I promised i would make a hands on first impressions about the demo for the Metal Slug strategy RPG spin-off, Metal Slug Tactics, and i knew the demo was gonna be available to grab for a limited time… though i misread the news article posted by the developer, Leikir Studios, because i assumed it was gonna be a limited time release to get… but it was actually always meant to become unavailable after June 17th.
It was eventually extended until June 27th, but i didn’t know that, i just assumed i could keep using the demo, but again, i’ll take some of the blame, as the announcement article said “will be live until June 17th”, the dev team could have made it more clear this was a demo meant to self
As i didn’t know that i put off finishing the demo until i had some free time for that, only a week too late, and to find the “play” button for the Metal Slug Tactics demo in my Steam library turned into a “Purchase” link redirecting to the store page… even when you can’t actually buy the game yet, in any form.
This means i didn’t play and finish the final maps of the demo region, but i did write 2 pages of impressions, notes and clocked 96 minutes into the demo, which is more than enough to get the feel for the game, so, instead of a proper hands-on article, you’re getting this “salvage write-about” thingie, because i do have something to say about the game, even in this early demo stage, which show the game is far from being in the “larval” stage, despite some features not available, like controller support, as the devs clearly stated both in the Steam store page news and in the demo itself.
Compromise is a bitch but i do wanna keep my word, so here it goes, fellas.
Since the announcement last year, i was quite interested to see more of this tactical rpg spin-off of one of my favourite game series ever, Metal Slug Tactics, after all i love turn based tactical rpgs (did i say i love Disgaea? I did, but i’ll say it again, i love Disgaea!) and this is an actual game instead of another free to play gacha ridden spin-off that’s basically another clone of some popular smarthphone game (with a short lived existence likely too), and probably the best thing we’re gonna get from the franchise in a long time to come.
The demo offers basically the first region of the game map, but still, i’d say it’s still a sizeable demo that serves up the tutorial phase and more than enough content to get a feel with what the final game will be… and i’m glad to say Leikir Studio is whipping up something that definitely goes above just givings the “Tactics treatment” to a non-strategy game series or IP, unlike stuff like – i dunno – Dynasty Warriors Godseekers, which was ok but more an excuse to conjure up a lesser version of Koei’s own Kessen (and Disgaea too, to a point) from the already over-recycled DW 8 assets.
Metal Slug Tactics strikes a good balance between being accessible and throwing many stats (the more highlighted being the essential “movement range” and “hp”) and terms and rules upon the players, i’d say, conveying fairly good via the solid interface if you can still attack, move and use the special abilites, while also integrating fairly well the known elements and terms and items and units from the original series into a Tactics turn based affair., without assaulting the player with dozens of stats and icon that might not be as self-explanatory as believed.
Though oddly i would have available always from the option menu a tutorial section where to revise basics and have a “what does these stats mean”, since even later Disgaea games (which have tailored themselves to a niche, i mean, just scrolling through the statistics for a single unit can make an unexperienced player feel overwhelmed by the icons and them using all classic RPG stats, elements, and a lot more) have started not sectioning away these info to a NPC.
Then again, the game wants you to spend less on browsing through pages of stats and weaknesses, which is also quite understandable, and fitting to the Metal Slug franchise as it can in a SRPG form, which actually leads to the design offering some oddities, in an attempt to keep some of the fast pace from the original games into a format that is based around and about making informed decisions by pondering a lot of time on the options available.
This becomes noticeable since a couple of the main mechanics actually incentivize an aggressive style of play, as you have and generate more “dodge points” the more you move from when you started the turn, plus certain terrain elements like walls, sandbags and so on offer some “cover points”, so far the only thing i’ve expected to find i didn’t is any type of “counter”, but maybe some units have it as an ability later.
A cover system akin to X-Com, fine, but then the cover system works by adding defense points on top of the ones granted by the “dodge points”, regardless of the direction of the attacks, so yeah, oddly the good old side or back stab attacks dealing more damage affair isn’t a thing here. Which i guess is also to compensate for the lack (as far i was able to play) of any proper or common ways of healing units, and the units themselves having very little HP overall.
There’s also the terrain influencing range hence if an enemy or ally can even attack or be attacked from a certain elevation, if in range other ally units can be triggered to start a synchro attack following yours (an ability which every unit always has from the beginning, nice), which also inevitably brings some odd choices to the forefront, as all the player controllable units available in the demo are mostly dependant on ranged weaponry, while enemies can have weapons that function as both melee and ranged, see for example the scimitar Abdul Abbas infantry soldiers.
regardless, there’s no standard way of attacking that isn’t basically having the target in a straight line, which makes kinda difficult to make the Synchro attacks work as intended,the game would like you to use/exploit them as a foundational tool, but (aside from Eri having the only weapon able to do splash damage) attacking enemies always requires a straight line of fire, hence exposing the attacking unit to extra peril, when you’re also encouraged to keep them in cover to keep them safe due to high difficulty and low HP (plus – again – no commonly available healing items), there doesn’t seem to be some kind of middle ground, so the game inadvertly punishes you for trying to use the Synchro attacks. Which i doubt was the intention.
