Maken X on Dreamcast: Atlus’s 1999 Brainjacking Sword Game, and Why It Was Remade Instead of Continued

Maken X — 魔剣X, “Demon Sword X” — is a first-person sword action game Atlus released in Japan on 25 November 1999 for the Dreamcast, product code T-14401M, 6,800円 before tax. It came from the team that made Atlus’s Megami Tensei and Persona role-playing games, and it was their first attempt at something else.

Its producer said before release that Atlus would “definitely consider” a sequel if it sold. What came instead, in 2001, was 魔剣爻 (Maken Shao), a PlayStation 2 version of the same game with a new camera — sold in three editions with three different product codes. This guide covers what the Dreamcast disc is, why Maken Shao is not a sequel, how to tell all four discs apart by their codes, and how to buy the right one.

• Japanese title: 魔剣X, published and developed by Atlus (アトラス)
• Dreamcast (GD-ROM): 25 November 1999 · 6,800円 before tax, as recorded by the Media Arts Database · product code T-14401M — the database, Sega’s own Dreamcast lists and Suruga-ya all agree
• Western releases: Sega published it in North America (shipped 25 April 2000) and Europe
• No sequel: producer Kouji Okada said in June 1999 that a sequel would be considered if the game did well; no sequel was made
• A remake instead: 魔剣爻 (PlayStation 2, 7 June 2001) retells the same game in third person — described as a remake, an improved port or “part port, part new game” depending on the source
• Buying tip: Japanese Dreamcast discs are region-locked; the product code separates the Dreamcast game from the three PlayStation 2 editions

What is Maken X, and who made it?

It is a game in which you play the sword. Set “five minutes” into the future, as Atlus’s original Japanese page put it, in a world where the European Union is failing and the United States and China are facing off, it follows a research project called the Maken — an artificial sword that the project said was meant to treat mental illness. When the institute is attacked, the sword bonds with Kay Sagami, the director’s daughter, and sets out after the attackers. Its signature ability is the “brainjack”: the Maken can take over other characters’ bodies and fight as them, and which characters you take and which choices you make decide which of several endings you reach. The combat is close-range sword fighting seen through the eyes of whoever is holding the blade.

The staff list reads like Atlus’s role-playing lineup. The Japanese Wikipedia article credits Atlus’s first development division, the Shin Megami Tensei and Persona team, with Kouji Okada as producer, Katsura Hashino as director and Kazuma Kaneko on character design; English Wikipedia adds that it was Hashino’s debut as a director and that Shoji Meguro composed most of the music. In the June 1999 GameSpot interview, Okada explained the change of genre simply: making RPGs takes a long time, and the Dreamcast was a new platform to experiment on. Sega’s product page filed it as an adventure game.

Is the Japanese disc the same game as the American one?

Nearly. Sega published the Western versions: GameSpot reported on 25 April 2000 that Maken X had shipped in the United States that day, and English Wikipedia gives 7 July 2000 for Europe. Before the American release, the developers said the international version would look a little different. In the June 1999 GameSpot interview, Okada said the enemies with Nazi symbols appeared only in certain areas and that Atlus was considering removing them from the American version. In the March 2000 issue of the US Official Dreamcast Magazine, Kaneko said the graphics would change “to take into consideration a few cultural points that could be harmful”, Okada said the game options were the same in both versions, and Kaneko called the English voice recording the most difficult part of the localization. The Japanese disc is the game as it was first released, with the Japanese voice cast.

Why was there never a Maken X 2?

Because Atlus remade the game instead of continuing it. Before release, a sequel was on the table in principle. In a GameSpot interview posted on 3 June 1999, five months before the Japanese launch, Okada was asked whether Atlus would make a sequel and answered: “we will definitely consider doing a sequel if it does well.” We found no later statement from Atlus or its staff about a sequel being planned or dropped. What Atlus announced in February 2001 was 魔剣爻, and when it was revealed, IGN wrote that the title had made them think it was a sequel — and that this turned out to be only partly correct.

Nothing else continued the game either. A novel, 魔剣X アフターストレンジデイズ, came out in April 2000 from Famitsu Bunko, and a manga, Maken X Another, ran in Kodansha’s Magazine Z; neither is a game. The Dreamcast game itself has never been ported or sold as a download: it is not on Steam or GOG, and we found no download or re-release of it anywhere.

Is Maken Shao a sequel or the same game?

