Metal Slug Tactics review – the fastest strategy game in the West

90s run ‘n’ gun classic Metal Slug is reimagined as a turn-based tactics game that looks and plays just like the original games.

The word hardcore is next to meaningless when it comes to video games. When describing gamers, you can assume that it means someone that plays a lot of games, but what kind? Are you a hardcore gamer if you play Call Of Duty five hours a day? Or if you know what a Turbografx is, and own a physical copy of Radiant Silvergun, but barely get to play anymore?

The word’s meaning can be stretched to suit almost any occasion, but we’d definitely say that Metal Slug Tactics is hardcore. In terms of its gameplay, its lack of accessibility, and the fact it’s a spin-off from a series most people have never heard of, it’s not the sort of thing most casual or non-gamers would ever be interested in. But we love it.

Metal Slug is a long-running series of 2D platform shooters, noted for the exceptional quality of their 2D pixel art and animation. The last proper entry was on the DS in 2008, although the series started out life in the arcades, as one of SNK’s last big franchises. There was once a quickly abandoned attempt to make a 3D sequel but there’s never really been any obvious way to continue the series in the modern day, although we have to admit we never thought of making it a turn-based strategy.

Original Metal Slug developer Nazca Corporation is long since gone and so this has been made by little known French company Leikir Studio. It’s published by Dotemu, who are also French and handled the excellent Streets Of Rage 4, along with other neo-retro games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge and Windjammers 2.

Although there are no role-playing elements this is still a strategy game very much in the Japanese tradition of titles such as Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics. However, while at first you might imagine that this is just another low budget clone, reskinning the same old gameplay with different visuals, it actually plays very differently, in an attempt to mimic the pace and tone of the actual Metal Slug games.

The first thing you’d do in a game like XCOM or Mario + Rabbids, which this also resembles, is take cover and start trying to flank the enemy with your squad of allies. But that concept does not exist in Metal Slug Tactics. Your characters (you can use three at a time, out of an eventual selection of nine) are encouraged to move as far as possible each turn, in mimicry of the core games’ run ‘n’ gun nature.

The further you move (with bonuses for being extra athletic by jumping) the more Adrenaline you accrue, which is used to power your special attacks. This can leave you standing out in the open, begging to be shot at, but moving also gives you the ability to dodge incoming attacks. The idea seems madness at first but it’s a clever inversion of everything you expect from a Tactics game, where usually you want to take things slow and steady.

Synch is the other half of the equation and occurs when one character scores an attack on something (even scenery) and anyone within range automatically fires on it as well. Set things up properly and you can cause a chain reaction where each of the three characters sets off the other two and the whole map is levelled in an instant – again, just like the original games.

This is where it becomes obvious that Into The Breach has been a major influence on many elements of the game, as you learn to chain special attacks as well, with some characters able to trigger extra moves for themselves or allies, with a well picked team meshing their abilities together in unexpectedly elegant ways.

There are a lot, and we do mean a lot, of complications on top of this, with a horribly complex user interface which, while it technically displays a lot of necessary information, is likely to send any casual gamer running for the hills.

Structurally, the game is a roguelike, which again is similar to Into The Breach, with randomly generated maps that reset every time you die or complete a run – the later never lasting more than a couple of hours. You can sense the lack of handcrafting, which is a shame, but there’s such a wide range of different enemies, vehicles, and obstacles – all drawn from the franchise’s near 30 year history – that it never feels like just the same small number of assets being reshuffled every time.

The mission variety also helps in this regard, with a lot of rescuing POWs (just like the original games) but also things like seeking out specific enemies or taking only limited damage yourself. The bosses are great too, even if they do cheat by limiting how much you can use Synch.

Not everything is perfect though and one of the main problems with Metal Slug Tactics is that it doesn’t explain itself well, gabbling through the initial tutorials at such a rate of knots that barely anything sinks in the first time round.

This is exacerbated by some really tiny on-screen text, but the other big issue is that the game is pretty buggy at launch. There’s one problem in particular, that seems to involve the game loading in new assets mid-action but taking too long about it and slowing everything down as a result. However, this has already got better once, with a pre-launch patch, so the developer is clearly aware of it.

Despite being fans of the Metal Slug series, we were really only interested in this game for the visuals and soundtrack, which do not disappoint. The isometric visuals are wonderful, and very reminiscent of the flat 2D originals, with an insane level of detail in some animations, that shows this to be another labour of love for Dotemu.

Dotemu are getting really good at these faux retro games and while we’re tempted to say we’d like to see them do a new, traditional Metal Slug game it’s hard to imagine that being very different to what’s come before. But Metal Slug Tactics is both a loving homage and an excellent and unique game in its own right, and you can’t get much better than that when it comes to a franchise spin-off.

Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, and PC
Price: £19.99
Publisher: Dotemu
Developer: Leikir Studio
Release Date: 5th November 2024
Age Rating: 12

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