Irem, Nazca, Neo Geo, SNK: these words resonate like incantations to a glory of yesteryear among arcade enthusiasts. And what about the license? Metal Sluga true pinnacle of run & gun in 2D pixel art, born in the mid-90s and whose absence, apart from a few mixed ports and spin-offs on mobile, has been growing every day since Metal Slug 7 on Nintendo DS in 2008. The license has above all become a regular and a classic of emulation, as the license has marked the history of video games.
The wait is finally coming to an end thanks to Leikir Studio (a small French studio), supported by DotEmu in its role as publisher and with the blessing of the great pharaoh SNK. However, the mission order changed and the frenetic action ended. Make way for a tactical air, assumed by the studio,Into the Breach.
The gendarme’s tactics
Which mummy bit Leikir Studio? A tactical, in isometric view?! Rest assured, the cartoonish artistic direction and burlesque humor are still present. And, without claiming to be experts, all this seems rather faithful to the license which is inspired by several autocratic and dictatorial figures of the time.
The game welcomes us directly with a tutorial to introduce us to the different mechanics, understanding which will be essential to bring together the missions to come and finish the game. The rebel army, led by General Donald Morden, once again stands in the way of the Peregrine Falcon Squad. Our starting squad is made up of three characters not entirely foreign to the license: Marco Rossi, Eri Kasamoto and Fio Germi.
In order to energize this turn-based tactical, and give it a slightly more run & gun feeling, Leikir decided to introduce the notion ofDodge which is a parameter that reduces damage taken and which you can increase by moving your characters around the map. This parameter being reset to 0 at the start of each turn, the game pushes you to be as mobile as possible in order to best absorb your enemies’ attacks. In addition to dodging, there are cover points that certain squares provide to your characters, knowing that covers can often be destroyed and that certain attacks allow you to ignore these covers. No room here for “campers”. We are here for tactics, but tactics in motion.
Movement is life
Moving around the map also increases your adrenaline level, which activates special actions. Moreover, each turn, your character can move and then shoot. If you shoot without moving, you won’t be able to move later and you do not increase your dodge (except in the case of a bonus move). We quickly get into the game of moving all our characters first and then having them shoot. Especially since the placement of the characters is important for a second central mechanic in this Metal Slug Tactics.
When one of your characters attacks an enemy who is also within range of an ally’s main weapon, that ally then also attacks automaticallyand this, without spending any movement or attack points. And since it works for several allies, it allows you to make devastating attacks if the characters have been correctly positioned on the map in relation to the enemy you are targeting. This mechanic is essential to face bosseswhich moreover, by their size, encourages this approach.
Speaking of bosses, these punctuate each of the biomes visited and systematically appear after 3 more classic missions, such as “eliminate all enemies” or “survive 5 turns” but also escort missions. These intermediate missions allow you to collect different bonuses through a main objective and a secondary objective. These bonuses provide upgrades for your weapons or characters.
Moreover, we allow ourselves to use the word biome, because we are dealing with a tactical tinged with rogue-lite. When you lose all your characters, and you have exhausted your ability to revive them, the run ends. You return to base, while keeping certain improvements and with the possibility of obtaining new ones. These small moments also allow Leikir to develop the characters and their relationships, a well-known mechanic made very effective by the famous Hades.
All these mechanics, which overlap, could make the playability and the game difficult. Although we sometimes get a little lost in the keys and mechanics, the first difficulty level allows you to familiarize yourself with all of this, and after a few “runs” and 8 hours of play, we managed to defeat the last boss and complete a first run to the end. But any good player Metal Slug knows, challenges come when you increase the difficulty, when the rules of the game change and you unlock new characters, new weapons or new abilities.
Immersing yourself in these dynamic dioramas, with portions of cards that appear or disappear, revealing good or bad surprises throughout the game, by moving as much as possible and shooting with your allies at the enemies, is that what Isn’t that the DNA of Metal Slug?
Games royale
From the top of its pyramids, almost 20 years of video game history looked down on them. And yet, Leikir didn’t shake when trying to adapt a nervous run & gun into a tactical rogue-lite. The game design proposals make it possible to transcribe the permanent movement and die & retry so characteristic of the series. The sound and visual artistic directions give us the illusion that this game has always been there, in the series, as a matter of course. By extracting the very essence of Metal Slug to inject it into this new game, Leikir restarted the engine of a tank that had become a little dirty with age. We would be tempted to tell them “Rest!” after this successful mission, but we are already ready to put back a piece to sand the game, and to see more.
Overall rating: 8/10
The +:
– Faithful to the license in terms of artistic direction
– Game mechanics that translate the DNA of the license well into tactical
– Available “day one” in Game Pass Ultimate
THE – :
– A somewhat surprising introductory price
– Controls sometimes a little complex
Metal Slug Tactics releases on November 5, 2024 on the following platforms: Steam/PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One and Xbox Series S/X.
Test conditions: tested on PC under Windows and Linux using a key made available by the publisher.