Cover is made even more important of a factor due to the game emphasis on destructable terrain elements, with enemies hiding and launching grenades beyond walls and such, which can sustain some damage before being destroyed, you can interact via switches to activate some machinery to help you deal with the enemies, and becomes essential ensuring cover as (alongside the aforementioned lack of widespread healing items or skills) there are also survival missions where you “simply” have to survive a set number of turns while punted every turn by reinforcements and bombardments that home in your character regardless.
There are also abilities to remedy that like decoys, and buffs to elusion, but even in this tutorial/introductory part of the game meant to establish these systems, even at the medium difficulty, the game isn’t afraid to play “nasty fasty” and honestly kinda over do it, as much as i appreciate some challenge.
On the flipside, the game is swift in punishing any half-assery pretty quickly, so you’ll need to start using your brain immediatly to get results, but it also gives you the option to use a number of “reinforcement points” in order to revive the units These points being very few balances things out, but i’m surprised the option for reviving units is even in a turn based strategy rpg at all. I guess it’s a compromise to not turn away the less dedicated Metal Slug fans that haven’t spent hundred of hours in levelling inside a randomly generated dungeon inside of a pair of mittens, and to compensate for the steep difficulty right out of the gate.
I’m also wary of there being “consumables”, but they’re not available in the demo (as the demo itself states when digging through weapon mods, frames and various items and abilities in the barracks room, which is a nostalgiagasm for Metal Slug fans), so i’ll ignore the looming inbalance possibilities those might have since they don’t factor in… for the demo experience, anyway.
On the other hand, i’m not so sure about the choice of randomizing 3 abilities upon (and a weapon mod) which to pick 1 for when you level up a character rank, it’s roguelite-ish so i guess it has to be, just “to be”, because modern gaming obsessions, but i guess it helps with the variety/surprise factor, so whatever.
In terms of progression, you start in a point in the region map, then you have branching mission of various difficulties, mission types and rewards, with the game requiring you beat at least the indicated number of these missions to access the boss stage of that region, and the mission often having some specific requirements to achieve, with extra objective that often are telling you’ll need to come back with a fuller and better equpped arsenal and stats, alongside exp, and a specific way about it, which is fine since they’re just that, extra objectives.
Speaking of which, the demo lets you use Marco, Fio and Eri (plus Tarma if you beat the first boss, as i stated before i wasn’t able to finish the demo, and i never faced the boss at the end of the region included in the demo), and every unit comes with a couple of weapons, some of which have reasonable ammo limits, but you quickly get the hang of what typical role/class they function as/in stead of.
The game opts for the expected isometric view, and i gotta say the pixel art rendition of classic metal slug graphics and assets it’s good. Just “good”, i feel, because this pixel art artstyle (in this case going for a SNES-era and more above replica of the pixel art) is kinda overdone, to be blunt.
I would have preferred – maybe – them trying to replicate the old NAZCA NEO GEO style a bit more, but i’m being nitpicky, at the very least the art style definitely shows the team putting effort in it instead of barely modyfing or recycling the old sprites (which the spin-off mobile titles have already done plenty), but i’d just wish they went for a more unique style, as it opts for a fairly typical “anime” bent in terms of in-game dialogue portraits, which mostly happen in the hub room.
Sure as hell beats that weird yet shiny bootleg feel of Code J/Awakening (or the Metal Slug gang appearing in collab events for gacha/free to play games), where everyone looks way too clean and safe and boring “appealing”, i’ll let you decide HOW much is this actually better than that,
For nostalgia though the various cries/shouts are preserved… kinda, they’re not actually recycled, they have done new recordings of “MISSION COMPLETE!”, “MISSION START”, and so on, in the style of the old games, just with crispier audio quality and whatnot.
I entered with high hopes, because the game did look fantastic… but hands on, after the first half-hour of good premises, it’s hard not to notice the many, weird, often bizzarre design choices (like attacking from the back or sides not mattering since you acquire defense points from both moving and using the odd cover system), some made in order to retain the fast pace in spite of the change from run-n-gun to turn based SRPG, which is commendable, but “original” doesn’t mean “good”, especially when couple with some restrictive approach to attacking with ranged weapons in 2D isometric styled maps that are also not small, at all.
There are some odd,weird design choices made here, plus some ideas seems at odd with themselves, and even when they aren’t the implementation feels off or frustrating due to difficulty cranked up to hard even from the get go, which also runs counter to the choices made to ease in players that have played little to none SRPGs (and of course them making the standard difficulty setting not really that “medium”). It feels like it’s trying to hard to please everyone, with the compromises being more befuddling than reasonable.
I want this to turn out great, but i’m not surprised it got delayed, and even when i doubt much will or could change between the release meant somewhere late this year… i would recommend the developers delay it again to rebalance it and make the combat feels less restrictive and limited, there’s a lot of effort put in it, clearly, and it can be great, its close, it does some important stuff quite right, i will admit, but also fumbles in strange ways, and honestly would need some serious reworking of the basics systems.
It’s kinda rough, it has potential but it just needs polish and more time to work out the kinks; as usual time will tell.
Wise Cafe (International) 