Maken X

Released in 1999 for the Sega Dreamcast, Maken X tells the story of Kei, a girl whose father is working on the development of the Maken. Supposedly meant to be a tool for medical use, the Maken is actually a powerful, sentient sword with the ability to "brainjack": stealing the bodies of those who touch it and absorbing their Image (known as PSI in the English release) (i.e. their psychic essence). When Kei is watching at the laboratory, a group of strange people attack it and escape with Kei's father, after killing the man who was supposed to wield the Maken. Desperate to recover her father, Kei takes the sword and allows the Maken into her mind. In her pursuit, she comes across the Hakkes and the Fukenshis, who represent the "law" and "chaos" functions of the Megaten games that preceded it.

There was a PS2 remake known as Maken Shao in Japan and Maken Shao: Demon Sword in Europe. It was not released in the United States. There was also a manga known simply as Maken X.

Tropes used throughout the various Maken products:

• Adaptation Distillation: The manga.
• All There in the Manual: In Maken Shao, additional information about the characters, places and terminology can be found inside of an in-game dictionary.
• BFS: Oddly enough wielded by Hakke Daru's dainty (and petrification plague infected) daughter Berlinka while brainjacked by Maken. This makes her attacks quite powerful, but slow, requiring timing to pull some of them off.
• Blind Idiot Translation: And how. The translators mistranslated some of the dialoques in the games so horribly that it became incomprehensible, and most of the characters' names were mangled just as badly.
• Bloodier and Gorier: The manga has a lot of bloodshed, which results in an astonishing amount of blood. At one point, the pool of blood surrounding Kei is almost as large as a swimming pool... and she's still able to stand and fight, with few signs of damage.
• Bloodless Carnage: In Maken Shao, no matter how many times you hit the enemy, there will never be blood. This is possibly due to the fact that the sword is said to affect the mind rather than the body.
• Blow You Away: Fukenshi Aquinas, especially her charge attack.
• Breath Weapon: Hakke Daru's petrification-plague-spit attack.
• Cast From HP: Charge Attacks worked this way in the original Maken X. In Maken Shao they have their own separate energy bar, marked "EXTRA".
• Fate Worse Than Death: The petrification plague, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Some victims of it have been staked together, most likely by Hakke Daru, to form the enemy called "Golem", comprised of a tiny man that shoots plague-filled darts staked to the back of a giant man armed with a meat cleaver. One playable character, Hakke Daru's daughter Berlinka, has contracted the disease but seems no worse for wear aside from some bandages on her head. The player themselves can contract it from Golems and certain other enemies, but it's never permanent and goes away after a few moments.
• Grand Theft Me: The Maken takes over the bodies of those unfortunate (or fortunate?) enough to encounter it. When it uses this ability to brainjack anyone other than the main character Kei, her mind comes along for the ride as well.
• Improbable Weapon User: Many characters fit this trope, such as Fukenshi Li Feishan (sharp-edged metal fans), Fukenshi Aquinas (a motorized spinning extending double-helix lance), Hakke Andrey (a giant scalpel, as well as tiny knives that he shoots out of his tongue), Hakke Sharja (a Maken-ized katar and four shoulder-mounted dagger-wielding robotic arms) and Hakke Daru/Dal (a Maken-ized metal stake and a syringe filled with a mysterious green substance, most likely the petrification plague).
• Lethal Joke Character: The airliner pilot Gou Inaba is this in Maken Shao. Get his Synchro rate up high enough, and you unlock a move that lets you call down lightning on enemies from afar and can be used endlessly with no penalty. His 100% Synchro Charge Attack lets you call down lightning on every enemy in your field of vision.
• Lost Forever: Hakke Andrey, if you choose to brainjack the pilot Gou Inaba during the second stage on the falling mega-airliner Rhincodon. Choosing to brainjack Inaba gets you to your planned destination, Hong Kong, but causes you to lose Andrey as he dies when the Rhincodon crashes.
• Multiple Endings: The game has seven different endings, depending on who you align yourself with.
• Nintendo Hard: Both versions of the game embody this trope.
• President Evil: Literally, with Hakke Brown a.k.a. Hakke Billy in the Japanese release.
• Synchronization: In Maken Shao, every playable character has a Synchro rating that gradually goes up as you kill enemies and absorb their Image. At certain percentages (which differ for each character), you learn a new move. At 100% Synchro, you gain their Charge Attack as well as a boost to their stats, and can re-brainjack them for free (characters with less than 100% Synchro cost Image to brainjack).
• Updated Rerelease: Maken Shao, which used a third-person camera instead of the first-person camera of Maken X, added an in-game encyclopedia, added an option that shows you a list of all brainjackable characters and lets you brainjack whichever of them you want from the map screen, and introduced an upgrade system for all playable characters that granted them new moves, gave Charge Attacks to all characters (even ones that didn't have them in Maken X) once they were fully upgraded, and turned certain characters used only for utility purposes (Gou Inaba, Berlinka) into powerhouses given enough time is spent upgrading them.