A Remake That Falls Short: A Metal Max Xeno Reborn Review

By Al

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PC

Video game remakes aren't anything new, but what about remakes that come out only two years after the original? Metal Max Xeno Reborn is a remake of 2018's Metal Max Xeno that originally released in Japan in 2018 and 2022 in the West courtesy of PQube Entertainment. The original version dropped on the PS4 and PS Vita, and its remake skips the Vita in favor of the Nintendo Switch, and adds PC to the mix too. Does this remake deserve to exist considering it not only came out quickly, but is also available on the same platform as the original? What changes or additions are there that might make it worth picking up a second time? What exactly is the Metal Max series? We'll take a look at these questions, and lots more, in this review. So let's dive into post-apocalyptic Tokyo and find out!

Metal Max Xeno Reborn takes place in Tokyo, Tokyo Bay to be specific, but it's a century after the "Great Annihilation" when the supercomputer NOA figured out that it was humans who were the biggest detriment to the world and sought to wipe them out. They did this first with a wave of nuclear attacks, and then with the "Spawn of NOA" (or "SoNs") who took out any survivors one by one. You play as Talis, a monster hunter who has just arrived in the area of Dystokyo and stumbles across one of the last bastions of humanity, the Iron Base. The Iron Base contains three surviving humans: D'Annunzio, the leader, Jingoro the mechanic, and Yokky, a young drunkard. Helping out these humans is an android named Po-M. Iron Base also happens to house all the supplies needed to both survive in the wasteland and fight back against the SoNs. Humanity in the Dystokyo region is on the brink of extinction though as the few other nearby pockets of humanity have seemingly been wiped out recently. If things weren't bad enough, a giant SoN known as Catastropus has taken up residence close to the Iron Base. If it chose to attack Iron Base head on, that's it, it'd be lights out for humanity instantly. How will Talis and the Iron Base residents get out of this mess?

You can actually name your vehicles.

Alcohol means lore dumps.

The answer to the last question is actually rather simple as your main goal in Metal Max Xeno Reborn is simply to destroy Catastropus. That's it. He's actually located quite close to Iron Base too, so it's not exactly a drawn out objective if you don't want it to be. You manage to do that and you get the credits. It would be a very boring game if that was all there was to it, but that's the only goal that truly matters here. Defeating the Big Bad is easiest if done so in greater numbers, so a more immediate goal is to find and recruit any survivors that might be hiding out in the greater Tokyo Desert. You're not just going at it by yourself though, you have a tank! That's right, one of the biggest aspects of Metal Max Xeno Reborn is the vehicle system. Talis and all his eventual human companions have vehicles that they can arm to the teeth, and who do most of the fighting for them. That side goal of finding other survivors is suddenly sounding better isn't it? Oh, and once you find them you can also build up relationships with them and maybe unlock other endings too. These endings are rather short and are anything but the official end to the story, but they're yet another distraction from the Big Bad Robot waiting just beyond a pile of rubble. I actually don't want to go any deeper into the goals and story of the game as it'll start revealing spoilers, but that's all you really need to know for now anyway.

The last girl is a robot?

Behold, The Iron Base!

Combat is what you'll be doing the most in game, and it's actually not as complicated as you'd think fighting with a tank would be. Though most of the fighting you'll do will be in your tank, most of what I'm going to say next applies to on foot combat too. The original Metal Max Xeno had a random battle system like you'd find in any JRPG, but Reborn takes a more Action RPG approach where enemies roam on the map and you can attack or avoid them as you see fit. If an enemy sees you a meter will begin to fill before you're drawn into a fight. You can run or attack first from this point, or you can even be threat to THEM and strike them before they even notice your presence. If you're lucky you can either take out the enemy right away, or hit them and flee before they get in a counterattack so you can do it again once their guard goes back down. Once you're drawn into combat proper things take a more turn-based RPG feel, complete with an ATB meter. Each combatant takes their turn, and you can attack, use an item, or defend as you see fit. You can also move around freely within the limited time granted you for your turn. Both you and the enemy can be damaged in a way that will affect your ability to continue fighting. This means that your weapons can be disabled even if you still have life to continue the battle. Also, you can be forced out of your tank if it takes too much damage. Don't worry too much if combat doesn't go your way though, you'll simply be return to Iron Base, fully healed and with no negative side effects from your misadventure.

These remind me of the Zanti Misfits.

Talk about unsafe driving conditions.

