/vr/ - Retro Games

Yes. It was everything I ever wanted.

>>5386702
Metal Max Returns is one of the best games I've ever played. A solid 9.8/10 for me. Those missing .2 points got eaten up by the fact that sometimes when I played it the encounter rate was a bit much, but other than that it had everything I could want from a JRPG.
The fact that none of the other games in the series will ever be translated (other than the ones that got official releases) is why I started learning Japanese.

>>5386936
metal max 2, 3, and 4 are half the reasons why I'm studying japanese

blows my mind that these games are supposed to be even better than MMR and we don't even one of them

>>5386702
I need to replay it. Didn't seem to ever be able to get past that missile fixture early on. I was probably retarded.

It's one of those games that didn't get attention and I can't figure out how it got stuck back in Japo while we ended up with fucking LENNUS.
Who the fuck decided we needed that instead of this?

OP here, been beating my head against this Muscleguy bounty in the hospital for an hour.
>Deals out fucking 200 damage hits and can hit twice in one turn so that barrier to tank a hit you can buy isn't as useful as you think it's going to be
>Randomly tanks my hits for no damage when they're capable of hitting him for over a hundred
>Pretty sure the game said he was healing when he hops into the ambulance
>Meanwhile he hits so hard and so often that healing is an entirely futile effort outside of when he's in the ambulance
Jesus christ this fucking guy, what a bastard of a fight.

I realized that grenades were consistently effective against him during my last attempt, so my current plan of action is to load up all of my characters inventories with those and just lob a shitload at him until he stops moving.

>>5387106
over an hour*

>>5387106
boss HP is random each encounter

no, seriously

when i realized this, i just quit trying so hard and re-fought until i rolled a low HP muscleguy and won in about 3-4 rounds.

>>5387113
>boss HP is random each encounter

>>5387106
Set him on fire. The damage at the end of each turn will help.

>>Randomly tanks my hits for no damage when they're capable of hitting him for over a hundred
This is something I really dislike about Returns compared to the original. They made damage calculation much more random. I'm pretty sure that the power of your weapons determines maximum damage while your fighting and driving levels affect minimum damage, but even by endgame there's a wide range for every attack. Damage calculation in the original was more consistent.

The OST is also fucking phenomenal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmAqg_6yQWg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHuPy-vQdFM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDXH0pSh7CE

>>5387121
I tried that, the bastard keeps going out instantly.
I should probably get another flamethrower, the laser gun is proving to be a liability with the ricochets

>>5387125
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJcfvCfvJ7E

>>5387113
>boss HP is random each encounter
I've never heard that before. Bosses secretly regenerate some hp at the end of each turn (this is true for MM1, 2, and Returns) so maybe you just got lucky damage rolls and killed him quick?

NES metal max OST is even better. definitely can go head-to-head with castlevania

>>5387136
I saw it mentioned on the gamefaqs messageboard. i killed the muscleguy on round 4 after a certain damage threshold he definitely tanked on other encounters, the other boss battle that definitely had this going on was brass banshee

>>5387140
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Efp26jvdqRY

>>5387151
>>5387140
Also this is a fucking snazzy battle intro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26u1ssUYGUM

>>5387089
Yeah. Not really sure how we didn't get metal max sooner. It's got a ton of pro west stuff in it. All the tanks and stuff would have made it sell well in the us. I mean, it's pretty much jp fallout.

Nothing's fucking working.

This musclefuck won't go down

I didn't realize you could bring spare barriers into fights. Hopefully this helps

At last

Van acquired

>>5387292
Congrats to my man. This took me a long time to do as well.

I just got Metal Saga today, hope it's anywhere near as good as Metal Max Returns.

>>5387324
There is one really shitty change to Saga which is that SP cost ten times as much and lower your reaction.
Best approach is to ignore SP altogether.

>>5387324
Thanks anon

So does that pill that says it cure pain, but doesn't stop health loss do anything? Or is the game just fucking with me

Because if it is that's hilarious

Still kind of picked you couldn't fully waifu the rich girl or the bounty hunter girl. A lot of the dating stuff felt incomplete

>>5388221
What bounty hunter girl, Red Fox? I assume you are talking about Saga.
Rosa's route goes way to far not to have a wedding.

All of this sounds and looks really interesting, so do I start with MM or MMR?

I tried liking it but the setting felt too drab (towns were basically just refuel stations), the combat a bit too random and I fucking loathe that the target bounties shifted on level up.
Cool general idea about the tanks and everything though.

>>5387106
What you actually need to do is load up on protectors and swap them out mid-fight to block his shit for several rounds.

>>5388842
>and I fucking loathe that the target bounties shifted on level up
Oh fuck is this what's causing it? I have collected those bounties maybe twice this whole time

>>5388845
I ended up figuring that out luckily but even then I barely got by. Mad Muscle is a toothy as shit bossfight

>>5388245
I suppose it was red fox. The short haired girl.

