Metal Slug Tactics review: Run and gun

I love Metal Slug, but when Dotemu and Leikir Studios announced they were turning SNK’s cult classic run-and-gun sidescroller into a turn-based tactics game, I had two responses. They were, in order: “That’s cool” and “How?” Metal Slug is fast-paced and based around movement. Tactics games are generally, well… the opposite of that. How do you reconcile the two? If you’re Dotemu, the answer is apparently “pretty easily.” Metal Slug Tactics is a pretty grand fusion of tactical gameplay and the stuff that makes Metal Slug great. And the how? Well, by focusing on run and gun gameplay, of course.

Let’s start at the beginning: Metal Slug Tactics is, like seemingly every indie video game released in the modern era, a rogue-like. After you put together a team of three characters from the Metal Slug series (you start with Marco, Fio, and Eri, but you’ll unlock more characters as you play), choose from one of their various loadouts (again, you start with one, and go from there), and get dumped onto a world map, which you liberate region by region until you either finish a run or die. Then you choose a new team and do it all over again, unlocking new characters, loadouts, and permanent upgrades in the process. 

I won’t lie to you, dedicated reader of Shacknews; I’m extremely burned out on rogue-likes, but like the best strategy rogue-likes (think Faster Than Light or Into the Breach, the latter of which Metal Slug Tactics is clearly inspired by), Metal Slug Tactics works because its moment-to-moment gameplay is exceptionally satisfying and because it never overstays its welcome; you can finish a run in a couple hours, unlock some new stuff to play with, and get right back to it. 

She’s a beauty…

The story here isn’t particularly complex: the conniving General Donald Morden is back, and he’s here to get revenge on the world with the army he’s built while in hiding. The only thing standing in his way is the Peregrine Falcon Squad, which is where you come in. Metal Slug Tactics isn’t going to blow anyone away with its story, but the characters are likable and they’re often trading fun quips between missions. There’s just enough to make you care about Metal Slug Tactics, but not too much that you can’t laugh at how silly everything is, which is the match you want in a game like this.

Before I get into how Metal Slug Tactics plays, I have to take a second and shower praise on the visual and audio design, because this game looks and sounds amazing. Dotemu had a lot to live up to here: SNK has a long history of producing absolutely stunning games (see: any of the past Metal Slug games, or The King of Fighters XIII, which may be the most beautiful fighting game ever made) with incredible soundtracks. I’m happy to say, though, that Dotemu has absolutely nailed it. Metal Slug Tactics features absolutely stunning, beautifully expressive pixel art and incredible character illustrations that nail the look and feel of Metal Slug while being easy to read and a joy to look at. I loved unlocking new abilities and entering new areas where my characters just got to vibe for a second so I could spend time admiring their animations. The soundtrack is also exceptional, whether you’re up against a tough boss fight, fighting to survive against a horde of soldiers with unlimited reinforcements, or just selecting a mission from the world map. I’d listen to Metal Slug Tactic’s soundtrack outside of the game, which is saying something.

And she’s got it where it counts

All that stuff is great. Truly. But what has me so high on Metal Slug Tactics is the moment-to-moment action. Tactics takes the whole “run and gun” thing seriously, see. It’s grid-based, that’s standard. But what makes it special is how it incorporates Metal Slug’s sense of movement. You don’t want to stand still in Metal Slug Tactics; the farther you move, the more Dodge you build, which makes it harder for enemies to hit you. If they do, you’ll take less damage. Combine that with Cover, and you can go entire turns without taking damage. Much of the time, strategy games are about making extremely precise, controlled movements, and it’s better to advance slowly rather than take unnecessary hits. In Tactics, your goal is to move as much as you can while positioning yourself well, and you’re actively punished for standing still. It’s a nice change of pace, and forces you to think about encounters in a new way.

The other reason you’ll want to move around a lot is that it builds Adrenaline, which is the resource you spend to perform special actions. You can move around and fire either your primary or secondary weapon without it, but you need to be amped up for the good stuff.  Marco, for instance, has Marco Salvo, which allows another character to fire twice the next time they shoot a weapon. Fio can use a drone to move other characters around the map. Eri can toss multiple grenades, which can already hit multiple enemies and go over and around obstacles, even farther and for more damage. 

And that’s just their basic stuff. As you clear missions and level up, you’ll get even better stuff. Fio can whip out a shotgun for a move called Overheat and, if she kills someone with it, move and attack again; Marco can Ricochet bullets through and around enemies; and Eri can summon a decoy that explodes when it's killed. And then there are passive abilities that passively build Adrenaline, heal you if you use an ability that assists another member of your squad, or reduce the Adrenaline cost of your special actions. And, of course, there are weapon upgrades to acquire, secondary weapon ammo to manage, optional rewards to seek out during missions (killing so many enemies in so many turns, for example, or only taking so much damage), your limited revives, and so much more. There’s a lot to Metal Slug Tactics, which keeps missions feeling fresh while rewarding you for mastering its systems.

