Ah, Metal Slug. Represents all that is good about 2D platforming Action gameplay. When I saw that it was coming out on the DS, I thought it was a strange choice to put the game on a handheld without an arcade release, or any other release for that matter. When I finally played it (the japanese version, a few months ago), I saw it was pretty fun.

But after more play and giving it a bit more thought when it came out here, does it really hold up to previous games in the series? Read on!

Graphics
There’s something wrong here. I think they took the sprites from the previous game and just resized them for the DS screen. It doesn’t look really good. I mean, I know the DS doesn’t have the biggest screen resolution or anything, but I also know it can pump out good quality 2D graphics. They could have remade the sprites or something for the DS, just to have proper quality here.
Still, despite the sprites occasionally looking like ass, the game retains the same style it always had. The animations are as good as always, the bosses look really cool. Really, it looks almost as nice as previous incarnations, but the resized sprites just look weird.

Gameplay
It’s Metal Slug. Run around, shoot stuff, get new weapons, use your knife when you’re close to certain enemies, throw grenades, and die a lot. Nothing has changed from the older games really.

There are 6 characters you can choose from. Each has different caracteristics that give them the advantage in certain situations, or that you might just prefer using.  Fio always starts with a heavy machine gun(+more ammo and damage with weapons), Ralf takes 2 hits, Eri has more grenades and can throw it in multiple directions, Clark can throw enemies but gets less ammo for weapons, Marco is basic but with more damage with his handgun and Tarma is better with vehicules. This can add lots of variety in gameplay.

Here you die in one hit, and it’s not easy to avoid certain attacks. When you lose all your lives(and you will… a lot), you can select a different character if you want. So if you die in a situation where you might need someone else, you can change.

Like in previous games, you get a few vehicules to drive. Each vehicule can take multiple hits, to it’s good for protection (just get out when it tells you), and they have special weapons too. This as always been a staple for the Metal Slug series and they didn’t screw it up.

The mission mode is where you’ll be wasting most of your time. You can either start from the first mission, or from any other mission you’ve reached if you want less difficulty going through the whole game. There’s various difficulties. If you’re really hardcore, hard will provide huge challenge. Easy is laughably simple. You do way more damage, have a heavy machine gun as your standard weapon, and it’s just a lot easier to deal with. Normal is hard enough.

As for DS features… Well, there’s not much. In normal gameplay, you have a map on the bottom screen, and you can move through it. Really useless. Also interesting to note that there’s NO MULTIPLAYER. This really sucks. Metal Slug, a game that’s 10 times more fun with multiplayer, doesn’t have multiplayer in its DS incarnation. The DS is capable for multiplayer, why not have that feature?

Other than the normal mode, you also  have a sort of challenge mode, which you unlock more of each time you get to a new stage in mission mode. Challenges vary from saving a number of hostages to not dying, to surviving for certain amounts of time, and each time you die or finish a challenge, you get graded. If somehow the main game isn’t challenging enough for you, the challenge mode should be.

Overall
There’s really not much to say here. It’s Metal Slug. There’s guns, explosions, it’s challenging. If you like previous games in the series, you’ll like this one. The only big problem is the lack of multiplayer. If that’s an important element for you, you might want to skip it or wait for a price drop.
Maybe not the best of the series, but it holds up well.

jobocan Games, Review