Metal Slug Tactics Review (FizzMan)
A new non-phone first Metal Slug game since Metal Slug 7 over 16 years ago (which is insane to think about with how many indie run and gun games have come out since then), Metal Slug Tactics from my experience so far is a somewhat faithful modern/slick spinoff of a very beloved oldschool series.
Developed by Leiker Studio a French based studio in Paris, the English translation sadly is very lacking at times, with words and sentence structure almost seemingly being nonsensical. Did they have no English speakers to double check this game??
Though this is a series not renowned or even known for it's writing but rather it's action and pixel art, for the most part the artwork holds up very well, the nebulous floating in the void bastion look being just fine, the pixel art also looking as though SNK themselves worked on this title which is pretty impressive, though the blood and gore has been toned down if entirely nurtured, with almost laughable "bouncing" idle animations that do take me out of the experience and don't feel true to Metal Slug.
The "soul" of artwork also tends to suffer from being abit too "weeby" with characters being too masculine or sexualized, with way too huge bust size, or everyone always being too overly polite.
There is also a very terrible lack of scanline and filtering options when such newer titles like UFO 50 of course didn't forget to include.
Also no support for local or online multiplayer is pretty sad to see. :^(
Only one game mode and difficulty selection? 😟
I mean hopefully whatever remains of SNK will take notice of this and maybe Metal Slug 8 will finally see the light of day!
Would recommend this to tactics fans as those mechanics do have depth and decent variety to them, though if you're a run and gun Metal Slug fan I would probably recommend watching a lets play or staying away from this title.
(In terms of art I mean just compared side by side, there are even pervy reviews and comments in the discussions praising this sort of stuff. Again I and many people grew up with Metal Slug in arcades as a kid. I loved it for the goofy wackiness, the master class pixel art, the coop, the frantic energetic gameplay, not because women were being sexualized which is in nearly every piece of Japanese media, and of which in the arcade games was not so in your face and toned down. Marco and Tarma are more skinny, Eri and Fio are more girly and just have fun personalities not based on their giant boobs or the amount of skin they're showing. Look at the character select from the first game, it just ooze's uniqueness and personality for the four main characters. Every single Japanese game now adays is sexualized, it's getting old. Plenty of porn games for you perverts to go play please stay away from Metal Slug.)