GamerEscape

I’m not going to front. This should actually be kind of the easiest review I’ve ever written or will write, because I should be able to just point to my preview of Metal Slug Tactics and note that the full game allows you to play as Leona Heidern. If these two facts placed adjacent to one another do not spark joy, then either you don’t know what any of that means and are going to have a fun time, or you don’t like these facts and… well, then I’m sorry, I don’t think we can be friends. It’s not me, it’s you. It’s entirely you.

But that would be catastrophically bland as a review and would also be several hundred words too short, so instead I am going to build off of that earlier preview and discuss the reasons why I was thoroughly delighted by this game from top to bottom. I don’t think that Metal Slug Tactics quite reaches the status of a perfect game, by any means, but it manages to pull off its central hook remarkably well.

Gaseous Orca

If there’s one weakness to the game – and I’m not convinced this is a weakness, but fair is fair – it’s that Metal Slug Tactics, even in its full form, has the basic problem of a lot of non-RPGs that import familiar characters into an RPG-like environment. In my preview, I described the basic premise of pretty much every Metal Slug game as being General Donald Morden, the bad guy, raising an army of weird goons who the Peregine Squad fights against. If you are old enough, you can find-replace “Cobra Commander” and “G.I. Joe” and you will have about the right idea.

Now… the fact that this is at least ostensibly a tactical RPG might lead you to believe that this does, in fact, allow for your characters to stretch their legs and display more in-depth personality traits. Sure, the game is a roguelike in many ways so you might not expect much from the plot, but that doesn’t mean it has to be empty, right? Well… no. It doesn’t mean that it has to be that way. But it is. This is a game that is wholly unconcerned with really further enriching or fleshing out its characters; quite the contrary, it is happier to just throw out characters you like and let you guide them to victory.

Or defeat, yes, defeat is an option, but you’re not aiming for that one.

I mentioned that I’m not totally convinced this is a weakness, and that’s mostly because this is a Metal Slug game and it generally approaches “plot” without much focus or intensity. The point is not to craft a compelling narrative but to watch characters you like fight against goons you don’t with a bit of the old-fashioned ultraviolence and cartoonish firearms. That’s the goal. Complaining that its plot is that is a bit like complaining that the plot of a racing game is “car go fast.” You knew that clocking in.

Having said that, though? Yeah, it would have been nice to have a little something. It’s not a major loss, but it is noticed.

Carbon-Based Wombat

Pretty much all of the things that I noted in my preview about the basic game mechanics remains true. This is a tactical game that is much more focused around avoiding damage rather than tanking it, and your squad of three will be on its own taking on the challenges of each branch of levels. That means that you’ll want to consider how each character’s unique abilities play against one another as you go through each attempt, although it would be wrong to look at the different characters as serving particularly distinct roles analogous to other tactical games. These are characters designed to resemble their presence in the original games, and if that does not delight you… well, that’s part of the learning curve.

Basically, this is a tactical game that is very much built around being closer to the run-and-gun antics of the side-scrolling games. It seems weird to adapt it to a tactical game as a result, but this allows for some gorgeous pixel layouts and some really in-depth weird sets of abilities for the series regular cast. I find it a lot of fun, and I really enjoy the feel of setting up crossfires and cover so that the enemy winds up whiffing completely on its round. And because of the pace of how the game unlocks thing, you do feel like every round is at least meaningful even if sometimes they’re not terribly impactful.

In other words, everything I liked in the demo is magnified in the full game. Outstanding. No notes.

Liquid Crab

Have I mentioned how the game’s pixel graphics are gorgeous. Yes. Many times. And I will keep mentioning it again and again because it’s amazing. Not only does the game look exactly like a Metal Slug game should, it does so with very little actual asset reuse of any kind. Oh, sure, several enemy designs and boss designs are familiar from the series (that’s kind of the point), but the actual artwork is new and it looks resplendent. The game also sounds like a Metal Slug game, from the interface to the music. It is high-energy, fun, and freewheeling the whole time through.

It’s also tough, which I think is worth noting. I don’t think that it’s unfair, but it is definitely a tactical action game where you might want to keep it on a lower level for your first few tries just because it plays differently than most other tactical games. Your strategic tools are different and it is not afraid to kill you suddenly and firmly, ending your run dead. Fairly warned be ye.

There are also, I’m sorry to say, a few bugs and performance oddities that can lead to things like objectives not being counted. The team is working on fixing them and plans to have them fixed either at launch or shortly post-launch, and I didn’t find them to be game-breaking, but you should be aware that you might run into some less-than-ideal moments along the way. It’s never something that took me out of enjoying the game, but it was notable.

Tanks for the Memories

My impression of the game has changed a little bit since the initial demo, but only in the sense that the game has successfully taken all of the fun aspects present during the demo and made them work even more effectively. This is a fun game with a lot of neat ideas, and far from slapping the sprites on a game that feels like a generic tactics roguelike and calling it a day it’s a game that feels like Metal Slug even as it also kinda couldn’t feel less like Metal Slug.

For fans of the franchise who aren’t usually RPG fans, this one is going to be fun. Tactical RPG fans who don’t generally play run-and-gun platformers are going to have fun with it. And if you’re a fan of both? This is a must-buy. It’s a sign of how you can do interesting things in a familiar space with novel implementation.

In fact, if you need to know how much I like this game? I spent this whole review without bringing up Final Fantasy Tactics at all. I don’t need to; the game stands on its own. That’s high praise here.

~ Final Score: 8/10 ~

Review copy provided by Dotemu for PC. All screenshots courtesy Dotemu.