[RHDNBot]

Update By: Supper

Metal Max, Crea-Tech's classic post-apocalyptic Famicom RPG about blasting the hell out of everything with tanks, has finally received a full English translation!

Metal Max tells the story of a boy who, kicked out of his father's house, becomes a Monster Hunter. Amassing a fleet of tanks, he and (optionally) a couple of friends roam the ruins of the world, seeking the bounties on wanted monsters and the occasional human.

It's one of the first open-world JRPGs ever made, and boasts intricate but intuitive vehicle mechanics that became a series trademark. The game's design was years ahead of its time, and while its open-ended everything-is-optional gameplay befuddled many contemporary critics, it's today recognized as one of the all-time greats in the Famicom library.

This English translation patch is the work of Supper (hacking), TheMajinZenki (translation), cccmar (editing and testing), and Xanathis (testing). Special thanks goes to Filler, who initiated the project. This marks only the second completed fan translation of a Metal Max game to date; here's hoping to see more soon!

A lot of care has gone into making this a quality translation, so enjoy!

RHDN Project Page

Relevant Link

[Griever_GF]

Nice to see the original version translated! For me it's more interesting than SNES remake because I can more properly compare it with other JRPGs of that time.

[sectarian46]

Wow. It's amazing work! Thank you so much!!!

[Pluvius]

Nice!  I was always planning on playing the remake eventually, but this will work fine too.

In regards to the readme, I would've went with "Gonorilla Clan" myself, but maybe that's a little too gross...

[POWCo-op]

Good news! NES is the ultimate system!

[Gideon Zhi]

Congrats on this! It's nice to see, especially after the disappointment that was Metal Max Xeno.

(I will say one thing about Xeno though, it made me want to get back to work on 2.)

Can I ask why you went with "Hanta" as the default player name instead of "Hunter" or something along those lines?

[Supper]

Thanks, everyone! With this and Metal Slader Glory, it's been a banner year for Famicom games starting with "Metal".

I know some people feel like doing this was pointless with the remake already translated, but I've always been interested in this version of the game in particular. I got introduced to the series through this game's music, and that's one of the things that changed a lot in the remake, IMO for the worse.

Nice!  I was always planning on playing the remake eventually, but this will work fine too.

In regards to the readme, I would've went with "Gonorilla Clan" myself, but maybe that's a little too gross...

Thanks! My first thought was something like "Salmonapella Clan", but that's a little awkward (and too wide to fit in the dialogue window). I think I actually considered "Gonorilla" at one point, but... yeah, a little too visceral.

Congrats on this! It's nice to see, especially after the disappointment that was Metal Max Xeno.

(I will say one thing about Xeno though, it made me want to get back to work on 2.)

Can I ask why you went with "Hanta" as the default player name instead of "Hunter" or something along those lines?

Thanks. It's a shame only the crappier Metal games have gotten official Western releases, there's a lot of great stuff in the series.

We discussed "Hanta" for a while, but in the end couldn't come up with anything better than the transliteration. The joke is that it's supposed to sound similar, but not identical, to "hunter" while also being an actual name. While "Hunter" is a real English name, I felt like that would be a bit too on the nose compared to the original ("Hunter the Monster Hunter"). Something like "Hunta" would technically work, but that just sounds kind of stupid. (I also associate the name "Hunter" primarily with rednecks, which probably biased me against it a bit. Sorry to all non-redneck Hunters out there.)

Good luck with Metal Max 2, I'm really looking forward to it!

[noneother]

(I also associate the name "Hunter" primarily with rednecks, which probably biased me against it a bit. Sorry to all non-redneck Hunters out there.)

I mean, all that tinkering with tanks is kinda redneckish. Though I'm glad you didn't go the redneck route and give everybody a written accent.

I was a big fan of the SNES remake. If the NES translation had come first, I'm not sure which one I would have played. I wonder if somebody at Crea-Tech was a fan of A Boy and His Dog?

[skyrunner14]

Congratulations on the release! I was hoping this one would get the fan translation treatment, but had lost hope after the patch for Returns came out. Thankfully I can lay those worries to rest! I actually came across a minor bug, though. On the Start menu (as in the one in-game, not the file select screen), the second row of text flickers between the proper text and garbage. If it helps, I'm using FCEUX 2.2.2.

I was trying to post a screenshot I took, but the forum's image posting doesn't seem to want to work for me, so here's a link to it instead: https://pasteboard.co/HRhHRIP.png

[d0pefish]

Congratulations on the release! I was hoping this one would get the fan translation treatment, but had lost hope after the patch for Returns came out. Thankfully I can lay those worries to rest! I actually came across a minor bug, though. On the Start menu (as in the one in-game, not the file select screen), the second row of text flickers between the proper text and garbage. If it helps, I'm using FCEUX 2.2.2.

I was trying to post a screenshot I took, but the forum's image posting doesn't seem to want to work for me, so here's a link to it instead: https://pasteboard.co/HRhHRIP.png

i think thats just an emulator issue, its referenced in the readme. Im playing this on retropie and i have the same problem when using the lr-fceumm core but not with the lr-nestopia core. so the solution is to just use a different emulator.

[mz]

the forum's image posting doesn't seem to want to work for me

That's because there's no forum's image posting at all.

[MarkDarkness]

Always glad to see this series moving along... really enjoyed playing Metal Max Returns back in the day, and still really looking forward to seeing Metal Max 2 in English some day.

[Metal Max Lover]

This is the one game in the series which I wasn't too bummed about not being able to play, BUUUUUUUT more Metal max is always AMAZING! Makes me wonder if they decided to change anything on the SNES remake just like the translator, (seeing as MM Returns uses Salmonella clan instead of anything even related to Gonorrhea) or was it also a translator preference too?

Anyways, thank you so much man, this is some real dedication. 

[ace54]

 

Thank you for all the hard work that's went into this and the hard work from Gideon prior, on the snes version.

I also agree xeno wasn't the best (waay too linear), but another one of these games fanslated is always good news.  I actually bought the special edition of xeno to support the cause, alas I doubt there will be another to western shores 

Again, forever grateful for the hard work and commitment from so many in this community. 

[Shadow86]

(I will say one thing about Xeno though, it made me want to get back to work on 2.)

Goddamn, yes! I think that's the one main link in the chain we're missing.

MM3 might also be interesting: it looked good but I'm not sure how much of its content is original and how much derivative, like we so often see in the myriad offshoots. I think there's a translation project going on, but I can't tell whether it's progressing.

It's a shame only the crappier Metal games have gotten official Western releases, there's a lot of great stuff in the series.

Hey, Metal Saga was pretty damn good, a proper open-world Metal Max making good use of its platform's capabilities (PS2).

Beyond I think MM3, the series itself has been decaying in general, from my perspective, with increasingly shallow/exploitative iterations. I can't really play Xeno since I don't have a PS4, but from what I've seen, aside from tank customization perhaps, it looks like quite a watered down version of what I at least consider the Metal Max spirit.