly destroying identical towers over and over. That's almost the entire game. It's so fucking boring and tedious.

There are some little variations in gameplay but I'm serious that's almost the entire game.

Rescuing all the hostages and collecting all the cells is super tedious and annoying, so I mostly just collected whatever I saw and that was it.

The level variety is decent. I will say that.

The guns are so unbalanced. It makes no sense why some guns are so powerful while others aren't. Also you have to know before you unlock and buy the guns what is good or else you're actually fucked over. It's such a fucking annoying system and I legitimately just couldn't beat the final boss because of this.

The hit registration is terrible. Things will just constantly not take damage despite you clearly hitting them. meanwhile enemies will also constantly shoot you through walls.

Missions can be extremely long, like taking more than 20 minutes long, yet there are zero checkpoints to be found. If you die, you go all the way back to the start of the mission. It's so painful cause you have to slog through all the mind-numbing process of shooting down buildings over and over.

This is especially annoying in the final boss, where if you fail, you have to go through the timed slog of going up an elevator very slowly then shooting a bunch of objects to open a door. You must do this every single time you fail the boss fight, it takes up so much time.

The boss fight itself is so horrendous. It isn't fun whatsoever. It's a giant tank that just spams missiles at you infinitely. Apparently I chose the wrong upgrades because everywhere I looked people said to use guns I didn't have. I refuse to go back and play the other levels to get more currency to unlock those weapons so I'm basically soft-locked.

Also on the boss fight, you can't damage it with energy weapons, so if you've been using rail guns all game, too bad dude the game fucked you.

I dock this game down a full star cause of that fucking boss fight at the end, it's such bullshit. There is literally no way to avoid some of the missles and attacks the boss throws at you, the boss also dishes out attacks that can one shot kill you, thus now you must spend another 10-15 minutes to get back to the point you were at where you died. It's infuriating and time-wasting.

This game fucking sucks, it's a funny little joke with silly stuff going on in the story, but the actual gameplay is so trash. Don't play it.

Beaten in spirit, not technically (put a pin in that).

As a remaster, barebones. As an original Xbox mecha game with proto-Armored Core 4 controls? Pretty damn fun.

It has some poorly explained mechanics (how investment works isn't really explained in an understandable way) but the core gameplay of fuckin up shit is just enjoyable on such a primal level.

It has some wild difficulty spikes (battleship level and Liberty Island level say hello) but once you have two of the top-tier energy chainguns you can just farm Arizona for an hour and never need to worry about money again.

The writing and voice acting are top tier kitsch, with everyone clearly enjoying their ridiculous lines. Especially the actor for Richard Hawk who is loving every second of playing an over-the-top villain.

The musical score is great, with the main two contributors being FROM's own Kota Hoshino supplying some nice rock jams and contractor Shohei Tsuchiya doing most of the soundtrack. Tsuchiya in particular does all or the majority of the unlockable tracks which are almost all bangers. "Boku no Moku" especially.

Back to the pin. I say beaten in spirit because I basically got to the end. However both times I was either close to finishing Liberty Island, something bad happened. First my computer's hard drive died completely. Then the PS4 kept crashing on victory. My copy is clearly cursed, and I dare not tempt fate.

In closing, I will leave you with one of the strongest quotes I've seen in a piece of fiction recently, from the ending to the Chicago level of this very game:

"I looked up, and saw God. And you know what?

"God is made of steel."