Metal Wolf Chaos



"Remember Air Force One, that movie where Harrison Ford was like, the kickass President of the United States? ... Japan saw that and they were like "We can do better than that!""

- Seanbaby, Broken Pixels, "#24: Metal Wolf Chaos"

Michael Wilson, veteran of the Arizona Conflict and 47th President of the United States has been deposed in a military coup by his running mate, Richard Hawk. Now, he must take up the guise of Metal Wolf and take back America city by city, armed only with his Mini-Mecha and the power of burning American freedom.

A game this American could only have been made in Japan.

Metal Wolf Chaos is an original Xbox game made by From Software, unfortunately (and weirdly) never released in America. The game is a Mecha title focused around the highly American pursuit of blowing stuff up, with a plot and dialog that is the epitome of Hot-Blooded American Patriotic Fervor, regardless of coming from a different country altogether. Weaponry includes machine guns, rocket launchers, and a shark gun - Yes, a shark gun - while the plot takes you to shootouts in the southwest, bomb threats in Beverly Hills, mangling mechas in Manhattan, redecorating the White House with missiles, a showdown with Richard in Vegas, and space, assisted along the way by a resistance force skilled only in blocking tank cannons with their helicopters and the President's slightly psychotic secretary, Jodie Crawford.

While originally planned for an English release, the release was canceled after 9/11. Thanks to the Xbox's horrific failure in Japan the game quickly became impossible to find legitimately. This changed in 2016 when publisher Revolver Digital solicited From Software with an offer to port the game to modern systems. This offer was accepted and a port to PC, PS4 and Xbox One was confirmed in 2018 with a release set for mid-2019 (Possibly July 4th).

Troper General's Warning: Prolonged exposure to this article or its tropes may cause you to develop the delusion that Metal Wolf Chaos is not a real game. The Troper General's Office recommends treatment through proportional use of videos of the game in action.

"Eat my flame of justice!"
 * 0% Approval Rating: In his brief reign as President, Richard has re-established slave labor, completely militarized and fortified the country's major metropolises, flooded the city of Chicago with poison gas, installed a Wave Motion Gun on Alcatraz Island, and terrorized New York with a giant mechanical spider. To his credit, he at least subconsciously acknowledges that everyone hates him and runs a Narmtastically hilarious propaganda campaign to boost his approval ratings out of the .000%-range.
 * Abnormal Ammo
 * Affectionate Parody: Specifically of From's other series Armored Core, but also of mecha shows, American action movies and politics in general. Some people claim it's satire, but it's much too cheerful about everything to count as that.
 * Specifically, it seems like a parody of movies with Action Presidents such as Independence Day or Air Force One.
 * American Robot: One of the greatest examples IN AMERICA.
 * And Your Reward Is Clothes: Alt skins. Some of which take the Patriotic Fervor to extreme levels (ex. American Flag scheme).
 * Authority Equals Asskicking: The protagonist and antagonist are the President and Vice President of the United States. You throw in the Speaker of the House and From could have had an epic Melee a Trois.
 * Badass: Michael, probably THE most badass president ever (fictional or otherwise).
 * Beard of Evil: See Richard Hawk's beard here.
 * Boisterous Bruiser: Michael, YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAHHHH!
 * Broken Pedestal: Twice, no less.
 * Bunny Ears Lawyer: Jody.
 * Card-Carrying Villain: We never hear any of Richard's motivations beyond some incomprehensible propaganda near the beginning. He just hates freedom for some reason.
 * Catch Phrase: No less than five - "Believe in your own justice" for the game as a whole, "Because, yes! The pen is still mightier than the sword!" for Peter MacDonald, "I, Richard Hawk" for, well, Richard Hawk, "Because I am the President of the United States!" for Michael, and "The password is ______" for the Government Policy Promotion Department. No, really.
 * "Owkay... LET'S PARTYYYYY!!!"
 * Chest Blaster: Richard Hawk gets one as his answer to Michael's Macross Missile Massacre.

