I don't really remember what exactly prompted me to pick up and play Maximo, but 300 yen was too low a price to turn my nose up at at the time. The result of an effort to bring Ghouls 'n' Ghosts into the 3rd dimension, Maximo began life as an N64 game before being converted into a Dreamcast game and then FINALLY being turned into a PS2 game once the Dreamcast was deemed too dead to release it for. This strange life cycle leaves its marks all over Maximo, but this weird freak of a game still manages to be good fun regardless. It took me about 10 hours to beat the Japanese version of the game.

Maximo, a brave king, gets back from the war to find an evil wizard has kidnapped his queen. He's struck down at once, but the friendly grim reaper saves him, telling him that the evil wizard is stealing dead from the underworld and putting him out of a job. The two team up and get to work freeing the four sorceresses and saving the queen from the wizard's evil clutches. It's a pretty simple story, but it's just Ghouls 'n' Ghosts. It doesn't have to be complicated, and it does just what it needs to while succeeding to be entertaining in its brief, silly cutscenes.

Maximo is a 3D action platformer of five worlds of five levels a piece with a boss at the end of each. The bosses and stages are quite fun and well designed, if pretty brutal in their difficulty at times. Instead of the "two hits and you're dead" thing of its retro inspiration, Maximo takes a more generous and clever approach to updating that old health system. Now you still have armor, and you can even get a third piece of armor, but these each have a health bar. If you find a potion, the health bar of your currently weakened armor will be refilled, but if that armor breaks, it's gone and you'll need to find more armor. There is also a system of powerups to make your weapons swings and shield more powerful, ranging from a sword range extension to being able to throw your mighty shield (just don't use to it too much, or it'll break!). As nice as these things are, you just need to be weary of dying, as take too much damage or fall down a pit and you'll lose nearly all of your powerups and gotta start collecting them fresh, although they thankfully drop fairly frequently.

There's also a money system where you can buy more health, armor, or even collectible underwear (changing the type you have when you lose your armor) when you find the little single-use kiosks in the stages. You could also horde that money for saving (it costs 100 gold per save!), or try to collect fairies from glowing fountains in each stage, as 50 fairies gets you another continue. If you're feeling really up to a challenge, there's even a special reward for collecting 100% of the treasure in every stage. I wasn't unhinged enough to try that, but honestly the game was so fun to go through once, I haven't totally dismissed the concept of going through again and trying for 100% completion someday XD. All in all, it's a really nice upgrade of the old 2D games, keeping the difficulty and iconic elements while upgrading it to make more sense in both 3D and in the world of game design in 2001.

The biggest control and design issue is a relic of this game being a Dreamcast game: the right stick does nothing. Maximo must've been basically finished on the Dreamcast before they decided to make it a PS2 game, because the right stick doesn't control anything, let alone the camera, so the only way you have to redirect the camera is by holding R1 to slowly realign it behind you. It isn't a game breaker, and the game generally does a good job at keeping the camera behind you, but getting used to realigning the camera is a must for conquering this game and its oodles of platforming. Other issues the game has are some bosses that have pretty poorly signposted weaknesses, and the difficulty curve is good but starts pretty darn high as you get used to the controls. It's a game you really need to get into the spirit of trying to beat, as it's not gonna hold your hand through things as you learn the ropes of how best to approach platforming and combat with the somewhat particular way Maximo controls.

The presentation is really nice. Enemies and allies alike have very distinct designs to them, and the homages in especially Maximo's design to original Ghouls 'n' Ghosts aesthetics are really fun. The music is also excellent, with tons of new takes on old Ghouls 'n' Ghosts tracks populating each world.


Verdict: Recommended. The awkward way that the game controls, particularly its camera, will likely turn off a fair few people, but if you're a 3D action platformer fan, there's a lot to enjoy with Maximo. It may have its fair share of problems, but its very deliberate design makes it work well within the confines of its own game, and it's well worth checking out~.