Maken X, which translates to "the demon sword" is about just this particular sword with godlike powers which is going on an adventure. Sure the game has its obvious shortcomings, such as an incredibly boring story, utterly useless voice actors (in the western version, that is) and the fact that during the entire game the controls suffer from the loss of a second analog stick - but it is still very entertaining to play. You navigate between the stages via a world map and get to visit very diverse places such as China, Russia, England, France, Brazil and the United States in search of the missing old man, higher rank and more blade masters to take over. Wait, what? "Take over"? What am I talking about? Well, the brain jack system of course! An approach we have seen in, among others, Oddworld, Rocket Birds and Forbidden Siren. You get to take control over other characters in order to be able to do things you could not do before. Unlike in the forementioned games you here get to keep the characters that have been taken over and can freely switch between them on the world map before entering a stage.
"We will sadly miss out on juicy details such as enemies with swastikas in their faces and a battle to the death with the Pope himself"
When taking over a character you get his or her full arsenal and skill, and there is up to twenty different enemies to be taken over - all significantly different from each other. Things that they do have in common includes being able to block, lock target on enemies, jump over their head and land behind them - all ninja like - and also the abillity to gather power to perform certain special attacks.If you are blessed with knowledge of the Japanese language, the Japanese version is strongly recommended. The western version did not just contain bad voice acting, but it also was slightly censored. We will sadly miss out on juicy details such as enemies with swastikas in their faces and a battle to the death with the Pope himself, right there in the Vatican.
In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that this is a title with flaws just as well as strengths and it probably is not for everyone - but it is on the other hand a innovative game with a fairly high replay value in regards to the ability to accumulate additional characters and the multiple endings. It is like I said rarely or never mentioned when talking about the Dreamcast - and frankly, I can not say why.