"RICHARD!: What do you think of my cute lil' pet? Thanks to him, the people of New York City are right now festively... uh... Running around and trying to escape! Uh, it's like a big ol' carnival, it's like Mardi Gras, in New York or something, heh heh heh..."
 * Curse Cut Short: Michael's commentary on Richard's Spider Tank.
 * Deadly Gas: In Chicago. Which has to be stopped by destroying the containers holding the gas...
 * Deflector Shields: Equipped on the giant spider-bot in New York.
 * Dissimile:

"HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW?!?!!?!?!"
 * Eagle Land: This game is drowning in it.
 * And it shows: 1up has labeled this as the Number 1 Most Insanely Patriotic Game. And Michael Wilson is the Number 1 President.
 * Elevator Action Sequence: The finale.
 * Engrish: Bizarre version. The dialogue is actually pretty good English; it's just that it is horrifically cheesy (but not necessarily bad) English.
 * Everything Breaks: And unlocking a couple of secret weapons demands that you S-Rank the amount of property damage you do throughout the course of the game.
 * The Evil Army: Though they are always referred to as the "coup d'etat forces", pretty much the entire United States Military seems to be in on the coup.
 * Evil Chancellor: Richard demonstrates once again that "Vice President of the United States" is a modern way to say "Grand Vizier".
 * Evil Laugh: Richard lets one loose almost every time he and Michael run into each other.
 * Fictional Counterpart: DNN.
 * Fighting Your Friend: Michael ends up fighting a lot of his old friends from the army. They don't come out well.
 * For the Evulz: Richard pretty much does all his evil crap just to show us he's evil.
 * Good Hair, Evil Hair
 * Gratuitous English: While most of the English is quite good, the song titles on the soundtrack are just strange. "The President Spirit"? "Moduration City"? "Assign Monk"? "Dept Blue"? Yeah...
 * There are a few mistakes outside song titles, however. "Kill the legs, that's an iron-clad battle tactic" indeed.
 * Ham-to-Ham Combat: Tons of it.
 * Heel Face Turn:.
 * Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Jody seems to enjoy watching her boss wreak havoc across the country a little too much.
 * Hot-Blooded: Super Robot-levels of it.
 * Humongous Mecha: While most of them are Mini-Mecha, the game doesn't shy away from these in the least.
 * Hyperspace Arsenal
 * Incoming Ham: Every single time Richard shows up.
 * Intrepid Reporter: Peter MacDonald, an antagonist releasing propaganda for Richard.
 * Large Ham: Michael and Richard Chew the Scenery: though, here, it's not so much as chewing as stuff starts spontaneously exploding around them.
 * Larynx Dissonance: For such a Badass president, much like Theodore Roosevelt, Michael has a somewhat high-pitched voice.
 * Lighter and Softer: Considerably, compared to practically every Armored Core title barring Formula Front (and if we're counting From Software's collaborative works, a couple notches softer than Another Century's Episode too).
 * Limit Break: Obviously complete with Hot-Blooded Shouting and More Dakka. Lots More Dakka.

