At first glance, it would appear that recent releases have attempted to slow down the Peregrine Falcon Squad. Could it be that after nearly 30 years, their knees are starting to feel the burden a little bit? Games like Metal Slug Attack Reloaded, a tower defence game, and now Metal Slug Tactics, on paper at least, slow the traditional run and gun action down substantially. The truth is very different though. Metal Slug Tactics is a tactical RPG, yes, but somehow manages to retain the run and gun action associated with the franchise, along with a few other neat ideas.
Once again, series protagonist Donald Morden is back, and it is up to a small team of elite soldiers to take him down again. Led as usual by Marco Rossi, you and your squad must complete a series of levels before facing off against an iconic Metal Slug boss. But there is much more to it than that.
Metal Slug Tactics is a roguelike, and a tough one at that. Personal grievances aside, if you aren’t a fan of roguelikes, there is nothing here to convince you otherwise. Whilst individual squad members are revived automatically in between missions, should the full team perish, it is right back to the beginning with nothing to show for it. And those aforementioned bosses represent big difficulty spikes, so dying and starting from the very beginning is the norm.
It definitely feels roguelike, compared to roguelite; the only thing you carry over between runs is a small bit of money that can only get you so far. Upon starting your second run you also unlock reinforcements that can allow you to resurrect comrades during a mission. Why this isn’t unlocked during the first run is unknown.
Now, Metal Slug may not seem like the first choice for a tactical game, but this is not a traditional tactical game. There are only a few tiles that give cover, and there is no Overwatch ability to provide covering fire. Instead, it almost wants you to play it like a Metal Slug game. You generate a resource called Adrenaline by moving around the grid and the more you move, the more you generate. And you can then spend it on using your special abilities. This is not the game to hunker down and wait for waves of enemies to come to you, you need to bring the fight to them.
And it works really well too. I keep saying it but Metal Slug Tactics really does feel like a Metal Slug game still, running around and firing away. Each member of your team has a regular gun with unlimited ammo and a special weapon with limited ammo. There are no percentages when it comes to making a shot; providing you have line of sight, you won’t miss.
Keeping on the move also grants you a defence to block incoming damage. It will never be enough to fully dodge an attack, unless you couple it with a tile that grants cover, but does mean you can survive a lot longer than if you were to stand still.
It pays to move together as a team as well, rather than having teammates dotted all over. Sync attacks happen when a teammate attacks an enemy another has line of sight of, essentially giving you a free attack when lined up. Always useful, but it becomes essential as you progress.
If you manage to progress far enough in a run to level up your characters, you will start to see certain special moves and passive abilities working incredibly well together. For example, main man Marco Rossi has a passive ability that reduces the cost of his special attacks every turn he executes a sync attack. He has abilities that can grant a bonus move and a damage boost, but also gains a bonus action if using a special action with a cost of zero. I then added to that a passive ability that healed up each character by 2HP when targeted with an ability. Essentially every couple of turns I was getting free actions coming out of my ear, healing up substantially.
But getting to a stage like this can be very frustrating. Partly down to the hardcore nature of Metal Slug Tactics being a roguelike, but also due to it being a bit obtuse at the beginning. It doesn’t do the best job of explaining things initially, and instead throws you in at the deep end. And it throws a lot at you, but relegates any useful information into tiny text boxes that can be missed altogether. Pressing in the right thumbstick can highlight useful terms in blue and expand on them, but you have to sometimes delve a long way to get the information you are looking for.
And elevation in particular is poorly explained. You can highlight squares hidden away by differing terrain by flicking the right thumbstick up and down, but boy, is this a pain to figure out.
Metal Slug Tactics may take a couple of hours before things start to click, but once it does it offers a fresh perspective on a tactical RPG. It plays like a Metal Slug game, it absolutely looks like a Metal Slug game, but it manages to do all that in a tactical fashion, with some fresh ideas that keep things fun and fast paced.
It keeps being said, but it really is impressive how well the Metal Slug gameplay is transferred into a tactical game. Trust me, try it.
Metal Slug Tactics Deploys a Turn-Based Assault on Game Pass, Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and PC – https://www.thexboxhub.com/metal-slug-tactics-deploys-a-turn-based-assault-on-game-pass-xbox-playstation-switch-and-pc/
Buy Metal Slug Tactics on Xbox – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/metal-slug-tactics/9NGNZP1J1JN7/0010
