Metal Max Review (Nintendo Famicom, 1991)

Metal Max kind of came out of nowhere for me. I had never heard of this Japan-only RPG until recently. After reading a few descriptions I just had to play it. It’s a diesel-punk take on the genre with a lot of ambitious ideas wrapped up in a nice mostly traditional Japanese role playing game package. Metal Max sounded like it was right up my alley. Ambitiously I dove right in and was not disappointed. It might not be the best RPG ever but it’s certainly one of the strangest and most unusual of its time.

Metal Max has a very unusual beginning for an RPG. The settings for starters is a strange post apocalyptic style fantasy world inhabited by monsters. These aren’t your typical dragons and ogres however. Instead the citizens of this land are terrorized by the likes of walking gas cans and octopi with guns coming out of their face. There’s more to it than that, but those are the best examples I can think of that represent the strange sense of humor Metal Max has. You play as an adolescent boy (whom you choose the name of) who lives in the small town of Riorado with his family. The adventure begins as his father, a sarcastic owner of a tank repair shop, kicks the player out of the home. Apparently the protagonist doesn’t want to inherit the shop, and instead aspires to be a monster hunter.

The only problem? He doesn’t have any tanks. There aren’t even any in this town. Monster hunters use these in combat to take down bounties and slay all manner of creatures. Fortunately our hero catches wind of an abandoned tank being discovered in a nearby cave. This sets into motion a quest with almost no plot twists, a secondary cast with the personality of cardboard boxes, and very few dungeons. Honestly it’s a bit refreshing that in the age of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest developers took a more simplistic approach to storytelling. Plot certainly isn’t the draw here. Metal Max takes a very unconventional and ambitious approach to its progression. It’s open world. You can go almost anywhere you want right from the start of the game, and are able to complete most tasks completely out of order.

That’s Metal Max’s biggest strength. It’s just so different from its contemporaries. Having a big wide world where you can go anywhere pretty much whenever you want is really neat. The only thing that holds you back is the power levels of enemies, but in most cases you can overcome this with strategy or grinding. Based on the way the world map is designed, as well as the difficulty of enemies in specific places there’s a suggestion of which order you should complete specific tasks, but this can for the most part be ignored. I really like the general design of Metal Max. That’s only one of the big innovations it brought to the genre.

Despite the unusual design behind it Metal Max is a traditional Japanese RPG at heart. The game uses the typical top down view with your character’s avatar exploring a series of 2D environments. Metal Max uses the standard menu conventions where you have to access it in order to speak with NPCs, search for items, etc. There’s a big world map to explore, and within it many towns, caves, and other points of interest. Characters can be equipped with weapons, armor and other clothing to increase their stats and thus their survivability in battle as well. This is all pretty standard for a role playing game. Anyone who has played classic Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest knows what to expect here.

The battle system is also pretty traditional. At least, on the surface. Encounters occur at random and battles take place on a separate screen. Your characters are on the right, and enemies pop up on the left side of the screen. From here you input commands like attack, defend, run, etc, and the fastest characters carry out their selections first. What’s interesting is that there aren’t really special moves in this game. You also don’t learn any magic. To offset this limitation the developers included a lot of tools almost all of which are single use here. There’s the common healing items, but also explosives and the like which cause a lot of damage against foes. As you win battles your characters gain experience points, and from here levels which increase their stats.

Despite the open ended nature of this title there is actually an end goal. As a monster hunter it’s your job to chase down bounties for monsters in this world. You’ll find information about them on the walls in certain buildings in specific towns. If there’s one complaint I have it’s that there aren’t a lot of clues on exactly where to find them. NPCs have clues, but the problem is there are so many of them and not all of the dialogue is helpful or even interesting. By the end of the quest I got a little tired of speaking to so many in order to figure out where the bounties are located. Upon slaying a wanted monster there’s very little fanfare, but when you return to the monster hunter headquarters you’re given a cash award for completing the mission.

This progression mechanism is pretty interesting for the way this game is designed. Technically you don’t need to complete any of these hunting expeditions. There is a loose set of goals in the game outside of this aspect with the wanted missions in place to nudge you to specific areas. Generally your goals such as recruiting the two additional characters for your party, or new tanks to find are near where you’ll encounter the subjects on the wanted posters. Because money is so sparse in this game and upgrades so expensive you will struggle to be successful here unless you collect a few bounties along the way. The only thing I don’t like about these is the fact that they’re random encounters, and must be triggered in specific areas in the world.

Another area in which Metal Max is distinctly different from other RPGs of this time is the tank system. In the first dungeon of the game you acquire a tank which can be driven by the main character. This takes the place of your character inside of battle. Tanks are significantly stronger and more resilient than your base fighters which makes them extremely useful in the game. As you progress two other allies will join your team. They too can man these tanks should you so choose. You’ll want to have them riding within them because battles are oh so much easier with some real firepower on your side.

Just like how you can equip your characters with weapons and armor each tank can also be outfitted. The types of items they can use are different of course. You have three types of guns. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses. The main gun which is the strongest but has limited ammunition, a secondary gun that’s weaker but has infinite shots, and an SE cannon that causes all manner of special effects. Defenses and maneuverability can also be increased with new chassis and engines as well as armor plating. It’s even possible to upgrade some areas of the tank such as its defenses and shell capacities but these are extremely expensive. Everything you can buy for these vehicles costs loads of gold, and you’ll find yourself having to grind for this money often because there never seems to be enough of it.

There are a few drawbacks to the tanks however. First of all the interface for equipping them or even checking their stats is a nightmare. It’s far too convoluted. It’s also very annoying that your tanks can become completely disabled in a few ways. If they take too much damage they will be inoperable and from here must be towed to a repair shop. Even if you simply go over their weight capacity by giving them too many items they can’t move. You can throw away armor tiles to reduce the load, and I found myself having to do this constantly. It’s downright cumbersome managing the tanks in this way so frequently.

I also find the fact that there are some areas where you can’t even ride the tanks frustrating. You see, these can’t cross forests or other light barriers so you’ve got to leave the vehicles and continue on foot. Constantly. This means that you have to keep your human characters outfitted with the most modern equipment as well because you never know when they’re going to be battling again. This issue is made worse by the fact that money is already so difficult to come by and save up. It just feels like there’s too much management and that gold is too scarce. I’m not usually against grinding but with the open world design I felt that this caused some pacing issues.

Despite the focus on grinding Metal Max has a pretty reasonable difficulty level especially when compared to other 8-bit RPGs. Yes, the common tropes of the genre are still problems here. Status effects are detrimental, and sometimes the balancing is a bit off. Items are a chore to manage because of limited inventory space. In some instances enemies go from being a complete and utter cakewalk to quickly devastating your team. The difference can be as small as traveling five tiles. Regardless I find that Metal Max isn’t nearly as cheap as most of its contemporaries. Basically the biggest drawbacks to this one all revolve around it being too ambitious for its time. That interface is far too technical for its own good. In spite of this I’d still say it’s one of the best NES RPGs ever.

Unfortunately Metal Max isn’t a very good looking game. The visuals are passable, but in no way does it push the hardware significantly. Characters lack significant detail, and a lot of the game’s terrain barely has any texture in the tile work. The high point is in the monster designs. As I mentioned earlier the game maintains a very strange art style with animals that have guns for heads or other parts of their bodies. There’s also walking gas cans, monkeys with jet packs, and more. Honestly the game reminded me a lot of the Mother/Earthbound series in this sense. I mean that as a huge compliment. The soundtrack is also a little strange with a lot of heavy bass pieces and more upbeat music than what is typically found in an RPG. I liked it well enough, but I didn’t love any of the compositions.