Open Letter to the Developers/Publishers: Please localize and release Metal Max 1 - 4.

[DoroTTV]

They are some of the best JRPGs I've ever played, and yet the only games we seem to get localized here in the west are the worst of the series (not bad games, just not as good as the flagships; seemingly only brought over because they're the "newest" in the series and not the best). Now Metal Max Wild West has been canceled and I'm actually afraid this series is going to die or be relegated to cheap spinoffs like so many other old JRPG series. And the sad thing about it is that the best games in this series have never been localized for western audiences. I can guarantee you they'd sell enough to make it worth the effort. There's a huge audience of people here who grew up with turn based Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest that would eat up an oldschool open world turn based JRPG with unique tank customization mechanics. And if you are insistent on giving them a new coat of paint, look at how Square's HD-2D remakes are performing in sales.

Seriously though -- keep the turn based battle system and everything. Don't try to make them action based. Even just a cheap well-tested port of the reloaded/returns games would be sufficient. If you're going to remake the games and make large changes to the gameplay, at least release the originals along side the remakes.

Sincerely,
A huge fan of Metal Max 1 - 4.

[亚路嘉]

I think his story is better than other JRPGs, but the game didn't sell well in Japan

[wtf317]

+1

[Thorin181]

+1

[moguriso]

+1

Surely it seems that sales weren't well, but there are quite a few hardcore fans in Japan as well perhaps...

[Nephilim]

+1, i just wish we'd get the original xeno game instead of this, i don't know why it's considered an improvement, i'm really not a fan of the new combat, the turn based was perfectly fine.
Hopefully we get more of this series on PC, worst case i'll just go back to emulation

[GoukaSoshina]

I half agree with you and think they should release 1-4 on Steam. But on the other hand, that would be difficult.
It's a commercial problem: 3 sold 90,000, 2R, considered the best remake, sold 56,000, and 4, considered the most engineered, sold only 23,000.
There is no way they can get a budget for it because it simply doesn't sell.
Do you know, when 4 came out, the developers gave all their money back and sold only 23,000 and gave up on ever getting a sequel.

In other words, this XENO series is nothing more than a title that was never supposed to be allowed to continue, but somehow, by revamping the system, was given a sympathetic budget. This is probably the reason why the development company was changed.

And this is generally well-known: remakes rarely exceed the sales of the originals.
There is no reason for KADOKAWA to budget money to port a work that is selling less and less each time it is released. In other words, there is no way they would port anything other than the latest titles.

I beleave that porting 1-4 to Steam for the international market would definitely be a huge success. It would be foolish to think that this title, which is not to the (general) liking of the Japanese, would sell well in a small country like Japan. I think this series will sell very well overseas.
But for KADOKAWA to have that confidence (and to give them the budget to port it), this title needs to sell very well.

I have loved this title since I was a kid, and I really like Xeno Reborn in some ways (although there is a lot I dislike about it). Obviously, the budget and development capacity is not enough, but the issue is clear. KADOKAWA gave them time to solve it once and they improved by making METAL DOGS. So WILDWEST was going to be more interesting. It didn't matter if that didn't suit the tastes of the old users who could only accept 1-4. If they had released 5, it wouldn't have sold 10,000 units.

To say, "Give us a game similar to 1-4, i.e. a title that won't sell," is tantamount to asking them to make it for free. Do not enslave them. If we want it, we have to make it ourselves.
In Japan, 4 only sold 23,000 units.

[GoukaSoshina]

Also, there are people in Japan who dislike Metal Max very much and go around blasting "I don't like the characters in the 2R illustration (they look energetic), so this is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ game", or they see a Tweet about WILDWEST development being cancelled and give it a standing ovation. They rejoice.
4 is also a ♥♥♥♥ game because it has DLC (like the right to fight Noah - $2) that replaces SuperChat for dedicated fans like you.
3 is as unfinished as this XENO REBORN. It's a piece of ♥♥♥♥.
Metal Max died the way they wanted it to by the enthusiastic support of people like that. I don't know about you, though.

Which one do you like best? I think I like 2R. But I had really high hopes for WILDWEST.

[Artur]

Most Metal Max games already have a competent fantranslation.
If they bothered to work together with the fantranslation team/s they could've released the games ages ago on platforms like steam.
As it stands they couldn't even be bothered to give us the original Xeno.

[That_F_Guy]

You know there is probably a different reason why they choose this game, and it has nothing to with sales or anything related to previous games, it may just be the oldest and simplest reason, because they don't trust the west market will like their goofy Japanese tank rpg game with illustrations of a hentai artist, so they played it safe and choose a recent one with a more "gritty" and "dark" setting which for some reason they believe we love on the west i blame the ps3/xbox 360 era

Japanese devs still don't understand we live for this kind of ♥♥♥♥ specially the pc market, i thought after the success of the yakuza games being ported to pc one of the most Japanese games and the popularity of KISS and Illusion tittles on steam they be more confident on releasing games made to appeal to them over the west, you know all the weird ♥♥♥♥ they think we don't like. but i guess not, it seems we still have long way to go

[Artur]

They should've looked at the ratings for Takeshis Castle in the west if they wanted to gauge interest on Japanese media outside of Japan.
I don't think Xeno Reborn is bad per se, they obviously put effort into it.
I just think it could've been more if they opted to keep the original content in and improve upon other things like QoL features instead.

[Junoh]

Remaking 3 for the Switch, PC, and PS4/PS5 would be a great idea. It's easily one of the better JRPGs that I've played.

[GoukaSoshina]

I really feel sad for the Japanese officials who don't know how to sell Metal Max. It's such a great game.

I hope a big company like FallOut that makes games with similar features will buy the rights. Kadokawa won't let them make any more.

By the way, have you heard of Metal Saga? A new Steam release of that one is being considered (though it doesn't sound concrete yet).

[flashgx]

would love the old games to come out in a nice collection like the megaman games, while the original xeno is IMO the worst metal max game it had potential, but reborn took what was good cut it apart and then made the corpse pretty and a semi action shooter

[nope]

All of this is likely going to be dependent on how the next non-Xeno games do on Switch (and then whatever platforms they port to if any) if anything further comes overseas. Even though Wild West (Xeno 2) was cancelled there's still Metal Saga: Flames of Rebellion & a remake of Metal Max 1 that are in the works.

I imagine if either of those ends up doing very well & gets ported to PC, they might look at doing some sort of remasters on the later games that may come here as well... ie Metal Max 2 Reloaded, etc.

Porting a DS title to newer platforms isn't exactly a cut & paste job, it would be a pretty considerable remaster project tbh. If the MM1 remake does really well, we'll see.

I'm not getting my hopes up until I actually see footage of either game. I'm gonna consider this franchise RIP until that happens tbh.

[treos100]

dunno about 4 but metal max 1-3 have fan translations at least.