I was planning on doing a full review of this game before playing it. But then I put the UMD in my PSP, and after seconds of playing I thought “Wait a second, didn’t I play this before?”. And after checking it up, I did… and heck, I even reviewed it over a year ago. That’s right, Metal Slug XX is actually just a PSP port of the 2008 release of Metal Slug 7 on DS. Yeah… I wasn’t expecting that (since I didn’t inform myself on this game other than knowing it was coming out).

So instead of doing a full review, since I already did that, I’ll just give my impressions on the ports quality.

Here goes! Just a note, this will be a really short review.

Developer: SNK Playmore
Publisher: Atlus
Date of Release: February 23rd 2010
Platforms: Playstation Portable (PSP)

Genre: Side-scrolling action platformer
Players: 1-2
Rated T for Teen

What’s changed from the DS version?
Well, not that much really… Just a small list here:

- The graphics are a whole lot better. On the DS they weren’t too great. At first they might seem a bit lame and stretched out on the PSP, but changing the display settings to “clear” puts the game in a window of sorts and it looks perfect.
- THERE’S MULTIPLAYER! Yeah, this feature was somehow missing from the DS version, but now it’s here. The problem? It’s local multiplayer only. Finding another person with a PSP is hard enough, so finding another person with a PSP AND this game is gonna be next to impossible.  Still, HUGE improvement over the DS version.
- The difficulty is increased from the DS version. On the downside, there’s no option to have limited continues, so you can die as much as you want without caring, even on the Hard difficulty. That’s… a bit stupid, since they could have easily just given us an option to choose how many continues you want.
- Minor changes to levels. Some have alternate routes, the Prisoners of War (POW) are sometimes in different locations, there are changes in weapon locations, and weapons in general (some were changed or removed/added). Some slug vehicles also have minor modifications.
- Leona(from King of Fighters) as a downloadable character. I didn’t try her out, but she’s basically a fusion of all the other characters, having all of their skills (sometimes just a bit less good), and the extra skill of being able to keep her weapons when she dies (unless you use a continue). That sounds pretty badass if you want to pay to get access to her (and it only costs 1$ so it’s really not too bad).

And that’s really it. Other than those minor changes, the game is identical to its DS counterpart. The ports quality is really good, keeping the gameplay intact and making the game a lot better visually. The addition of multiplayer is probably the best addition, though good luck finding someone to play with.

The game itself
You run, you shoot, you jump, you throw grenades, you get killed millions of times… It’s Metal Slug.
If you attack enemies from far away, you shoot, but get up close and you use a melee attack instead to one-hit kill them. If you go change the options for this(I don’t know why it’s not default), holding the Square button lets you auto-fire. Pressing the Circle button throws a grenade, which does splash damage and more damage than the basic weapons. Shooting Prisoners releases them and, if you touch them, they give you items for points or weapons. You can hold up to 2 weapons in addition to the basic handgun, and switch between them with the R button. There’s also various vehicles which can take multiple hits and

You have 6 characters to choose from. They all basically play the same, but they all have minor differences like different damage on certain weapons, or special melee skills, or taking more hits, so there’s some gameplay variety there.

The game is really hard, with tons of bullets and enemies on the screen at once, making it really hard to avoid everything. But the infinite continues kinda downplay the difficulty. If you’re really into it though you can try to finish the whole game without using a continue, and THAT’S really challenging. It’s really short if you just play it through using continues non-stop, but it will take a very long time to master every level and be able to finish it without continues.

Overall
Yeah, told you it was gonna be a short post. Though frankly any review for a Metal Slug game would be just about this short.

This is Metal Slug as it has always been. Fun, really hard, fast-paced, and all sorts of awesome. If you haven’t played Metal Slug 7 yet and you have a PSP, it’s definitely worth checking out.
There’s one thing that I find weird, and it’s that they called the game “Metal Slug XX”. Why not “Metal Slug 7 X” or something like that, to at least let people know that it’s the same game as on the DS? Whatever… It’s a nice little game for fans of the series, and it’s really fun to play, just like… every other game in the series.

And it’s $20, so it’s really not expensive either.

jobocan Games, Handheld, impressions, psp, Review