I played about 2/3 through of this one, but got really sick of it in the end. It’s a first person sword-fighting game, and it's actually pretty fun in 1v1 but falls apart completely against multiple opponents: Your vision range is very narrow, your turning speed is very slow and you’re unable to strafe or quick turn, which means that the very mobile enemies will often get around you while you’re fighting another one and do basically unavoidable damage while you can’t even see them. You can lock on and then begin to strafe, which is fine against one enemy but doesn't hold up in the above situation.
Additionally, enemies with ranged attacks are particularly annoying, because you can't actually move towards them without getting hit (lock on has a pretty short range), which means you can't actually look at them at all until you somehow manage to find yourself in their melee range. There's one boss with a laser attack who just killed me with one attack three seconds into the fight because I made the foolish choice to actually move towards her and couldn't turn and move away from the beam in time once it began hitting me. I guess there's some fun to be had in mastering Maken X, but I don't think it holds up. I dropped the game after being frustrated with most levels I had the ability to play and getting stuck in the Brazil one. I think I was something like 2/3 into the game, so I'm fairly confident that it won't change too much since that.
The game's primary draw is the ability to switch between bodies, and that is admittedly very cool, there's enough difference between characters for the change to make things a bit fresher, but ultimately that can't redeem the fundamentally unfun gameplay. Also, this is secondary, but stages go on forever with no checkpoints and sometimes have annoying gimmicks. They're kinda lame too, I expected something way wilder considering that Kaneko's style is definitely felt in the character designs.
Overall Maken X is just an almost unbearable experience, which is a shame, because despite the laughably awful VA, the story is actually pretty interesting, casting you in the role of a sentient, mind-controlling weapon and giving you a lot of freedom in your choices, leading to a variety of endings. Unfortunately the game was just too frustrating for me to even want to get to one of them. Perhaps someone with more patience could enjoy it. Even then, while I hated it, I keep thinking back about Maken, months later, much more than many games that I adored, ignored or despised. It must have been doing something right, in the middle of the awful design choices. Those aren't going anywhere and neither is my overall opinion, but it's a shame. I wouldn't expect one, but this is one of the rare games that'd definitely benefit greatly from a remake.
EDIT: There's a Maken X manga (Maken X Another Jack) made by the Dorohedoro mangaka and it fucking rules, go read that if you have literally any interest in the game whether you have played it or not.
Additionally, enemies with ranged attacks are particularly annoying, because you can't actually move towards them without getting hit (lock on has a pretty short range), which means you can't actually look at them at all until you somehow manage to find yourself in their melee range. There's one boss with a laser attack who just killed me with one attack three seconds into the fight because I made the foolish choice to actually move towards her and couldn't turn and move away from the beam in time once it began hitting me. I guess there's some fun to be had in mastering Maken X, but I don't think it holds up. I dropped the game after being frustrated with most levels I had the ability to play and getting stuck in the Brazil one. I think I was something like 2/3 into the game, so I'm fairly confident that it won't change too much since that.
The game's primary draw is the ability to switch between bodies, and that is admittedly very cool, there's enough difference between characters for the change to make things a bit fresher, but ultimately that can't redeem the fundamentally unfun gameplay. Also, this is secondary, but stages go on forever with no checkpoints and sometimes have annoying gimmicks. They're kinda lame too, I expected something way wilder considering that Kaneko's style is definitely felt in the character designs.
Overall Maken X is just an almost unbearable experience, which is a shame, because despite the laughably awful VA, the story is actually pretty interesting, casting you in the role of a sentient, mind-controlling weapon and giving you a lot of freedom in your choices, leading to a variety of endings. Unfortunately the game was just too frustrating for me to even want to get to one of them. Perhaps someone with more patience could enjoy it. Even then, while I hated it, I keep thinking back about Maken, months later, much more than many games that I adored, ignored or despised. It must have been doing something right, in the middle of the awful design choices. Those aren't going anywhere and neither is my overall opinion, but it's a shame. I wouldn't expect one, but this is one of the rare games that'd definitely benefit greatly from a remake.
EDIT: There's a Maken X manga (Maken X Another Jack) made by the Dorohedoro mangaka and it fucking rules, go read that if you have literally any interest in the game whether you have played it or not.