The first game directed by the man who caused not just one, but two revolutions in JRPGs (Persona 3 and Shin Megami Tensei 3) and saved his own company, unfortunately, is a mixed bag.

Sure, being an Atlus game involving Hashino, Okada, Meguro, and Kaneko gives it plenty of vibes, but the game itself is rather weak.

The gameplay idea seems flawed from the start. A first-person game on a console like the Dreamcast and before these types of games were comfortable to play on the console. The camera works extremely poorly, the tracking of the game is quite awkward, and the combat is very tough and simplistic.

The game has a series of one-note enemies, the levels have sections with frustrating enemy placements, and the game never hits a nice rhythm. The brain jack system is a cool idea, but ultimately, the characters you play with are never different enough to justify it.

And of course, this first-person system never really works.

I love the idea of traveling the world; one of my favorite series does it (Shadow Hearts), Atlus has proven several times to be great at representing these real-world locations, and this game is no different, but the strong vibes don't save Maken X from being an extremely mediocre game.

That said, I played the early stages of the PS2 version and found a significant improvement. Of course, it loses some of the novelty of the game, but what it loses in that, it gains in a better experience. Not only in terms of camera and gameplay control (in an early PS2 style that I particularly enjoy) but with better features and quality of life improvements like save points in the stages.

Furthermore, there is also a manga that apparently is an adaptation of the interesting scenario found in this game.

In the end, the potential exists here but is never realized. This is one of the games I most wanted to see Atlus try again, but that must be impossible, unfortunately.

Classic, classic, classic. It was one of my favorite Capcom games for a long time, and replaying it after so long reminds me why.

Addressing the elephant in the room first, yes, it's not survival horror in the style of the REs and the first Dino Crisis, but I don't find that to be such a problem in the case of DC2. On the contrary, I think the series gains even more of its own identity and becomes something with its own style, it's a pity it was never replicated.

Visually, it's one of the most beautiful games of its generation, the controls are the best and most responsive tank controls out there, and the combo system and item purchasing probably make it my favorite arcade-like game. The way the game flows is incredible too, definitely the best pacing in the genre, and even the minigames here are fun and engaging. A significant and quite impressive leap in quality considering the first game's quality.

It's full of variety in enemies and scenarios as well, in weapons, in everything. And even though you control two characters, you never feel like it's bloated, it's setpiece after setpiece, cutscene after cutscene, gauntlet after gauntlet. You could almost call the game survival action or something like that. Few things in games are as satisfying as taking down Raptors with the Solid Cannon, Plesiosaurus and Pteranodon with the Missile Pod, and Inostrancevia with the Anti-Tank Rifle.

It's a shame it doesn't have an item mixing system like the first game, that's the thing I miss the most from the first one. I can understand the removal of the puzzles since some of the puzzles in the first game can be confusing.

And it's also a shame Dino Crisis didn't become another branch of Capcom's survival games; Dino Crisis 2 is the best game they made during that time and in that style.

I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did, it's much better than I remembered.

It's certainly Capcom's classic survival horror game with the most tension. I also find the level design very good, perhaps as good as RE2's, and the controls work very well.

The differences between Dino Crisis and Resident Evil are all good and give Dino Crisis its own unique identity. The dinosaurs are extremely dangerous, which increases the tension of the game, the mixing system is much better than the herb system in RE (and with a complexity similar to the gunpowder mixing systems of RE3), and the puzzles are fun to solve. The voice acting is also wonderful in a goofy 90s way.

Of course, there could be more variety of dinosaurs (which we would see happen in the 2nd game), I'm not completely sold on the box system (I like the idea of having to spend items to open them, my problem is not being able to access the different colored ones). As for the pacing, many people don't like it, but I personally don't see any issues. In fact, it's a slower game than the REs, but not by much either; I think it ends up being more about memorizing the map to avoid walking more than necessary. I also like the choice of dinosaurs repopulating the rooms once or twice but never infinitely, since ammo is extremely scarce in the game compared to the REs (still enough to kill almost all the creatures, especially if you focus on fusing poison darts).

Overall, the game is Capcom goodness from the 90s. Good level design, striking visuals, a huge atmosphere, high production values. In the end, I was wrong not to expect a great game on this replay.