This isn't the only Dreamcast game I've ever beaten, but it's one of the few I have. It's a game I owned back in the States and tried for a bit but never played too much of. I bought a Dreamcast really cheap for the TR this month, and this was a game I also found cheap a few months back. This isn't nearly as much of a second chance as a lot of games I've beaten over the past year, but it was still a long time coming. However, this was certainly a game where finishing it became more of a matter of principle after a point, because the 4-5 hours I spent with the Japanese version of it were notttt the best time of my life XD
Maken X is a first-person sword fighting game as well as one of the few straight-up action games Atlus has developed and published themselves. You play as the spirit of a magical weapon called the Maken (in Japanese the kanji mean literally "magical sword"). Maken has been acquired by a secret research lab who are studying its ability to merge souls with people, and the research director's daughter, Kei, is visiting with her friend on the day that they're attacked by a mysterious organization. The sword master who was going to use Maken is killed while defending Kei, and Kei grabs Maken and chases after the weird robot/gorilla/soviet thing that stole her father after merging with Maken. It only gets weirder from here in a way that is very definitively "Atlus" XD
The story and presentation themselves are interesting and honestly one of the game's stronger points. It shares a main character designer with Shin Megami Tensei 2, and it really shows (particularly with some of the later boss enemies). The story itself has several branching paths with it and you can get an assortment of different endings based on a series of moral questions Kei (to Maken inside her mindscape between stages) and other characters ask you, very much like an SMT game or an earlier Persona game. It's not really anything to write home about, but it's more than serviceable. The presentation and enemy design is also constantly really weird and quirky for no real reason (TONS of not at all secret Nazis in what is supposed to be modern day-ish setting, I think, and that's never narratively addressed at all), and this weird style is definitely one of the most charming parts of the game.
What makes that boss design even more excellent is the game's mechanic of "Bran Jacking", where you can gain experience as you kill enemies to level up Maken's ability to merge souls, and this allows you to hop into the bodies of defeated bosses and gain all new move sets. Granted, these move sets only really consist of different jump, speed, and power stats as well as new basic mash-A combos and charge abilities, but it really does change up the way the game plays in a way that keeps things really interesting. There is a very clear power-creep as the game goes on, and there's very little reason not to hop into the latest boss you've defeated (especially as some stages can only be completed while playing as a certain character) given how much stronger they tend to be than the character you just were, but it keeps the action for the game fresh at the very least.
That action though, and the overall playing of the game, is where the game really falls apart though. At the end of the day, Maken X's biggest problem is that it's a Dreamcast game, and an early Dreamcast game at that (released very close to launch). It's a first-person melee-based action game on a system with only one joystick. While there are other first-person games on the Dreamcast that play much better (a good FPS on DC isn't impossible or anything), the nature of the melee combat makes already less than perfect controls even worse to bear.
Given that there's only one control stick, you can't turn and move at the same time. You can hold R to strafe, and you can press Y to lock on to enemies, but that's it. Bundle that in with how you need to hold backwards to block (like this is Street Fighter II or something) and how overall poor the lock-on system is and you have a recipe for a game that is constantly frustrating to play. You are also very mobile in first-person, not only being able to strafe-hop around targets, but even jump clear over their heads to face them from the back (and you keep "eyes" on them the whole time), so at times Maken X can be downright sickening to play with how bad the head-bob is. I never experienced any problems with that myself, but I've read enough reports online of people having trouble with that that I felt it needed to be mentioned here.
Verdict: Not Recommended. Even though there is such a good deal of "good enough" in Maken X, I believe it is not a game actually worth the time of the staunchest Dreamcast fan. It's a pretty cheap game in either America or Japan, so it's hardly gonna break the bank if you just wanna try it as a curiosity, but it's just such a bad time to play that I can't recommend it in earnest. I think most people would be far better served just watching a playthrough on Youtube instead of playing it themselves, because all of the good things in Maken X can be partaken in without actually playing it yourself (and the VA in the English version is way more campy and fun than the Japanese version's is).
Maken X is a first-person sword fighting game as well as one of the few straight-up action games Atlus has developed and published themselves. You play as the spirit of a magical weapon called the Maken (in Japanese the kanji mean literally "magical sword"). Maken has been acquired by a secret research lab who are studying its ability to merge souls with people, and the research director's daughter, Kei, is visiting with her friend on the day that they're attacked by a mysterious organization. The sword master who was going to use Maken is killed while defending Kei, and Kei grabs Maken and chases after the weird robot/gorilla/soviet thing that stole her father after merging with Maken. It only gets weirder from here in a way that is very definitively "Atlus" XD
The story and presentation themselves are interesting and honestly one of the game's stronger points. It shares a main character designer with Shin Megami Tensei 2, and it really shows (particularly with some of the later boss enemies). The story itself has several branching paths with it and you can get an assortment of different endings based on a series of moral questions Kei (to Maken inside her mindscape between stages) and other characters ask you, very much like an SMT game or an earlier Persona game. It's not really anything to write home about, but it's more than serviceable. The presentation and enemy design is also constantly really weird and quirky for no real reason (TONS of not at all secret Nazis in what is supposed to be modern day-ish setting, I think, and that's never narratively addressed at all), and this weird style is definitely one of the most charming parts of the game.
What makes that boss design even more excellent is the game's mechanic of "Bran Jacking", where you can gain experience as you kill enemies to level up Maken's ability to merge souls, and this allows you to hop into the bodies of defeated bosses and gain all new move sets. Granted, these move sets only really consist of different jump, speed, and power stats as well as new basic mash-A combos and charge abilities, but it really does change up the way the game plays in a way that keeps things really interesting. There is a very clear power-creep as the game goes on, and there's very little reason not to hop into the latest boss you've defeated (especially as some stages can only be completed while playing as a certain character) given how much stronger they tend to be than the character you just were, but it keeps the action for the game fresh at the very least.
That action though, and the overall playing of the game, is where the game really falls apart though. At the end of the day, Maken X's biggest problem is that it's a Dreamcast game, and an early Dreamcast game at that (released very close to launch). It's a first-person melee-based action game on a system with only one joystick. While there are other first-person games on the Dreamcast that play much better (a good FPS on DC isn't impossible or anything), the nature of the melee combat makes already less than perfect controls even worse to bear.
Given that there's only one control stick, you can't turn and move at the same time. You can hold R to strafe, and you can press Y to lock on to enemies, but that's it. Bundle that in with how you need to hold backwards to block (like this is Street Fighter II or something) and how overall poor the lock-on system is and you have a recipe for a game that is constantly frustrating to play. You are also very mobile in first-person, not only being able to strafe-hop around targets, but even jump clear over their heads to face them from the back (and you keep "eyes" on them the whole time), so at times Maken X can be downright sickening to play with how bad the head-bob is. I never experienced any problems with that myself, but I've read enough reports online of people having trouble with that that I felt it needed to be mentioned here.
Verdict: Not Recommended. Even though there is such a good deal of "good enough" in Maken X, I believe it is not a game actually worth the time of the staunchest Dreamcast fan. It's a pretty cheap game in either America or Japan, so it's hardly gonna break the bank if you just wanna try it as a curiosity, but it's just such a bad time to play that I can't recommend it in earnest. I think most people would be far better served just watching a playthrough on Youtube instead of playing it themselves, because all of the good things in Maken X can be partaken in without actually playing it yourself (and the VA in the English version is way more campy and fun than the Japanese version's is).