""I just love the idea of building a massive particle cannon to fight terrorism. I can just picture some poor sap with a dirty bomb in a shopping mall, blown to smithereens by giant laser artillery. Wouldn't be out of place in this game.""
 * Ludicrous Precision: Jody flat-out guesses it will take the Alcatraz Cannon four minutes to recharge. This turns out to be accurate to the nearest hundredth of a second.
 * Macross Missile Massacre: Great for crowd clearing.
 * Made of Explodium
 * Mad Lib Anime Title
 * Meaningful Name: Richard Hawk and film star Money-Money Gold. No, seriously.
 * Meta Mecha: Richard Hawk's quadrupedal mecha in the final battle.
 * Mini-Mecha: Metal Wolf and other mobile armors are only double the size of human infantry.
 * Mirror Boss: Richard Hawk, in the penultimate level.
 * Mirrored Confrontation Shot
 * Missile Punch: "YEEEEAH! Suck. On my... Missile Punch!"
 * Monumental Damage: Richard tries to do this to the Statue of Liberty. And while it's more of a Weaponized Landmark, Jody and Michael consider the Fight House to be this.
 * Moral Dissonance: Who knows who many perfectly innocent Americans, not to mention soldiers just doing their jobs, Michael blows up in his fight for freedom? More importantly, who cares? Go blow more of it up!
 * And don't worry about killing innocents. Only the really evil people die..
 * More Dakka: No one can EVER have enuff dakka, but between this and all his Macross Missile Massacre goodness, Metal Wolf sure does make a mighty effort towards having almost enuff.
 * An extra mode after beating the game gives you unlimited ammo. Read that again: UNLIMITED. AMMO.
 * Noodle Incident: While it's hinted at that Michael's presidency, Richard's evilness, and nearly every involved party's past is connected to a conflict called the Arizona Conflict or the Arizona Insurrection, we are never shown or told about what exactly happened there. All we are told (as an aside, no less) is that Michael received a Congressional Medal of Honor during that conflict.
 * Obviously Evil: When your name is Richard Hawk and you look like this, you're not just Made of Evil, you're "Special Order" Evil.
 * One-Liner: Too many to count. Too ludicrous to replicate here.
 * Oppressive States of America
 * Our Presidents Are Different: Michael is President Action distilled to its raw form and equipped with a Mini-Mecha, while Richard is a straight-up President Evil.
 * Patriotic Fervor: Only because it's a Japanese video game, it's more like Hot-Blooded translated into the world of politics.
 * Propaganda Machine: This trope has been an announcement from the Government Policy Promotion Department, where our motto, "Justice over Theory", is your motto.
 * Psycho Supporter: While Jody doesn't really do anything outside her support role, her Ax Crazy tendencies reach a new high when shooting down and capturing all of the game's Easter Egg UFOs nets you her alien-themed rendition of "Ten Little Indians". (Which begs the question: How did Jodie know the aliens were boys?)
 * Rated "M" for Manly
 * Redshirt Army
 * Refuge in Audacity: And how!
 * It's so over the top that it's the more subdued moments that really jump out at you.
 * The game starts with the President in a Mini-Mecha bursting out of the White House with a extremely Engrishy "LET'S PARRRTYYYYYYYYY!" and goes up from there.
 * Refuge in Cool
 * Rule of Cool: Everything that Michael does.
 * Say My Name: "MICHAEL!!!" "RICHAAAAAAAAARD!!!"
 * See You In Heaven
 * Sexy Secretary: Jody, of course.
 * Shield Surf
 * Shout-Out: Man, where to begin?
 * Among other things, the massive assault helicopter/floating fortress is named Olajuwon, after Hakeem Olajuwon, the star of the Houston Rockets during the 90's who led the team to winning back-to-back world championships.
 * Sky Surfing: More like.
 * Spider Tank
 * Spiritual Successor: It's basically Armored Core with more BURNING AMERICAN JUSTICE!
 * And later From Software game Ninja Blade is the spiritual successor to Metal Wolf Chaos, doing to Ninja Gaiden what this did to Armored Core. The game is set chronologically earlier than Metal Wolf Chaos, and Michael Wilson gets a Previous Player Character Cameo as the player's boss. He's taken hostage by a villainous ninja halfway through the game, and an entire Cutscene is devoted to him breaking out of his bonds and beating the shit out of the ninja with his bare hands.
 * Wait, the President gets kidnapped by a ninja, but he's a bad enough dude to save himself? Lulz.
 * Gameplay wise, Armored Core 5 is a tweaked Metal Wolf Chaos.
 * Stuff Blowing Up: Yeeeeesssss...
 * Super Drowning Skills: A real pain in the ass when dealing with a cruiser off the coast of Miami requires you to take aim from perfectly destructible gunboats parked just outside the shallow water Metal Wolf can safely navigate.
 * Surprisingly Good English: While the writing may be fantastically cheesy Engrish, the actual voice actors are native English speakers.
 * They Fight Crime: He's the President of the Great United States of America. She's his secretary with an appetite for random destruction.
 * This Is Sparta: "I! RICHARD HAWK! WILL UPHOLD! AMERICAN! JUSTICE! WITHOUT! FAIL!"
 * Twenty Minutes Into the Future: The game pulls the standard ambiguous date of "20XX", but since the player character is the 47th President, the game is guaranteed to take place (as of 2016) between 2020 (assuming no in-office deaths) and 2040.
 * Unexplained Recovery: Characters regularly survive helicopter explosions, hand waving it by saying "we have thorough knowledge of how to escape", or even just "I have somehow managed to escape!".
 * Villain with Good Publicity: Richard blames Metal Wolf for every atrocity he commits, calling it meaner than Satan.
 * Wave Motion Gun: The Alcatraz Cannon, an anti-terrorism weapon. As the narrator on the Let's Play video above comments on it:

"Unknown YouTube commentator: The illegitimate love child of Gurren Lagann and Air Force One, adopted and raised by Michael Bay."
 * Weaponized Landmark: Building a giant electromagnetic cannon inside Alcatraz, 'nuff said. Apart from cladding the White House in armor and weapons to make it the Fight House.
 * X Meets Y: Gurren Lagann meets...
 * Air Force One, by Michael Bay!

"Unknown Troper: Imagine Theodore Roosevelt hijacking the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann."
 * Theodore Roosevelt!

"Kalaong: Sooo... Someone decided to elect Kamina president and have him fight The Smiler? AWESOME JUST AWESOME"
 * Transmetropolitan!


 * MORE TROPES! FOR BURNING AMERICAN FREEDOM! BURNING AMERICAN FREEDOM AND BURNING AMERICAN JUSTICE!