Let's play Metal Max

[Grauken]

METAL MAX SERIES

Main Games
1991 - Metal Max (NES, Jap only, fan-translated) // 1995 - Metal Max Returns (SNES remake, Jap only, fan translated)
1993 - Metal Max 2 (SNES, Jap only) // 2003 - Metal Max 2 Kai (GBA remake, Jap only) // 2011 - Metal Max 2 Reloaded (NDS remake, Jap only)
2005 - Metal Saga (PS2, first official English release of a Metal Max game)
2006 - Metal Saga: Season of Steel (NDS, Jap only)
2010 - Metal Max 3 (NDS, Jap only, fan translated)
2013 - Metal Max 4 (3DS, Jap only)
2018 - Metal Max Xeno (PS4, official English release)

Other stuff
2007 - Metal Saga Mobile aka Metal Saga: the Melody of Linkage (mobile, Jap only)
2010 - Metal Saga: New Frontier (MMORPG, Jap only)
2015 - Metal Max: Fireworks (mobile, Jap only)
2015 - Metal Saga: The Ark of Wastes (mobile, Jap only)

METAL MAX

Always wanted to play this, but never came around to actually doing it. Let's see how far I get

The intro starts with your father dumping on you for your life choices. No respects for adventurers it seems

No idea why you lay around for the day to dawn. Okay, next step is understanding the basics. This is basically a Dragon Quest clone with a wasteland skin, can't be too complex. Talk when standing next to people, Status for well, the status of your char and another menu for when I get a vehicle, which everyone is telling me I need to get to survive

Search for interacting with various other objects. The game often loads extra screens, like the one for the vending machine.

You also get a deposit space (trunk) and a machine that tells you how much exp you need for the next level up

You zoom in on places inside places

Or when you enter buildings to loot peoples belongings (not quite sure how these boxers will help, but it's a wasteland, somebody probably will give me something for it)

I think I'm ready to leave the house

Okay, let see all Riorado has to offer

House on the right is where the local crazy scientist lives

So talking brains, a prisoner for no reason, Dr. Mortem sounds like a standup guy

Dr. Mortem is very single-minded, you have to hand it to him. He knows what he wants

The next building is a teleporter, but apparently I can't enter it at the moment

We get our first quest, get a vehicle in the first dungeon

But before we can do that, first let's check the Inn. We get more information about the first dungeon as well as another reminder to get a vehicle

Okay, next up the bar. Not much at the moment, you can change the tune in the jukebox and I think the Red Wolf char might be hirable later, or maybe not

Last is the shop and the hunter's guild

Okay, ready to leave the village

 

[Grauken]

Outside of town its the standard fare of all old jRPGs, lots and lots of random combat. Here some enemies you encounter early on, although they do occur you in groups and even groups of mixed enemies

If you get enough EXP, you automatically level up, with no control over how your main stats increase. You also get random skills increases, which is hilarious when you get an update to driving skill without even having a vehicle. The magic of RPG mechanics. Btw. if you die you actually get revived from Dr. Mortem. Not sure if this is for the whole game or only in the beginning.

Ok, the first mission is to get a tank, which is in the southern cave. It has two levels. The first level has not much.

Also a new enemy, but it wasn't much more dangerous than what you can meet outside

The second level has a few dead ends and then you find the tank. But you get attacked by a dog with a cannon, who can almost kill you in a couple of shots, but then you get some help from Red Wolf. Not without self-interest, he gets the good stuff from the tank and leaves you the old model behind. But it's better than nothing.

You even get to name your new tank

Then just open the way via the console and leave the dungeon. If you meet some enemies, they have to deal with your Machine Gun, that packs a heft punch.

 

[Grauken]

So there's another cave close to the first city, just have to leave westward, then north and then circle south again.

Without the tank its a bit too heavy for beginners, but now with my tank its no problem

Not much to it, some crates, a new enemy type that usually sits around doing nothing and then rams you

When the game wants you to leave the safety of your tank, it puts those tiles in your way you can only cross on feet, but which stop your tank

So at some point into the cave, I ran out of ammo for my tank's machine gun. I hadn't looked into it, but I just assumed this was an infinite attack button since the normal ranged weapons don't have ammo either. But just at that moment I found another weapon in a crate, that while not as powerful as my main weapon, can spam infinite attacks. Not sure if it was designed intentionally like that, but it sure was a nice happenstance (edit: I tried it out with the original Japanese later, same behaviour, but if you get pummelled at 0 armor long enough your tank goes explody, so there's that). Btw. if you ran out of ammo either go to 'Other' options to run away or leave the vehicle via 'Vehicle status' to attack with your normal guns

At the lowest level of the cave you find the Guorilla clan, which packs some punch at that point. Even your tank Submachine gun doesn't do a lot of damage, so I left my vehicle to throw a few grenades that worked nicely and killed two of them, then I escaped into the safety of my tank again. Their attacks whittled down my tank armor to zero, but then nothing happens. I'm not sure if it's a bug or not, but once my armor was depleted, even when they inflicted damage on me, it didn't decrease my HP and the tank didn't break down either, very odd. Which meant I could safely kill the last two by just attacking them with my tank gun, even if it took a bit of time as the gun did so little damaged.

So after killing them I went back to Riorado, restocked my main tank machine gun with ammo, got full tank armor again, bought some items (both your tool and your weapons/armor capacity is limited to 8 each) and checked some other stuff I hadn't before, like trying to talk to Dr. Mortem's prisoner.

