Maken Shao is an action RPG developed by Atlus with character designs by Kazuma Kaneko. A bad action RPG suffers from a few main faults: unimaginative storyline, monotonous battle system, and awkward controls. Any one of these three is enough to ruin an otherwise good title. Well luckily Maken Shao suffers from none of these setbacks. If anything, its only problem is that its localization was not taken very seriously. It was released in very small numbers in the West, and the voice acting and translations are considered by many to be atrocious.

The world of the game is a bleak one. China and the US battle each other for superiority via means of terrorism. In Japan, a team of scientists attempt to awaken an ancient entity known as Maken, or demon sword. Just as the team succeeds in awakening the sword, an unknown creature breaks into the research lab and kidnaps the head scientist. The iconic girl in red on the cover, Kei Sagami, is the daughter of that scientist. She decides she will take up the Maken to rescue her father by traveling the world, hunting down whatever forces set these events into place.

While you may think that Kei is the main character, Atlus would surely correct you. The game is actually the story of the Maken, traveling from body to body ultimately unraveling the mysteries of the evil powers of the world. That’s right; you can transfer bodies. The Maken gives the player the “Brain Jack” ability which lets you drop whichever sack of skin and bones it’s currently attached to, and upgrade to a new one. There are around 20 playable characters, each with their own weapon (the Maken changes shape when held by different people) and skills.

So what is the combat like? Well perhaps it’s best to just show you.

As you can see there are quite a few familiar elements to most action titles. Attack, block, lock-on, dodge-roll, and you can even deflect enemy attacks.

If you are interested in snagging a copy, you are in luck, it shouldn’t cost you a whole lot. It pops up every once and while on eBay for around $10.00, but usually its location is the UK. Be sure to check that the seller ships to America before bidding. If you are one of the lucky few who still has a Sega Dreamcast floating around you can instead purchase Maken X, which is basically the same game, but with a first person viewpoint. It should only run you around $5.00 on eBay. If possible though, I would recommend the PS2 version, since there are some issues with the first person mode.

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