The ACA version adds a high-score mode with no continues and a caravan mode that prods you to collect as many points as possible in a set time limit, so these are essentially the new stand ins for the higher stakes of the original arcade gameplay. That inevitably and exponentially gets boring after a single playthrough. At home, it’s just a matter of button mashing your way to victory. The only stakes existed in the arcades where you were feeding your very real quarters or tokens into the cabinet. The game advances straight from level 1 to level 6 as you push past every fortification. There really are no stakes in Metal Slug. With how easy it is to die in Metal Slug, this could mean quite a lot of cash. Sure, you the player could have as many continues as you liked in the arcades, provided you had as much money as you liked. One of the biggest blows against Metal Slug being an engaging experience, and I make the distinction between the arcade version and the home ports, is the fact that there are essentially infinite continues at home. There is a special ending of sorts, after defeating the General (spoilers: highlight to reveal) he is shown to have survived, looking up to the starry skies, setting up the outer space intervention events for the sequels. With only six stages and no huge secret levels or hidden bosses, there isn’t a tremendous amount of replay value other than coming back for the endless ammo blast-fest. Metal Slug’s fun-factor is instantaneous and incandescent but brief, like a giant smoking fireball. More firepower equals more freedom! It’s all very much Saturday morning cartoon stuffs. The grateful POWs will offer their two rescuers ammunition and weapon upgrades. Marco and Tarma must destroy every Metal Slug they come across to keep the tech out of the General’s greedy hands, as well as defeat the rebel armies and rescue prisoners of war. The General has also procured the deadly Metal Slug all-terrain tank and its technological variants. His army of tyrannical and riotous rebels aim to overthrow the governments and establish Morden’s rule. Their mission, broken down into six stages, is to stop the villainous General Morden from exacting his coup d’état upon on the world. Tarma.īoth highly proficient soldiers are members of the Peregrine Falcon Strike Force. The cartoonish explosions and almost slapstick violence keep the game from appearing too serious as you charge through ranks of enemies and their vehicles, blasting away the bad guys as macho men Cpt. “Well I brought my dinosaur! Who eats forcefield dogs!” This is underscored by the delicious animation. The reason why Metal Slug retains its appeal, among other things, is because it’s the gaming equivalent of two kids playing with their action figures. Maybe just about the only realistic thing in Metal Slug is you can only get hit once before you’re dead.īut that’s the enjoyable thing. One could at least imagine that this is the adapted story of two soldiers who single-handedly win World War II armed with nothing but their pistols, a few heavy weapons, and a tank now and then… okay, so not realistic at all. Metal Slug is much more straightforward and somewhat within the realm of being grounded. There are however none of the space aliens, gigantic mutants, marching undead, or impossible war machines that later games in the series introduced. What you’ll find in this first entry is more realism, though in Metal Slug more realism simply means “less ridiculous”. The series hasn’t changed much since its inception though it has steadily grown weirder over time. It is an energetic, dynamic, humorous run and gun. and SNK in 1996, ten years before the Arcade Archive version. Metal Slug is the first game in the series released by Nazca Co. The hardware is uniquely appropriate to short games with high accessibility and co-op, after all. ACA NeoGeo Metal Slug can be found on PlayStation and Xbox but this review is focused on the Switch version. The sub-category ACA NeoGeo re-releases Neo Geo titles, some of which have never been on home console before. The ACA (Arcade Archives) series has been of tremendous value in gaming by translating great arcade titles to home consoles, making games accessible to gamers who previously might have never had a chance to play them, given the rising rarity of actual arcades. Strap on your army boots and grab the biggest bazooka you can find because that golden classic, the original Metal Slug is now available on the Nintendo Switch. “God created war so that Americans would learn geography.”
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