16. Timeless animation: Metal Slug 5

Metal Slug is a series I have a lot of respect for. It is known for its gorgeous bouncy animation, a very unique style, and a bizarre sense of humour. Metal Slug is a run and gun series with its origins in the arcade, which as you may expect, means it was designed to get people pumping coins into the machine.

This high level of difficulty is a reason I have a lot of respect for people who are good at these games. Typically, if I weren't to use a continue, I wouldn't even reach the end of the first level in any game in this series. For anyone looking for someone to follow who is good at both this genre and shoot-em-ups, I can recommend following Pichy and Pals on twitch. I will caution there may be some anime nonsense. Pichy was also helpful filling me in on some information regarding the creation of this game, which I'll get to later.

As I now understand to be tradition, Metal Slug 5 opens with an intentionally ugly character select screen.

I of course, made the correct decision and selected Fio. Her idle animation is having a picnic, so as someone who snacks when bored I can completely relate!

There is ABSOLUTELY no other reason I chose Fio. Nope.

With my character chosen for completely normal and healthy reasons, the game jumped immediately into the action. Metal Slug wastes little to no time on story, so I have no understanding as to WHY I must blast army dudes, but the lack of a story is hardly an impediment.

Metal Slug has a style that is a very unique mix of cute and brutal. The characters and tanks are all in a super deformed art style, yet has some particularly brutal death animations. If you attack an enemy in close range, rather than shooting your character attacks with a knife, with the enemy then falling to the group gasping in pain. Other deaths involve characters literally melting or disintegrating depending upon the mode of death.

The game controls well and just feels fun. The standard gun has infinite ammo and no reload, and fires as quickly as you can smash the fire button, with an additional 10 grenades that deal massive damage. Throughout the levels there are powerups which provide different main weapons. Unfortunately, with how easy it is to die, I never had any of these new weapons for long. This creates an interesting dichotomy: the better you are at the game, the longer you will keep the more powerful weapons, which will make the game less challenging.

I mean, I assume so. I wouldn't know for sure, since I typically never survived for very long to know for sure.

Aside from the look and sense of humour, the other defining feature of the series are the titular "Metal Slugs". These are hugely powerful vehicles that the player can use for a set period of time. In other games I have been told that provided you are good enough, the Metal Slug will be available for use at the end boss of each level, providing a huge offensive boost. However, in Metal Slug 5, this does not happen unless the fight specifically begins with the Metal Slug. An unfortunate change, but again, not one that I personally noticed given the large number of deaths of my main character.

The levels have an escalating level of ridiculosity. You start fighting enemy soldiers in the jungle, and end up fighting a ghost dragon with a giant skull for a chest on top of a castle. And yet, Metal Slug 5 is a less fantastical than what I have seen from other Metal Slug games, where enemies include zombies, aliens and mummies, with levels even leaving the bounds of the Earth and heading to space.

This game is short, as I was somewhat expecting - run and gun games tend to be this way, with replay value coming from aiming for a higher score. I was able to complete it in just under an hour. That said, this feat required the use of a staggering FORTY continues, so there is certainly room for improvement there. Despite my impressively large death count, I feel that the game was mostly fair with its difficulty, with a relatively consistent difficulty curve until the last few levels which were frankly unfair, particularly the final boss. The final boss was some bullsh*t. Although apparently, there is a pattern, I just missed it.

I had a mostly great time with metal Slug 5, and would recommend anyone who has been curious like myself give one of them a try!

And finally: Rate the Rides!

SV-001