Maken X

n/a

Maken X
System(s): Sega Dreamcast
Publisher: Sega (US, Europe), Atlus (Japan)
Developer: Atlus
Supporting companies: 81 Produce (voice acting), Aoni Production (voice acting)
Licensor: Atlus (US/EU)
Peripherals supported: Jump Pack, Visual Memory Unit, Dreamcast VGA Box
Genre: Adventure
Number of players: 1
Official in-game languages: English Français Deutsch Español
Release Date RRP Code JP 1999-11-25 ¥6,800 (7,140)6,800e T-14401M US 2000-04-25 $49.9549.95 51050 EU 2000-07-21 MK-51050-50 DE 2000-07-21 DM 109109 MK-51050-50 ES 2000-07-19 MK-51050-50 FR 2000-07-21 MK-51050-50 UK 2000-07-21 £39.9939.99 MK-51050-50 AU 2000 $89.9589.95

Maken X (魔剣Ｘ) is an adventure game for the Sega Dreamcast played in the first person perspective.

Story

Maken refers to the sword with special abilities that also allows the game's protagonist, Kay Sagami, to brainjack certain opponents to take control of them.

Gameplay

Maken X plays as a first person action adventure game with combat being the main focus. Your character will make use of a sword or sword-like weapon. You'll start off with Kay wielding the Maken sword. To progress through the story you will also run across other characters who can be "Brainjacked" which allows to not only take control of a character, but gain their memories as well as help unfold the story from a different character's viewpoint.

Characters

Each character has different stats as well as special attacks which also causes progress in stages to differ between playable characters. You can only Brain jack characters so long as your current Brainjack level matches or exceeds a target character. The previous host character will stay in a level they were list in should there be a need to go back to other characters.

World Map

You will have a choice to select a stage from the World Map that will also branch out to other possible paths depending on which character is being used and which order the levels are played in. The map also provides chances to save game progress and

History

Development

Much of the staff behind Maken X were responsible for one of Atlus' flagship series Shin Megami Tensei.

Legacy

Maken X was later released in an updated form for the PlayStation 2 under the name Maken Shao: Demon Sword which makes significant gameplay changes such as making the game play from a third person perspective. Sega was not involved with the PlayStation 2 version.

The story was also adapted for a manga series under the name Maken X Another.

Production credits

• Art Director: Kazuma Kaneko
• Director: Katsura Hashino

Planner

• Sub System Planner / Stage Planner: Takashi Miyasaka
• Stage Planner: Nobutaka Shimizu, Kazuyuki Yamai, Kiyoshi Shin
• Enemy Algorithm Planner: Kazuya Usui, Daisuke Kanada
• Scenario Writer / Event Planner: Kazunori Sakai
• Event Planner: Azusa Kido

Programmer

• Leader / Main Programmer: Tai Yamaguchi
• Sub-System Programmer: Masaya Takano
• Enemy Algorithm Programmer: Tomohiro Hosoya, Tamotsu Sekiguchi
• Event Programmer: Masahiro Horikoshi
• Tool Programmer / 3D Effect Programmer: Takahiro Akiyama
• 2D Effect Programmer / Sound Programmer: Kazuya Mukae

Designer

• Leader / Event Designer: Tatsuya Igarashi
• Stage Designer: Eri Nishimura, Makoto Kitano, Masahumi Hondou, Tetsuya Murakami, Masakatsu Suzuki, Eisuke Matsuda, Maki Kurimoto, Yoshiharu Hayakawa
• Character Model Designer: Eiji Ishida, Masaaki Sato, Fumihiro Kimura, Satoshi Kasahara
• Event Designer: Kazuhisa Wada, Hiroaki Izutsu, Akira Noguchi, Homi Hada
• Effect Designer: Satoshi Shio, Towako Kajiie
• Window Designer: Ayako Fukuzawa, Mayuko Kokubo, Masayuki Doi
• Publishing Designer: Megumi Shiraishi

Sound Composer

• Leader / 3D-Sound Designer: Takahiro Ogata
• Composer: Shoji Meguro
• CG Cooperate: Links Corporation
• CG Supervisor: Ikuo Nishii
• CG Producer: Mikitaka Kurasawa
• CG Chief Animator: Masaru Matsumoto
• CG Animator: Miyuki Uetsuki
• CG Assistant Animator: Tarou Mizoguchi
• CG Technical Adviser: Yoshihisa Hirano
• Product Manager: Jun-Ichi Murakami
• Cast: Mayumi Iizuka (Yaegaki Jimusho), Tsutomu Takakura (81 Produce), Kujira (81 Produce), Shinichi Nakamura (Artsvision), Isshin Chiba (Artsvision), Mami Kusuge (Artsvision), Miki Ito (Osawa Office), Chikara Watanabe (Osawa Office), Mitsuaki Hoshino (Ezaki Production), Osamu Saka (Aoni Production)
• Recording Studio: Space Velio

