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The Best Game You've Never Played

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: August 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is the biggest sleeper since Disgaea. I bought it without really expecting much, but it has been a great deal of fun. The game is open ended, while gently guiding you if that's what you want to do. Dialog choices also take you down different and sometimes very unexpected paths.

The game itself is mostly about vehicles and upgrading vehicles, with a great many options for doing so. Character equipment is also there, while much less important. Characters do level up, but you don't get any choices in the levelling.

A big plus for me is that the combat is turn based and doesn't require any twitching whatsoever. There are also a bunch of mini-games to play, some with a slight twitch factor.

There are a lot of things to do and a lot of fun to be had. The 1/2 star off is because of two things 1) the game looks scrungy, it's almost black and white throughout, although I think that's supposed to be in keeping with the story and 2) the scene changes are too long, and every time you enter a building or get into or out of combat you sit and wait.

Bottom line is that you'll probably either love or hate this game, much like most people love or hate SRPG's. (This isn't a strategy RPG like Disgaea at all, I'm just using that as a comparison.) I am spending a lot of hours with the game, I hope you'll give it a try.

All about tanks and a little too open ended

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: January 20, 2007
Author: Amazon User

If you love tanks, you absolutely must buy this game. I'm not a military history buff, but I think the developers did a super job with the tanks.

Metal Saga is about as non-linear as RPG's can possibly get. You can visit anywhere anytime. Certain areas have much tougher random encounters, but you can run away. So if you really wanted to, you could in theory visit every single town while still level one.

The open-endedness suffers a bit with the restrictions of character level. By the time you are ready for the last town, everywhere else is a cakewalk. Being open-ended means you aren't required to do anything, however if you want the full experience, you need to defeat at least 35 outlaws to trigger the coolest event in the game. Also the game is so open ended that it never truly ends per se; no one event gives you a sense of true closure.

The combat interface reminded me a lot about final fantasy, but in a good way. You can get in and out of you tanks, like switching characters, and as long as you remain inside your tank, you can't be killed. Tanks are required for harder enemies that would otherwise slaughter you, so you must care for them. Repair their damage, and upgrade their weapons. The setting is a post-apocalypse wild west type deal full of deserts, frontier towns, and cybered up enemies. The style is unique, well developed, and totally matches the music. High marks here.

What I really liked about the game was the ability to hotkey commands to unused buttons (you can hotkey the metal detector), and the ability to speed up combat by holding down L2. So awesome after suffering through Dragon Quest VIII.

I didn't like how hard it was finding certain outlaws though, especially the flying ones. Also I didn't see much point to the mini-games, and I'm truly glad none of them effect the plot in any way. Finally there is a quest regarding Big Medals that is impossible to complete due to a bug in the game (According to gamefaqs, that I verified). I spent a ton of time searching for Big Medals, and I was upset at finding it was wasted.

Overall this is fun RPG I would recommend to normal people, and a must have for military tank lovers. The entire thing takes around 55 hours total, and can be completed in about a month if you have a job.

Interesting, but still average

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 21, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The stroy line is pretty cool of a fictitious future in a nuclear holocaust, kinda like the terminator with machines that have minds of their own. The game concept is intersting and it's fun to see the "what if" this were to actually happen.

Good variety in an RPG were you have the option of fighting in a tank or by character. You can customize your tank into a fighting machine based on what you like. Really fun to change your tank around and see the different abilities.

The game pace is really slow. Finding and creating customized items is tedious and difficult. Some outlaws are difficult to find and you could spend hours trying to find one, especially the flying ones. Going on to the next area, the eniemis are like 30 levels above you and you have to spend almost 1.5 hours to fight them to catch up, hence making the progress very slow. Exploring to find items is slow because your constanly attacked, discouraging exploration.

Overall, not bad and it's worth purchasing. I enjoyed it! However, not a game I would play a second time.

If you like tanks and you like RPG, you shuold get one.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 11, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The journey continues.
I've been playing the series from FC to SFC to GBA, and now PS2.
You are totally free in the game, there are no blocks will stop you going somewhere but after you finished something. And human and tanks use different set up of gears. Musics are nice as usual, also a lot rumors as usual, haha.
Anyway if you like tank and RPG this is a great combination.

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