Metal Slug Tactics (PC) Preview

Metal Slug is a game series that I haven’t played since I was a young child. When the series announced a new entry in the form of a tactics-based strategy game I knew I had to give it a go. The full game is set to release in the Fall of 2024, but there is still no word on a concrete release date.

This demo contains the first few areas of the game and features four playable characters to build your team. The main story is simple just like the arcade game and involves stopping Donald Morden and his rebel army from destroying the world. You take on the role of the commander of the Peregrine Falcon Squad, an elite team of heroes each with unique specialties.

Gameplay is firmly rooted in the realm of turn-based strategy: You’ll move your heroes around a grid-based map, employing various weapons and skills to accomplish objectives and defeat enemies. However, the game certainly spices things up with a variety of mechanics taken from the Rogue-lite genre. As characters advance in levels by defeating enemies they can unlock various passive abilities and equip modifications to their weapons. These are chosen from a random pool at the end of each successful mission.

Additionally, every character has the ability to unleash synchronization attacks which are triggered when another ally attacks within range. Another new, unique element here is the adrenaline meter. The resource is accumulated by each character in combat and increases depending on how far they move each turn. Adrenaline can then be expended to unleash special skills which can unleash big damage or create long combo chains that involve multiple moves per turn.

Moving further each turn also raises your character’s ability to dodge incoming attacks, a pivotal tactic to take advantage of if you hope to beat overwhelming odds. I enjoy how these mechanics encourage constant mobility and careful positioning. Not only does it capture the action-heavy feel of the original arcade shooters but it prevents every game from devolving into a slow, grindy battle of attrition as is the case with a lot of other games in the tactics genre.

I loved the graphical style of Metal Slug Tactics, which retains the old-school sprite-based models but with updated splash art for each character which is beautifully rendered. In-game animations are polished and bring vehicles, enemies, and heroes to life. The music is also solid with a great mix of arcade-inspired beats and tunes.

Unfortunately, there are a few aspects here that really didn’t work for me. As is the case in a Rogue-lite, if you lose at any point during each area you’ll be sent back to your home base and have to restart your progress on that region over from the beginning. Now while this works well in an action-heavy Rogue-lite here it becomes especially frustrating. Though this is a more action-heavy tactics game, by nature of the genre every level will demand a solid 10 to 20-minute time investment where one mistake can cost you everything.

Not only that, but level variety is not very wide, meaning that each run often lacks much in terms of diversity. This may be simply due to the fact that not all features were available in this build. The full game will give players access to the shop which offers powerful items, abilities, and mods to purchase allowing you to speed through early missions more easily the more you play. It’s very odd to me this wasn’t included in the demo as this is a core element to a good Rogue-lite.

The Rogue-lite nature of the game also has the adverse effect of impacting the story. I understand Metal Slug was never the most complex of games, but one of the things I enjoy about the tactics genre is the emphasis on narrative. I was hoping Metal Slug Tactics could flesh out the world and characters a little bit more delivering something akin to the Advance Wars series. Even in big boss battles the heroes don’t bother having some back-and-forth dialogue with the major villains. It’s a missed opportunity and I hope there is more to this aspect in the full release.

I remain cautiously optimistic that Metal Slug Tactics can add something worth playing to the realm of turn-based tactics. There certainly are some interesting ideas here and I’m hoping that the quick moment-to-moment action won’t be destroyed by a constant need to restart. Preferably, hours of progress need to bestow some long-term rewards that are transferable across subsequent runs and missions need to have more expansive objectives to avoid boring the playerbase.