Snd yeah, it sucks balls you couldn't marry rosa. Or red fox. Or the female android you find. Or the bust blond cow girl in your party. It's like they finished two romance routes and just gave up because they had to get the game out the door

>>5389076
Nah, redhead was "scarlet"

>>5389076
You can't even call Mika a romance route. You meet her and ask her to marry you and she agrees.
Rosa has a shit load of romantic events. I got her to refuse an arranged marriage because she loved me but I couldn't tie the knot.
I don't think they ever had something planned for the other girls and Karl.

>>5389081
That's the localized name. She was originally called Red Fox in reminiscence of Red Wolf.

What does the ambush system do?

>>5389393
Sounds like a poor translation for the intercept/counterfire system.
You equip certain SE or machine guns, switch on the system and it will counter barrages to prevent damage.

>>5389396
Nice it's on my SE right now so that's probably it. Thanks man.

What should I use to try and learn Japanese? I'm going to want to play the other games without translations once I'm done with this game.

>>5389401
https://djtguide.neocities.org/

I like the ideas it has...if it just had a story beyond "you wanna drive a tank and kill shit until you get bored and come home" maybe I would have liked it more. Same reason I didn't click with Breath of the Wild. Either be a complete sandbox or give me some kind of direction, but Metal Max requires you to do things in a specific order to progress, but there's no story to mark that progress, just progress because it's a video game and that's how it has to be.

>>5389504
Have you tried the rest of the series?

I wish Atsuji did more porn

>>5389383
Such bs. I so wanted to waifu that spoiled rich tank obsessed girl.

I have image the whole thing was a joke on long time fans.

"She's everything you want...but you cant have her. Random blue balled plot end"

>>5389504
You actually just described a huge reason of why I like it

>>5389859
Did the question ever come up in interview with the devs?
Maybe there is a Rosa ending and nobody has managed to unlock it.
I don't think she's the perfect wife for a Metal fan since she see's tanks as a collectible and doesn't relish in the hunt.

>>5390287
Possible. Someone would have to buy the hp guide and read Japanese to know better.

If you can wed her, the English speaking world never figured it out.

>>5390403
A lot of people in the Metal Max fandom know Japanese. Hard not to if you want to play most of the titles.
So far I have only seen disappointment regarding ローズ結婚ED.
Has anybody tried ripping the script to see if it contains unused lines?

>>5390287
>>5390403
>>5390436
You can't marry her. There is a note about this is the Metal Saga Visual Fan Book.

>どうして彼女の結婚エンディングが無いのか?という話を良く聞きます。それは単純に彼女はまだ結婚する意志が無いということにしておいてください。主人公に対する好意はあるのですが、そういった感情を抱いたのが初めてなので、自分の中でも把握しかねているんでしょう。たぶん。

My translation:
>Why isn't there a marriage ending for her? I hear this asked often. This is simply because she has no intention to be married yet. Although she has a conflicting affection for the protagonist, since this is the first time she's had those feelings, she has trouble understanding them. Probably.

>>5390492
Correcting a typo:
>どうして彼女の結婚エンディングが無いのか?という話を良く聞きます。それは単純に彼女にはまだ結婚する意志が無いということにしておいてください。主人公に対する好意はあるのですが、そういった感情を抱いたのが初めてなので、自分の中でも把握しかねているんでしょう。たぶん。

>>5390492
Sounds like a lame excuse. Since it's an ending they could have jumped years into the future until she finally says yes.
At least give the player a choice to propose to her and get a response instead of letting you guess whether it's a bug or a feature.

>>5390492
Meh, they drop it so abruptly and unsatisfactory, it is hard to believe it was intentional. It feels like a dropped plot thread. It just kind of ends.

And yes, they could have done a time skip, or just added a lot of story sections to help the relationship and rosa grow to the point that she either loves you or decides to be friends. Its a rather open ended game, so timing doesnt matter a lot.

They are translating something at the moment?
I really would like to try the DS ones, or MM2.

What are the chances they'll remake 1 again?
I love the setting and (lack of) plot but the mechanics could be done a lot better.

>>5391843
Saga was almost a remake of 1. How many remakes do you need?

Somebody should just translate them all and release them as bundles on steam. After word gets out that they are pretty much japan fallouts they should be able to make some money. Couldn't make any less than princess maker.

>>5392340
Saga just has a similar premise, the rest of the game is completely different.

>Finally find the tank in the seaside cave
>It's a rusty piece of shit
God damn it

>>5386936
>>5387074
Whoa you guys are going to have to tell me what this game is about. Never heard of it, about to start learning Jap runes, what makes it worth learning Japanese lover? It must be good if it helped push you to learn another language

