Granted, we’ve been seeing these effects in 2D games for a long time now, but this is the first time we’ve seen them in a Metal Slug game.Īlas, the same attention to detail hasn’t been lavished on the rest of the game. Later bosses are equally cool, including a huge robot controlled by a brain in a jar, and a worm that squirms around the screen with some impressively sprite rotation effects. The visual improvements are only applied to the boss fights, which are probably the best part of the game – the second stage features a giant tank, rolling down an infinite mountain, launching missiles so huge that the camera needs to zoom out just so you can see everything. Plus, the sprites are exactly the same as they’ve always been. The backgrounds are supposedly high res, and they’re all prerendered backgrounds as opposed to the tiles from the older games, but they look pretty bland and boring. While you can look at The King of Fighters XI and see a definite (albeit relatively minor) improvement over the Neo Geo versions, Metal Slug 6 barely looks much different.
Metal Slug 6 is the first (and will be the only) game based on the Atomiswave hardware, so SNK had the opportunity to really put the hardware to use and show off more of the crazy sprite work they’ve been known for. In some ways, this is what the fans want – the recent 3D reinvention was met with almost universal apathy – but it has begun to feel like the later installments are just unnecessary. Metal Slug 3 has pretty much been the pinnacle the series, and the fourth and fifth installments have pretty much been “The Same, But Not As Good” – we’ll call this the Mega Man Syndrome. Up until this point, there has been no such thing as a “bad” Metal Slug game (at least, in the realm of 2D), but there have been ones that are subpar for the course. Running forward! Jamming on the fire button! Jumping and stabbing and oh-so-much exploding. When you get a Metal Slug game, you pretty much know what you’re getting into.
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