You'll be facing defeat a lot early on, so getting strong is a big key to success. Powering up your characters and vehicles is a bit more complicated than the combat system, but you can create truly unique builds, and also make things quite difficult for yourself if you don't know what you're doing. Vehicles are upgraded by adding new parts to them, with their SP (basically their health) being affected by how many things are currently equipped to them. That might sound like your SP goes up if you have lots of things tacked on, but it actually goes down the more things you have attached. The only way to boost SP is to only equip essential weapons, and to install new, more powerful engines that offer a bigger loadout. Characters gain more power through levelling up and by purchasing new skills in a skills through a skill tree system. This is probably the most confusing aspect of the game as I swear some of these skills are bugged and do nothing, and others are so expensive that I can't see anyone getting them in their first playthrough. Characters can also equip more powerful weapons and armor, but don't lose HP like tanks do if they don't have the right set-up equipped. Managing a full party is a bit of a chore as the game is very stingy with money in the opening sections, so you're going to be shuffling a lot of the same things between all the characters. You can also build new equipment by using various crafting materials and scrap you find in the overworld, and power up weapons and equipment in the same way as well.

This is literally the game.

There he is, off in the distance.

Besides combat, the other main thing you'll be doing is exploring the world and collecting treasure and scrap resources. You're not really told this outright, but the game is largely walled off by difficult boss monsters that might as well be level checkpoints. What you're meant to do is fully explore each area and find every single resource and treasure box you can. You can also take out every enemy you see if you want, but they'll respawn over time. The only way to take on any of the boss encounters that block progress is for you to find more people to join your party. Your first two will be Pochi, the bestest boy that ever lived, and Yokky, the local drunk who will still somehow save your butt in the early game. The former you have to lure out of hiding with a treat and then wait an in-game day or two, and the latter you have to find several bottles of alcohol to get him to stop drinking. (Counterintuitive I know.) The game doesn't really explain this gameplay loop to you though, and I can imagine many newcomers getting wiped out trying to tackle enemies way too powerful for them off the bat. It's because of this that I don't really think of Metal Max Xeno Reborn as a true open world game, it's more of a Metroidvania where you are not given much instructions on what to do, where to go, or how to get past some difficult sections. The original version of the game was way more linear, but that was mainly due to the game being far more direct in telling you what you had to do next in order to progress the game.

Now I have to talk about the elephant in the room, the fact that most of the story has been ripped out of Metal Max Xeno in this new Reborn version. It may sound like I'm exaggerating, but more than half of the game is gone in this version, as well as most of the characterizations of Talis' party members and friends. Players trying out this game for the first time might find it weird that lore dumps are only really done when you return bottles to the Iron Base's leader, but that's because there was far more to it before that played out naturally. They may also wonder if characters really did just join up with Talis out of the blue without seeming to have any real reason to do so, but that's because entire cutscenes were just left on the cutting room floor. The world may also seem a hell of a lot smaller than you'd think an open world post-apocalyptic Tokyo should be, but that's because several areas, and their resulting story beats, were left out of this remake entirely. I'll speculate a bit later on about why I think this is, but the fact of the matter is that this is at best one of the worst remakes ever made, or at worst a completely unfinished game.

Don't die Yokky!

Pochi is the bestest boi!

If you were thinking that the only loss to the Reborn version of Metal Max Xeno was the story, then I have some bad news; the graphics took quite a hit too. Remaking a game from scratch after only two years was never going to be a big graphical improvement, but you wouldn't think it would be a step backwards. Just about everything is redesigned, and most of them look far worse than their original versions. I will admit that I liked the different art style of some of the characters over the overly anime versions in the original, but they've also lost a lot of their character in the transition. I'm not going to dive into the near conspiracy theory level of discussion that this game was censored, but it doesn't help when it's the female characters who have seen the most changes this time around. The 3D graphics just look pretty lazy too, they almost feel like they were purchased from an asset store and modified to fit the game. The same goes for the world itself and I was amazed by how boring a post-apocalyptic Tokyo could look. Some of the enemy designs might look pretty cool here, but they're also a step back and have the same asset flip look to them. I guess the only positive I have to say is that the game ran just fine on the Switch in Handheld Mode (the least optimized way to play) and I never had any technical issues in my time with the game. That doesn't mean that I didn't have some graphical issues here and there, like enemies just disappearing and lighting being all sorts of messed up, but I have to find something positive to say here.

One of the "Wanted" Boss encounters.

Fighting a boss.

I'm very conflicted when it comes to discussing sound as I feel I both have a lot to say about it, but also wonder if I shouldn't just address it quickly and move on. First off I have to admit that I barely noticed or cared for the sound while playing the game. It just feels like it's there. The only exception to this rule is once you're in combat, especially in a boss battle, but I couldn't pick out a single track in line-up if my life depended on it. The music that you find via records that you play at the jukebox in Iron Base fare a bit better, but since these can only be listened to there, while you're selecting them too, they're a very limited experience. Everything I said about music goes for sound effects too, as I don't think I ever took note of them one way or another. Lastly, there is voice acting in this game, but it's all in Japanese with no English dub option. There's definitely a budget feel here, so I wasn't exactly expecting a dub, but since there isn't a whole lot of spoken parts it probably could've been done on the cheap. So yeah, there's spoken dialogue, but since the story is all but ripped from this remake you'll not really experience it much.