>>5394956
I'm playing through it for the first time now (I THINK I'm about halfway through since I have half of the cities on the teleportation system filled out, but I can't know for sure), let me try to explain what's so good about it. The short of it is that its mechanically sound (Exploration is great, progression is great, combat is fun despite being somewhat hampered by RNG) while having a lot of refreshing design decisions that go against the stereotypical JRPG but work in the games favor.
The games overarching plot is very light, there's no teenagers saving the world, no ancient evil that needs destined heroes to stop it, just you and your tank buddies traveling around from town to town in a lighthearted post apocalyptic world collecting on bounties exploring and outfitting yourselves and your growing tank fleet better and better. The game also has a really good sense of humor.
It's not 100% devoid of plot but it's like 80% or so devoid of plot so far. There's an introduction for the player character and the two party members that set up their personalities to a degree and there's been world building and some things happen but none of the things feel like they're part of an overarching narrative, I've only seen like one or two things go on for more than a town or two
The game drops you in with little theatrics or tutorials, the extent of the tutorial is pretty much softballing the opening areas random encounters to you, your father disowns you because you're obsessed with being a monster hunter so from that point forward you strike forward and start killing shit for profit. You talk to people around town, you find out there's a tank down south if you talk to people around the opening town, you go to find the tank but get your ass whooped by it's guard and a legendary monster hunter saves you because he was trying to get the tank for himself, he realizes that it's a piece of shit so he just takes a weapon from it and lets you have it.

>>5395090
From that point forward normal gameplay begins
There's no traditional quests to speak out, instead there's bounties from the hunter office, weekly bounties, boss encounters, acquiring tanks, and exploring for the sake of exploring.
>Bounties give you an idea of where a boss level mob will be and you can take it down for a hefty profit
>Weekly bounties are for regular enemies, the weekly bounty changes every time a character levels up (if you can git gud at this you will be rolling in money)
>There are boss encounters in the game without bounties on them like two gigantic auto turrets that block your path further early on
>There are lots of areas the game will never specifically bring you to that have very useful stuff like hidden trader camps with extremely good weapons, expansive underground areas that can lead to other places or treasure, and just killing all the enemies on an expedition to check something out yields a ton of money
>Tanks are scattered throughout the world with varying ways to acquire them
Outfitting your characters and their tanks well is also super important. If you're planning to go up against a bounty or explore thoroughly you absolutely want to have up to date gear, weapons, items, tank weapons and parts

>>5395115
Progression is really good
>There is on foot and tank combat and both are fleshed out very well and used often during the game so it's important to have both be as good as they can be
>The first couple of towns mostly just sell typical guns but shortly thereafter weapon upgrades start being very distinct from one another, with stuff like laser guns, grenade launchers, swords, flamethrowers, and sonic booms that all have very different properties and make each buying or finding a improved weapon very exciting
>Gear is just a defense increase besides one piece you can wear called a protector, protectors will increase your defense, help you shrug off attacks, but eventually break from doing so, but you can carry multiple and switch them out mid battle so they're super useful for making your characters tankier outside of their tanks and finding improved ones makes a huge difference
>There are permanent items you can keep like the BSC (basically an in game map/manual/etc), a repair kit, and a lockpicking kit which give your characters new ways to interact with the game and actually makes you feeling like you're roleplaying in a JRPG
>Tank customization involves a bunch of different things, there's upgrading weapons but also stuff like modding the chassis, keeping special types of shells with you, installing different systems (similar to the permanent items) that let you do things like avoid status conditions, teleport, or heal your characters, acquiring a new tank takes effort and is satisfying to do

>>5395152
The world design is also fucking fantastic
>Overworld is winding with lots of nooks and crannies with extra places to go and secrets to discover
>Pretty much every town I've been to so far as been unique in both design and in having some kind of gameplay niche
>The dungeon areas of the game are sizeable, I just started exploring the subway ruins for the first time last night and I went super deep into them (but not even all the way in) and found a way out to another town. I'm thinking about trying to chart some kind of map on paper because it's so expansive.

And as I mentioned before the humor is great
>Option to drop a flower pot on a guys head in the opening town, just because
>You accidentally doom a couple of old people to death
>Some of the bounties are wrongly accused
>One of your party members introduces themselves by getting you into a barfight
>Enemy designs get absolutely ridiculous sometimes, like a kiwi bird made out of glass with medicine in it, or just some armor plating

>>5395172
The game feels like a bounty hunting anime simulator and the lack of an overpowering plot and the structure of the game really sell it and make it good at what it does.

What games do you think could have taken influence from Metal Max? I can only think of Steambot Chronicles, that game had MM vibe everywhere, being non-linear, having to repair/customize your robot, etc.

Is MMR the only translated game in the series? Is Returns fine without playing the ones that came before?

How do the keypads out in the world work? I keep running into them but every single number on them always gives me an input error

>>5395456
Returns is a remake of 1.
Knowledge of 1 isn't really a big deal for the rest of the series. There's some references but nothing to important for most part.

>>5395474
You find the code somewhere.
The idea was that if you already played the game you could reuse the codes to gain access to the barred areas without going through all hoops again.
In Returns some where changed to require keycards.

>>5394956
That anon up there has it as detailed as it's gonna get. I had already wanted to learn, and this series was just the last push it took for me to buckle down and start learning.

>Metal Max thread
It's because of threads like these that I still browse 4chan. Any news on on-going translations?

>>5390492
I don't wanna be that guy, but do you have a download link for the Visual book?

>>5396767
>do you have a download link for the Visual book?
You can find it on sadpanda.

>>5392340
What happened to Xeno getting a Steam release?
Princess Maker was mainly aimed at the Chinese market, not sure how they feel about Metal Max.