The main character is an amnesiac hunter who just got revived from death by the series' staple Dr. Minche. Deciding to travel around the world as a bounty hunter in hopes of regaining his memories, he soon gets wrapped up in the conflict involving the Coldblood Clan that terrorizes the region and Cola, the daughter of the ruler of the city Shelter.
Although the game suffered No Export for You, it was translated in English by Metal Dreamers in 2020.
Tropes applicable to Metal Max 3 include:
- Action Girl: Any female member of the party counts. On villains' side, we have Olga Mode.
- Back from the Dead: The game starts with the protagonist's being revived by Dr. Minche. The main goal of the game is to find out what happened beforehand.
- Big Bad: Gratonos, the leader of Clan Coldblood, whose attempts to kidnap Cola and harness the power of Jagannath drive the plot for most of the game.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: What the Happy cult does to its followers with its wave machine and happy rings. It is a ploy by Olga Mode to bring Rusty Maiden under Clan Coldblood's influence.
- Character Class System: The first game to introduce new classes outside of the classic hunter, soldier, mechanic, and dog. Outside of the main character, the players are free to pick any classes for the remaining two spots with the fourth spot reserved only for dogs:
- Hunters: Jack of All Trades with more focus on tank combat. While they lag behind Soldier and Wrestler in melee, the wide range of equipments they have access to allows them to act as great supports on foot. The main character is this class with higher HP and strength growths and slightly lower speed growth than vanilla hunter.
- Mechanics: The Engineers who are good at fixing tanks, making them invaluable against fights where enemies can break parts of your tanks.
- Soldiers: Combat Pragmatists who specialize in melee combat. Out of all classes, they have the widest selection of equipment. Their skills are only usable on foot so they are not as good in tank fights.
- Nurses: The Medics who can heal injuries of other characters. They are useful in situations where the party does not have access to their tanks and must fight on foot.
- Wrestlers: The wrestlers who can deal great damage in both melee and tank fights with their buffs. Unfortunately, they have the narrowest selection of equipment and most of their skills target single enemy or hit randomly, making them rely on vehicles for taking out mobs. Also, while they have the highest HP pool of all classes, their skills are only usable on foot, making them susceptible to Status Effects and attacks from deadly foes.
- Artists: Another Jack of All Trades who are equally good at melee and tanks. They can also craft special shells for tanks and upgrade tank equipment using metals.
- Dogs: The intelligent dogs that can use various weapons and help the party. Unlike previous titles, dogs now have access to exclusive accessories that give huge elemental resistance, which immensely help its survivability. As usual, the dog does not follow the player's commands and act on its own.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Dr. Minche is there to revive you for free.
- Disc-One Nuke: Several.
- On human's side, we have Magnum Gades, the rare drop from Sintipede who is fought during the mid game. It is a handgun that shoots four bullets. While its attack power is slightly on the weak side (190 as opposed to 250's of other endgame weapons), the fact that it hits a single target four times more than makes up for it.
- On the vehicle's side, Mars Burst which can drop from Martian Medusa, the mid-level bounty, is a powerful cannon that hits twice and isn't as heavy as other cannons that hit multiple times, making it an ideal cannon for your main tank.
- Out of the special shells usable by tanks, Cement Shell is extremely effective as it lowers accuracy and evasion of any enemy hit by it and allows characters to hit the enemy even when it burrows itself underground, which usually requires a drill or special drill shell to hit.
- Early Game Hell: Averted, the protagonist starts with a disturbingly high amount of HP, a flat 1000, which is dramatically more then generics will have at that level, and more then enough to survive pretty much any enemy in the prologue area, meanwhile generics are averaging roughly 250 at Level 2, and this HP gap never really vanishes, additionally, you can rarely find the "Wide Shot" weapon whenever you search the ground where there's nothing, or buy one easily, which attacks all enemies at once, giving you a huge edge on early mob fights.
- Elegant Gothic Lolita: The core of Jagannath appears as the pair of gothic loli twins named Jagan and Nath for some reason.
- Faking the Dead: Artists can do this as one of their skills.
- Glass Cannon: While wrestlers can deal great damage and have the highest HP pool out of all classes, their narrow selection of equipment and skills that are usable only on foot make them exposed to more enemy fires and Status Effects than other classes.
- Hostage for MacGuffin: Near the end of the game, Gratonos manages to capture Cola and offers to free her in exchange for Twin Lotus, one of the keys for Jagannath.
- Humongous Mecha: Alamo Jack, the guardian of Shelter.
- Kill and Replace: Olga Mode did this to Saburomeo after helping him kill Taromeo, the previous leader of Rusty Maiden.
- Load-Bearing Boss: Jagan and Nath, the core of the submarine Jagannath.
- Lost Superweapon: Jagannath, the submarine with Wave-Motion Gun built by mankind to fight against Noah.
- Nanomachines: The Metamorph Cell, which is how the Coldblood Clan creates their elite members such as Olga Mode and the protagonist. It was originally designed to create Super-Soldier who can fight against Noah and its army of mechanical monstrosities. Also doubles as Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
- More Dakka: Hunter's final skill, Wild Fire, is this in the nutshell as it fires all weapons on the hunter's tank at once.
- Non-Standard Game Over: As usual, the player can choose to end the game prematurely by marrying Shise or running off with Cola.
- One-Winged Angel: Olga Mode and Gratonos do this after their human forms prove insufficient to stop the heroes.
- Optional Boss: There are many bounties for players to hunt down, most of which have nothing do with the main plot. Also, new bounties pop up once the player beats the game, which serve as extra challenge.
- Our Werebeasts Are Different: The Metamorph Cell allows one to transform into powerful beastlike creatures. The examples include Olga Mode (octopus), Auroch (bull), Sintipede (centipede), and the main character (sabertooth).
- Path of Inspiration: The Happy cult in Rusty Maiden. It is secretly led by Olga Mode from the Coldblood clan in order to brainwash the residents of Rusty Maiden.
- Posthumous Character: King Ginsky, who not only manipulated many people to build Shelter for his family and rule it as the king but also murdered his own daughter Alieze when she fell in love with Dr. Grey AKA Gratonos, setting him off on Roaring Rampage of Revenge against King's descendants.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: This turns out to be the primary goal of Gratonos as he attempts to harness the power of Jagannath to wipe out Shelter and the descendents of King Ginsky, who is responsible for killing his lover Alieze. On the lesser note, Bladetooth AKA the main character before his amnesia went on this against Gratonos for experimenting on him but failed.
- Tank Goodness: In addition to tanks, this is the first game to introduce even more variety of rides such as armored motorcycles, cars, the bio-tank, and the four-legged parade palanquin.
- Taking You with Me: Artists' final skill where they blow themselves up along with the enemy.
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: It is heavily implied that while the Metamorph Cell can transform humans into powerful werebeasts, it also results in loss of sanity which is likely the reason why the research was abandoned.
- Wrench Wench: The female mechanic.
- You Are Number 6 : Or as Gratonos says, the main character is Subject No.1313, who was the first to successfully transform using the Metamorph Cell.