You'd think with an open world setup that Metal Max Xeno would have a lot of content and replayability. Unfortunately it's a rather thin experience that is far more linear than you think it will be when you load it up. Sure you can try out different builds with tanks and characters, and there's a lot of stuff to collect and overpriced DLC to pay for, but you can beat the game rather quickly once you know what is expected of you. There is a bit of side content to clean up here and there if you're a completionist, but you're looking at a 15+ hour game that you can actually speedrun after your first playthrough after you find out that you only have to take out the Catastropus to end the game as early as possible. I doubt anyone will have the urge to give the game a second go, but I guess that depends on player. Also, just in case you're curious, HERE is our review for the original Metal Max Xeno from 2018.

There are some dungeon-like areas.

Take care of your tank.

Now before I close out the review, I want to talk a bit about the Metal Max series and it's slightly troubled history. This might seem like a very random aside, and maybe it is, but I think it'll shine some light on how this Reborn version of the game came to be. Metal Max originally had its first title appear on the Famicom in 1991 and was published by Data East. This game got a sequel and a remake before the rights seemed to fall into dispute, maybe due to the fate of Data East itself. It was around this time that the Metal Saga series took off, which was created as an answer to the rights situation, with the Metal Max series eventually continuing alongside it with a remake of the second game in 2003. The series picked up steam again in the 2010s after Kadokawa Games took up publishing, and several mainline entries would be released relatively regularly. These culminated in Metal Max Xeno is 2018 that originally released for the PS4 and PS Vita. Possibly due to publishing issues the game was quickly remade alongside a new entry known as Metal Max: Wild West, which was to be released in 2022. Though this is jumping ahead of the timeline a bit, but the original version of Metal Max Xeno would eventually be delisted from the PSN store, something that probably reveals why the game had to be remade in the first place. Kadokawa, and especially Kadokawa Games, went through a lot of restructuring from 2020 onwards, eventually spinning it off into a new company. I can only assume that the Metal Max series was a casualty of this as Metal Max Xeno Reborn was probably rushed to release unfinished, and Metal Max: Wild West was cancelled altogether. The series also was announced to be in the hands of Cygames by mid-2022, so I guess we can assume that at least part of this was true. Whether or not this is the case, we're left with a very limited game, and a near death series. I'll go back to the review now, but I can't help but feel that even though my experience with the series is so small, I do hope that it bounces back from this and releases games far better than Metal Max Xeno Reborn.

Good ol' Tennessee whiskey!

Desert Sharknado!

At the time of this review Metal Max Xeno Reborn is priced at $39.99. Normally I'd say that this is a great price for a game like this, that's sure to fly under most people's radars. The thing is that I can't think of any other situation where a game's remake is worse in just about every way to the original. It barely feels finished and I find it hard to recommend knowing how good the original Metal Max Xeno was. Seeing as that version of the game is pretty hard to come across today, I guess I'd still give this a soft recommendation for fans of the series, or for those who are intrigued by the idea of a post-apocalyptic JRPG with tanks. I just hope that if we get any more Metal Max games that they turn out better than Xeno Reborn, as this feels like a true low point for the series. Pochi can only make up for so much.

For More Information on Metal Max Xeno Reborn:
https://pqube.co.uk/games/metal-max-xeno-reborn/

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Story: D
Gameplay: C-
Graphics: D
Music/Sound: C-
Value: C-

Overall: D

Pros:
+ The idea of a post-apocalyptic JRPG that sees you fighting with tanks is a cool concept.
+ While not all aspects of the remake are great, the new combat system does improve some aspects of the previous game.
+ There's a lot of customization and build options available for both the tanks and the characters.
+ Some of the enemies, as well as the vast empty desert, look quite impressive.
+ While I prefer the character designs from the original version more, the new ones aren't all bad.

+/- The missing content in the Reborn version can possibly be seen as censorship.

Cons:
- Nearly all the story has been stripped out of the game for reasons I can't begin to understand.
- Story aside, the game feels mostly incomplete when compared to the original.
- Music, voices, and sound all leave something to be desired.
- Difficulty is all over the place, with much of it being due to the game just not properly explaining what you're expected to do.
- Even though the game features an open world that seems to have lots to do, you can actually complete it rather quickly.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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Time to relax for 7 days.

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