Get busy Syncing, or get busy dying

Two things make it truly special, though: Sync, and the missions themselves. We’ll take them one at a time. Sync is Metal Slug Tactics’ coolest and most unique feature. It works like this: if two characters are in range of an enemy and one attacks, the second will Sync with them and attack that enemy with their primary weapon, whatever that is. This doesn’t cost an action point (what each character spends to attack or use a special action); it just happens, and it can happen (with a couple exceptions, usually revolving around bosses) as many times as you can trigger it in a turn, meaning you can wipe out several enemies in a single turn if you position yourself well and build enough Adrenaline. I can’t tell you how many times early on I felt like I was in an unwinnable situation only to realize that if I position my characters just so, I could have Fio’s Overheat trigger Eri’s grenade, wiping out three enemies and allowing Fio to go again and trigger something with Marco. 

Lining up your Syncs feels incredible, and I love using it to tackle complex situations. If I have complaints here, it’s that it can sometimes be hard to get a feel for when things will Sync as you’re moving around. Luckily, you can undo any move with the press of a button provided that character hasn’t attacked yet, so you can take your time setting up. In general, it’s better to move everyone before you shoot. And if you really screw up, you have a limited number of turn resets on each map. Handy.

The other big issue is that this can be a lot to take in, especially early on. Where you can move, how to trigger Syncs, how Dodge and Cover interact with each other, whether you can attack when characters are on a higher level than you, managing vehicle fuel (yes, there are vehicles, and they’re awesome), what upgrades you can buy, how to balance the rewards (additional ammo, money, Reinforcements, and so on) you get from each mission… it’s a lot, and it will probably take you a few runs to really nail it all down, but man, once you do? Tactics feels incredible.

Join the Army; travel to exotic, distant lands; meet exciting, unusual people and kill them

And man, speaking of missions, Tactics nails those, too. The big thing here is variety, both in what you see on the map, and how you’ll clear them. While many strategy games (I’m looking at you, Fire Emblem) have simplified their mission objectives to “kill everyone on the map” to appeal to a broader audience, Metal Slug is unapologetically A Tactics Game for Sickos (complimentary). There’s a ton of different mission types here. Sometimes you gotta kill everything, yeah, but sometimes you only gotta kill specific guys, or just survive, or escape with two members of your squad. Knowing what you have to do is crucial. Yeah, you could fight every single enemy when you just have to kill four of them, but that’s a good way to get killed. Focusing on your mission is a necessity here, and I’m glad that Tactics forces you to play around certain objectives to succeed.

And there’s just so much variety in terms of what’s on the map, whether it’s explosive barrels, vehicles, catapults that launch you across the map, or mummified enemies that will turn your characters into mummies if they hit them. The best example are Tactics' stunning, enormous boss fights, each of whom controls the map in different ways. You’ll have to keep moving while you fight the enormous enemy battleship, lest it blast the floating areas you’re standing on right out from under you, but you’ll also need to damage it. My favorite boss was a giant mechanical snake-worm-thing that would fire an enormous laser that covered most of the map. The only way to avoid it was to hide behind giant metal slabs. And you had to move fast; once it fired that laser, the whole map changed, and I had to get back in range and deal some damage before it fired again. It’s easy to get focused on clearing out the little guys while fighting bosses, but they’re going to keep coming. You’ve got to take ‘em out fast if you wanna survive, and that makes using all your tools, and landing Syncs, crucial to success.

Just one more run, he said, lying to himself

Even if you die, it’s not the end of the world. Any unspent cash you’ve acquired (which can be spent in the downtime between regions of the map to do things like buy upgrades and refill ammo) is converted to credits that you can spend to permanently upgrade your character, buy new loadouts for them between runs, or even unlock new squadmates altogether. You’re always getting something in Metal Slug Tactics, and with most runs taking somewhere between 45 minutes and two hours, it’s easy to convince yourself that you have time for one more run, even when it’s really late and you really shouldn’t. Don’t ask me how I know this. Don’t mistake that for a lack of content, though. If you want to see everything Tactics has, it’ll take you about 30 hours, and that’s assuming you don’t get hooked and aren’t chasing the high of just one more run at two-thirty in the morning.

I really like Metal Slug Tactics, even though I sometimes wish it wasn’t a rogue-like. Maybe that’s just rogue-like fatigue talking, and maybe that’s unfair. It has the traditional rogue-like issues. Sometimes you’re just going to have bad runs because you’re not getting the upgrades you want, and you’ll get dropped in a mission you are not ready for, and that’s all she wrote. It’s challenging, and the first couple runs can be overwhelming as you learn all of its systems. But man, when it hits, it hits. Nailing the perfect Sync attack to snatch victory from the jaws of certain doom and building a kickass, personalized-for-your-playstyle version of a character you love is a gas, and the production values on display here are exceptional. 

I’ve lost a lot of time to Metal Slug Tactics during this review period, and I’ll lose countless more as the year goes on. It’s a game for sickos, and I love it for that. But more importantly, it nails the run-and-gun feel of Metal Slug, and somehow transforms that into a tactics game, and that’s a hell of an accomplishment. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got an itch, and the only salve is another run.

A PC copy of Metal Slug Tactics was provided by the publisher for this review. Metal Slug Tactics releases on PC via Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S on November 5th, 2024.

Will Borger

Contributing Editor

Will Borger is a Pushcart Prize-nominated fiction writer and essayist who has been covering games since 2013. His fiction and essays have appeared in YourTango, Veteran Life, Marathon Literary Review, Purple Wall Stories, and Abergavenny Small Press. His games writing has also appeared at IGN, TechRadar, Into the Spine, Lifebar, PCGamesN, The Loadout, and elsewhere. He lives in New York with his wife and dreams of owning a dog. You can find him on X @bywillborger.