Metal Slug Tactics | Review

A beautiful blend of new and old

Jesse 'Doncabesa' Norris November 5, 2024Last Updated: November 4, 2024

1 1,029 5 minutes read

Metal Slug Tactics is coming to Game Pass on Day One and it sees the classic series move to a new genre. It’s a grid-based tactical fiesta of fun, full of arcade-style inspiration, including the difficulty. You’ll battle the rebels across multiple sectors, with over 100 different level layouts on hand. It’s really fun, really hard, and ultimately a satisfying adventure. Let’s explain how it works and why I think it’s worth checking out.

Tactica

Metal Slug is a classic SNK property, renowned for its pixel art and insane difficulty. Tactics takes those stylings and modernize them with mostly successful results. Across multiple biomes, you’ll face off against seemingly impossible situations as you try to outwit your way through each challenge. The setup for this title would be most like a rogue-lite. You have a meta-leveling system that unlocks new characters, weapons, modifiers, and more.

Every run begins with a randomly chosen assortment of maps and you’ll need to clear three levels in each sector to face the boss. Complete all challenges in a single run without a single failure and you win. You have to restart every time you lose a level, though you’ll keep any unlocked sectors available. That goes the same for any characters or upgrade currency you’ve found. Expect to die early and often, as even on the ‘easy’ difficulty this game can be punishing.

We’ll hit on how the gameplay works in a bit, but know that every move you make will matter. The harder difficulty ramps things up, with less healing and other options available, and it is a true challenge for those willing to take it. All the difficulty in the world wouldn’t matter though if it didn’t control well. Thankfully, it does.

The Runs

At the start of each run, you’ll choose three fighters. More are unlocked as you complete objectives, with a healthy roster available fairly quickly. Every character has numerous load-outs, including completely different weapon types. As this is a grid-based tactics game everything has a set range and damage zone.

One of your early characters can either throw grenades or use a grenade launcher. The former is infinite and the latter has a set amount of ammo. After playing for a few hours I had unlocked a couple of different setups for her that offered up wildly different gameplay. By the time I had my first successful run, my characters played nothing like they did at the beginning.

Everyone has in their first slot a weaker weapon with infinite ammo. There is a 2nd weapon slot with limited ammo, that can be replenished based on which mission you choose. Mission rewards come in two varieties, “complete the mission” and “complete a specific task during it”. You can earn coins for mid-run upgrades, cash for meta-leveling, replenish ammo, replenish soldier respawns (for when you die in a mission), and more.

It’s a fun system that encourages experimentation. Certain bosses can be melted with the right setup and only your objective matters. You can have 25 enemies left in a boss fight, but once the boss HP hits zero you win. How each match plays out keeps things feeling fresh while you’re leveling up your crew. My favorite part of the leveling is once you start getting the armor and vehicle call-ins. They changed things up at just the right time, keeping me from ever feeling bored.

The Missions

The gameplay starts out fairly basic. You have 3 characters who work in a specific way and you head out to fudge some shizz up. At the start of each fight, you’ll position your characters in specified areas. Every move sees you have one base action and one base movement point. If you use the action point first you lose the movement point. You can only move so far, and your guns all have a set range. Key is finding cover, denoted by a blue shield. This gives you an extra bit of health that will eat up incoming damage until it is destroyed.

Quickly this changes up as you get mods that drastically alter it all. I had one character gain both an action and a movement point every time she either moved or used an ability. Those abilities are earned in runs by completing levels and leveling up your characters. While you can jump into newly unlocked zones right away it makes clearing out the first zone or two each time worth it. You’ll get your character powered up as they head into the tougher fights.

The character XP leveling only lasts for that run but is extremely important. You can make weapons hit harder, add in entirely new abilities, and gain powerful modifiers that let you attack multiple times per move. Once all of your movement and action points are spent the computer gets its turn. The game, on easy at least, only has the computer act if they can do anything against you. Otherwise, they’ll stand still in their grids and wait for you to approach.

Difficulty

On the hard difficulty, they are far more aggressive, changing things up in a way better than simply giving them more damage and health points. One of your most powerful moves is the Sync shot. If you attack an enemy that is in the line of fire of your comrades they’ll attack for free. It can lead to quick enemy kills, though with the aoe damage fighters, you’ll need to make sure that you’re not in the way.

Overall the combat of the game is by far its best feature, it’s so damned satisfying to figure out the best way to take all of your enemies down while completing the mission objective. One normal difficulty you don’t have to worry about having one or two of your characters dead either, as long as you win the level they’ll come back at full HP next time.

Visual Splendor

Alongside that gameplay, the graphics are a chef’s kiss of beauty. That class SNK pixel art style is here in full. This looks and even sounds like an arcade Neo Geo title from the 90s. I mostly played on Series X, though the game is Play Anywhere so I hopped over to PC as well. It looks and runs great, with no 3d trickery. This is full-on pixel-art eye-porn and it looks amazing.

Metal Slug had its fair share of over-the-top crazy enemy types and that legacy lives on in Tactics. While the base enemies are your typical cannon fodder, the bosses look incredible. They have tons of animations and clear, defined attack patterns that never felt cheap. They’re hard as hell, but you know what’s coming thanks to the classic but functional UI. The game’s Ost is an absolute banger, from yelling the game’s title at the opening to all the heart-thumping tracks, I loved it.

I didn’t have any major bugs while playing, though Auto-HDR once again only worked on PC for me. As we review things early they can add in Auto-HDR support at or after launch on console, which I hope they do. It pops on my PC in comparison. My only real complaint is the slow start to the meta-leveling grind and how insanely tough the harder difficulty can be in certain endgame boss fights.

Wrapping Things Up

This type of game has a ceiling it can normally hit. It’s a lower-budget genre-bending revival of a beloved but older IP. Leikir Studio has managed to find an excellent blend of old and new. While it can be insanely difficult on hard, it’s just the right amount of punishing on normal. As it is available on Day One on Game Pass for Cloud, Console, and PC I think this one is an easy download or buy for any tactics fan.