Debug Team

• Manager: Kazufumi Honma
• Chief: Kazuhito Aragane
• Test Player: Atsushi Watanabe, Yuji Kimura, Juntaro Tanaka, Tetsuya Oomoto, Masaru Watanabe, Mayumi Ishizuka, Kei Saito, Hirokazu Ito, Keitaro Waku, Haruka Nakahira, Kazuyoshi Saito, Tetsuo Saito, Eiichi Sato, Yasuhiro Tanaka
• Special Thanks: Masami Sato, Kiyomi Yuhara, Yuuko Sekine, Kouichi Nakamura, Emi Kanamori, Yasushi Yamashita (Sega Enterprises, Ltd.), Ken-Ei Unoki (Sega Enterprises, Ltd.), And Other Sega Staffs, All R&D1 Staffs
• General Producer: Hideyuki Yokoyama
• Exective Producer: Naoya Harano
• Produced by: Cozy Okada
• Presented by: R&D1 Reserch And Development, Atlus

Source:

In-game credits (JP)

• Product Development:
  • Localization Producer: Jason Kuo
  • Localization Manager: Osamu Shibamiya
  • VP of Product Development: Jin Shimazaki
  • Lead Product Analyst: Todd Slepian
  • Assistant Lead Analysts: Joey Edwards, Jonas Robledo
• Marketing:
  • Product Manager: Robert Alvarez
  • Product Marketing Specialist: Dennis Lee
  • Marketing Director: John Golden
  • Public Relations: Heather Hawkins
  • Creative Services: Bob Schonfisch, Angela Santos
• Project Management (SOJ): Koji Kuroki
• Manual Production Staff (SOJ):
  • Writer/Editor/Translator: Luke Valentine
  • Writer: Jun-ichi Murakami (ATLUS)
  • DTP Operator: Makoto Nishino
  • Supervisor: Kaoru Ichigozaki
• Special Thanks to: Rick Bowman, Sandy Castagnola, Shinobu Shindo (SOJ)

Source:

US manual

Magazine articles

Main article: Maken X/Magazine articles.

Promotional material

PDF

JP flyer

Print advert in Dreamcast Magazine (JP) #1999-37: "1999-37 (1999-12-03)" (1999-11-19)

Print advert in Neo Plus (PL) #30: "Marzec 2001" (2001-xx-xx)
also published in:

• Neo Plus (PL) #31: "Kwiecień 2001" (2001-xx-xx)
• Neo Plus (PL) #32: "Maj 2001" (2001-xx-xx)
• Neo Plus (PL) #33: "Czerwiec 2001" (2001-xx-xx)
• Neo Plus (PL) #34: "Lipiec-Sierpień 2001" (2001-xx-xx)
• Neo Plus (PL) #35: "Wrzesień 2001" (2001-xx-xx)

Artwork

• 

Physical scans

Sega Retro Average
Publication Score Source

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Based on 0 review

Sega Retro Average

Publication Version Score 576 Konzol (HU) 67 Arcade (UK) PAL 25 Bonus (YU) PAL 83 Consoles + (FR) NTSC-J 88 Consoles + (FR) PAL 65 Computer & Video Games (UK) 25 Dreamcast Monthly (UK) PAL 70 DC-UK (UK) PAL 80 Dreamcast: Le Magazine Officiel (FR) PAL 50 Dreamcast Magazine (JP) NTSC-J 83 Dreamcast Magazine (UK) NTSC-J 75 Dreamcast Magazine (UK) PAL 85 Dorimaga (JP) NTSC-J 85 Edge (UK) NTSC-J 60 Electronic Gaming Monthly (US) NTSC-U 58 Entsiklopediya igr dlya Dreamcast (RU) 83 Famitsu (JP) NTSC-J 80 Fun Generation (DE) PAL 72 GamePro (US) NTSC-U 88 Gamers' Republic (US) NTSC-U 83 Hyper (AU) PAL 75 Incite Video Gaming (US) NTSC-U 80 Joypad (FR) PAL 50 Joypad (IT) NTSC-J 70 MAN!AC (DE) NTSC-J 45 MAN!AC (DE) PAL 58 Neo Plus (PL) 50 Next Generation (US) NTSC-U 25 Official Dreamcast Magazine (UK) PAL 50 Official Dreamcast Magazine (US) NTSC-U 70 Playmag (FR) PAL 55 Sega Magazin (DE) PAL 70 Strana Igr (RU) 80 Strana Igr (RU) 70 Video Games (DE) PAL 61

	66
Based on 35 reviews

Maken X

Dreamcast, JP
Cover
Spinecard Disc Manual Inlay Reg Card Dream Point Bank card

Dreamcast, US
Cover
Disc Manual Inlay

Dreamcast, EU
Cover
Disc

Technical information

Main article: Maken X/Technical information.

ROM dump status

System	Hash	Size	Build Date	Source	Comments
?	CRC32 MD5 SHA-1			GD-ROM (JP)
?	CRC32 MD5 SHA-1			GD-ROM (US)
?	CRC32 MD5 SHA-1			GD-ROM (EU)
?	CRC32 MD5 SHA-1		2000-02-09	GD-R				Page

External links

• Sega of America webpage: Dreamcast
• Sega of Japan catalogue pages (Japanese): Dreamcast