It is the same game, rebuilt. Kataban counts ports, remakes and re-releases as continuations of the original, not as sequels, and every source we checked describes Maken Shao as some version of the Dreamcast game — they just use different words for it:

• English Wikipedia and Siliconera call it a remake; Siliconera wrote in 2013 that Maken X “was later remade for the PlayStation 2”.
• Japanese Wikipedia calls it an improved port, 改良移植版.
• IGN, in February 2001, called it “part port, part new game”.
• Atlus itself used none of these words: its 2001 page presented 魔剣爻 as the ultimate form of the 魔剣, and its later catalog simply said the sword from the Dreamcast had arrived on PlayStation 2.

The main change was the camera. English Wikipedia says the view moved from first person to behind the character because of “3D sickness” among Japanese players, and Sony’s product listing adds a system in which each character gains moves as the sword’s control over them rises, plus Dolby Surround. The story and the brainjack system are the Dreamcast game’s.

Unlike the Dreamcast disc, Maken Shao did get a second life. Midas Interactive released it in Europe as Maken Shao: Demon Sword in 2003, and in 2013 the same company put it on the European PlayStation Store as a PS2 Classic for the PlayStation 3. So it would be wrong to say the game was never re-released — but the version that was re-released is the remake, not the Dreamcast original.

How do you tell the four discs apart?

By the product code. There are four Japanese discs with 魔剣 in the title, and at Suruga-ya each code, typed without its hyphen, returns only its own edition:

Two details are worth knowing. The limited edition has the lower number: Sony’s own product pages list SLPS-25042 as the limited edition and SLPS-25043 as the standard one. And Sega’s licensee software list writes the Dreamcast title as 魔剣Ⅹ, with a Roman numeral ten rather than the letter X; shops and this guide use 魔剣X with the letter, which is what search boxes expect.

Will the disc run on your Dreamcast?

Only if the regions match. The English title is the same everywhere, so a search for Maken X returns Japanese, American and European copies side by side. English Wikipedia says the Dreamcast “uses regional lockout, only playing games released within its predetermined region”, and that this can be worked around with a modchip, a boot disc or a cheat disc such as Action Replay. A Japanese disc needs a Japanese console or one of those workarounds; if you have a Western console and no workaround, you want the American or European release instead. And if a listing says PS2 or Shao, it is not the Dreamcast game at all.

Where can you buy the Japanese disc today?

Suruga-ya: search the code. T14401M returned one listing on 28 September 2026, this game; with sold-out items shown it adds a disc-only copy, and nothing else. The copy was listed used at ¥898 (price as of 28 September 2026). With or without the hyphen gave the same result, so we link it without, as with the other codes in this series. Searching the title returns this game too, but it also brings up a manual on its own and, for reasons of its own, Devil May Cry 4 for the Xbox 360.

Buyee: the title and platform. 魔剣X ドリームキャスト returned 59 listings on 28 September 2026, 37 of them the game; the rest were the official guidebook, flyers, a shop poster, magazines, demo discs and one Maken Shao. The code works but is thin: T-14401M returned three listings, all this game — too few to link on their own when the title search finds more than ten times as many. Do not search 魔剣X alone: 114 listings, and of the 100 shown only 35 were the game, among the Another Jack manga, soundtrack CDs and a run of promotional phone cards.

eBay: add NTSC-J. Maken X dreamcast returned 87 listings on 28 September 2026, with American copies mixed in among the Japanese ones. Maken X dreamcast NTSC-J returned 53; judged by title, 25 of the first 32 were the Japanese disc, and of the first ten, every one whose photos we could open showed the Japanese cover. The code alone showed results: 2.

Why search Kataban for this one?

Because the code picks out the Dreamcast disc. Checked in a desktop browser on 28 September 2026: T-14401M returns one result, the 1999 Dreamcast game. 魔剣X and Maken X each return two, adding the PlayStation 2 Maken Shao. The card gives the platform, the 1999 release year, the publisher Atlus, the code T-14401M and the kana to look under on a Japanese shop shelf (マ).

Maken X · 魔剣X · Dreamcast, 25 November 1999 (T-14401M) · Atlus (アトラス)

Where to buy: Suruga-ya.jp — code (T14401M) · Buyee — title and platform (魔剣X ドリームキャスト) · eBay — title, platform and region (Maken X dreamcast NTSC-J)
See the disc on Kataban →

A team that had only ever made role-playing games built one sword game for a new console, said it would think about a sequel, and then made the same game again for the next console instead. What is left is one GD-ROM from November 1999 with T-14401M on it, three PlayStation 2 discs that are not its sequel, and a novel.