Metal Slug Tactics PS5 Review
Summary:
4
Sluggin' It
What happens if you take some of the best bits of Into the Breach and drop them into a nearly 30-year-old run-and-gun franchise? That’s the question Metal Slug Tactics is trying to answer, and in some ways, the experiment has paid off. It’s an undeniably charming homage to one of the best strategy games in recent memory, however, some confusing elements and a few frustrating issues hold it back from reaching the same dizzying heights of success.
I have incredibly fond memories of Metal Slug from my childhood. The fast-paced missions, bombs littering the screen, and over-the-top boss fights always appealed to teenage me, and I’ve found myself revisiting many of the earlier Metal Slug titles over and over throughout my adult years. But despite its unquestionable popularity, the franchise never really made it to the forefront of the mainstream, always sitting back as that weird, slapstick shooter that probably should have been more popular than it was. Still, it’s always had its followers, and you can’t fault the franchise for holding out for almost three decades. But despite its stalwart nature, Metal Slug Tactics, surprisingly, marks the first time a Metal Slug title has properly stepped into strategy.
And what a way to do it. This could have easily been your typical turn-based affair, instead, Tactics is a surprisingly competent take on Into the Breach’s chess-like gameplay. If you’re unfamiliar with Subset Games’ 2008 title, Metal Slug Tactics does a good job of nailing down the basic formula. It’s a wonderful marriage of hard-as-nails turn-based tactics with roguelike elements across missions and challenges full to the brim with homages to Metal Slug’s past.
Missions are split across four worlds, with objectives ranging from taking out specific enemies to surviving a certain number of turns – or even escorting characters. Each mission also comes with bonus objectives that unlock extra perks upon completion. Once you’ve completed a handful of missions in each world, the rest become locked and you’re forced to face a boss level instead. This leads you to plenty of tough choices – do you go for the easier missions to make sure you push through to the end or go for harder objectives to secure better loot for the upcoming big battles?
You’re only allowed three troops per run, but thankfully, each feels unique enough that I always felt like my choice of soldiers was never limited. As well as a basic weapon (usually a short-range gun or a melee weapon), each character comes with a more powerful weapon as standard, with the latter limited in use due to an ammo count. Characters can also deploy ever-expanding tactical abilities, like bonus moves and attacks or buffs for their allies. Abilities require a resource called ‘adrenaline’, earned through typical gameplay, whereas moving units further afield gift characters with ‘dodge’. I never found myself short on ‘adrenaline’ and found it builds up naturally quite easily. ‘Dodge’ on the other hand is harder to come by, but it’s a clever way of rewarding risky moves, allowing you to reduce the effects of incoming attacks.
And that’s because movement plays a big factor in Metal Slug Tactics. Generally, each of your units only has one action per turn (including special abilities), so maximising your turn as best as possible is paramount. This is where syncing up attacks comes in. If you manage to get each of your units in the correct position, you can earn bonus attacks from nearby troops, who jump in to deal bonus damage, as long as they’re in range. Sync attacks are key to victory throughout Metal Slug Tactics. One action per turn is often nowhere near enough to achieve victory, and I often relied on perfectly performed syncs to achieve victory.
Sometimes, though, syncing up isn’t enough, and that’s because Metal Slug Tactics can be unbelievably difficult. One key difference between Tactics and Into the Breach is the ability to see enemy attacks, with your moves played blind to what the enemy intends to do. While this is more in line with traditional strategy titles, when you’re heavily limited on both units and abilities per turn, it does make it difficult to keep everyone alive – and sometimes, even harder to achieve your objective. One particular mission requires you to keep a group of miners safe from a group of deadly mummies, which in itself isn’t a difficult ask, however, I lost this mission several times as I didn’t have enough resources to manage the whole map at once.
It’s even more difficult when enemies constantly seem to spawn adjacent to your characters, completely ruining carefully laid plans, which can be hard enough to formulate in Metal Slug Tactics. In fact, despite several successful runs on the game’s entry-level difficulty, success further afield has still managed to evade me. I also found most of my commando’s basic attacks relatively weak, leaving me to resort to dipping into my powerful weapons ammo reserves more often than not.
Luckily, this wouldn’t be a Metal Slug game without a few tanks here and there, and Tactics isn’t short on those. These usually appear as special abilities you can call upon when in danger, but occasionally, you’ll find them planted around maps too. They pack an absolute punch – and although short on fuel – utilising a Metal Slug here and there can easily tip the tide in your favour.
Further helping ease the pain of Tactics’ steep difficulty curve is the game’s roguelike elements. Completing missions gifts you currency which can be used to unlock upgrades and new weapon loadouts, but I did find upgrading quite confusing, and I often struggled to work out what some of the upgrades did. Even when you’ve unlocked an upgrade, you still need to buy these during runs, and I didn’t feel like the amount of currency gained through play was always enough to purchase meaningful upgrades.
But the more I played, the more I got used to some of Tactics’ nuances. Some of the confusing elements I could easily overlook, and the ones I struggled with started to make sense the more I played, but I did unfortunately find a handful of technical issues throughout my time with Tactics. I had one mission’s objectives change after I chose it, and at one point during the Egyptian-themed world, one of my characters turned into a mummy but still retained their normal attacks (instead of swapping to mummy-themed abilities). During another mission, my characters stopped reacting to my controller for a good few seconds. None of the bugs I came across were too frustrating, and I’m sure these issues will be ironed out eventually, but I still had to mess around to fix a couple of issues now and again.
Final Thoughts
Still, just like the Metal Slug franchise in general, Tactics is ultimately stacked with a silly joy that’s hard to deny. Getting to see fan favourites together again will give long-term fans plenty of reason to pick this up, and fans of difficult tactical titles will have enough to get their teeth stuck into. Some things may work better than others, but there’s always room for a good strategy game, and Metal Slug Tactics is easily up there with the best in recent memory.
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