Oh yeah, also got my reward for taking out the Guorilla clan. Hunter's office is also where you can save.

Once everything is done, you can head out into the wider world. There's an outpost north of the first city and the 2nd cave, that opens the gate when you ask them nicely.

 

[Grauken]

After leaving the first area, you see those ugly-looking ground tiles, that stop you from driving on them with your tank, and since I don't feel like exploring on food right now, I keep it for later.

Following the mountains south and you find a single location on the coast, where you find some vending machines some of you probably would like to have in real life. One of the guests gives me a hint about a secret trader campsite

Some new enemies in this area, a palette swap of the Guorilla Gang, a flying monster and some plants that can spew poison. It damages you over time during combat, but doesn't last past combat, so its not too dangerous.

The secret campsite is exactly where you would expect it to be, in the middle of the trees (can't go there in a tank since those are tiles you can only cross on foot). You can buy some stuff in the trader camp, but nothing exactly you need. That Game Kid items looks interesting, not because I have any clue what it does, but its exorbitant prices make me ventures it's either important later on or an utterly useless joke item, probably the ladder. Also we get the tip about another location nearby.

Since there's not much else to do here, let's leave at the moment and check out the location the trader from the secret camp told me about

 

[CryptRat]

Oh I didn't played this one but played Metal Max Returns on SNES and seeing the maps you shared I realized it's actually a remake of this one. Very fun game by the way.

 

[lightbane]

Oh hey, Japanese Wastedland! Can you make bigger screens though? Can't see shit here.

 

[Grauken]

Oh hey, Japanese Wastedland! Can you make bigger screens though? Can't see shit here.

Technically I could, but the effort wouldn't be worth it to me. Sorry

 

[Strange Fellow]

Small screenshots are better than ones that fill the whole screen anyway.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Too much internet, I see Pepe here grabbing his tool

 

[Grauken]

Our next step is a little cabin in the woods, but alas you can't reach it with a tank, so it's left behind for the moment

Not everything is happy in post-apocalypse land

The next location is another small house close to the next city, which is Pobre Obre, both of which we can reach on foot if we go East

I don't know who this Sam is, but it seems he wants to explore the wider world and likes tanks, but since I'm here on food he doesn't care about me yet. So back to my tank and then around the mountain to increase my crew. Turns out the tank was exactly what I needed to get a new mechanics

Next is heading directly to Pobre Obre, which is another town with a lot of the same stuff we've seen in the starting town. Bar, Inn, Shops, etc. We can use the teleporter now to teleport between cities we have already visited, which is kinda nice until you realize you can't take your tank with you. But it's useful in case you die, since you can just go back to the last city where you were before.

Anyways, we get a greeting. Missed the chance for a good joke there by allowing you to answer no.

The teleporter center is now actually useful. Just don't think about all the Star Trek episodes were something happened. Or the Fly. You're definitely, maybe safe in there

One of the attractions in town is betting on frog races. I like all the extra stuff in this game, its pointless but given how it might have given the coders lots of stress for something so irrelevant its shows how much work was poured into this game

You can now also buy new stuffies for your tank or even rent-a-tank. And there's a shop for indoor decoration. Not sure yet whether that's in the category absolutely pointless or somewhat pointless

And we find out where possible the next piece of the action is

The hunter office adds another piece, the info with where another bounty is hiding

So heading out again, though before I go to get El Piranha, I check out the last two locations on the map

 

[Grauken]

Let's start with some more enemies you encounter in the wasteland, I mean Metal Max. Most of those are tank enemies. Basically the game has areas for where you're supposed to walk on foot, and areas where you're supposed to be in a tank. If you meet tanks enemies on foot, you're usually dead within one or two rounds. This game is not kind to people without tanks.

Very funny enemy, he has one big shot (hence his name) but then is out of ammo and defenseless against you. That's what I really like about the enemies in Metal Max, they aren't just different skins, but exhibit different behaviors, strengths and weaknesses.

Okay, first part is Negi, a small town in a sort of swamp area (I assume its swamp). There's nothing to do here really

Second part is the location in the north-eastern part of the map. It's closed and we can't get in at the moment, so I assume it will be relevant later. You can walk around the fence and see that it goes down, so there's some underground lab or base there.

Finally, the facility on an oil rig or whatever it's supposed to be. On the long walk over the bridge you meet some tanktopus.

The part inside the facility was a bit disappointing. It's pretty small and all you have to do is talk to the boss, who then allows you to take the buggy. The enemy design is neat here. If you need to, kill the Anti-Theft devices first.

Once you leave the oil rig or whatever it is you meet El Piranha and his gang, which is kinda what was missing up to this point, some excitement. Don't hold back killing them one by one, don't spread your attacks and if the buggy is too damaged to shoot anymore, let it go defend for each round.

Okay, the final and fourth part, going over the bridge in the north. You reach a small island where explosions go off randomly around you and which actually looks like a bombardment. This strips you off your armor and damages you further afterward. So once you reach the Big Cannons you're usually pretty defenseless and not in the best state. Then they usually curb-stomp you in a short amount of time. I'm not quite sure if there's a trick, whether I need to level up more + better gear. I do now that with some luck you can get through the bombardment almost unscathed, but again most of the time you won't. And the big cannon kill you in a few rounds even with full armor. Let's see how to solve this