Metal Slug Tactics has been parked on the horizon for what feels like an eternity. First announced back in 2021, it’s perhaps due to my excitement that a few years have felt like an age. It’s almost here, however, and I’ve had the opportunity to try it out and see if all the suffering was worth it.
If you aren’t familiar, Metal Slug Tactics is a spin-off of the venerable 1996 arcade classic. As the name implies, Leikir has transplanted the run-and-gun gameplay to the grid-like fields of a turn-based strategy game. And while those two genres are vastly different, there is very little in this world that can’t be improved with the presence of Fiolina Germi.
The narrative of Metal Slug Tactics is hardly surprising. Mainstay antagonist, General Morden, has escaped and is… bad. The demo doesn’t really suggest any subtext. You play as the good guys, and the rebels are the bad guys. Blow them up. It’s actually kind of annoying how little the dialogue tries to show personality. Leikir’s maybe afraid of straying too far from the source material, but the result is just empty.
That’s not terribly important, considering you’ll spend most of your time viewing a battlefield grid. However, I have more bad news for (some of) you: It’s a roguelite.
You select your three characters in the garage, and then they speed out to a selected region. You’re then set loose to complete a set number of missions before the boss shows up. If you can defeat the boss, you complete the region.
In between missions, you’re provided with random perks and equipment, which are only available for that run. Likewise, your characters level up, but once the run is complete, they’re back to square one. Permanent progress is made by buying upgrades for the perks you’re given as options.
The framework doesn’t bother me. The luck required to have the best perks show up between missions is the major reservation here, but the roguelite injection at least means that the battles depend more on skill than simply leveling up your characters. Your success is based mostly on how deftly you can cut through missions to get their rewards.
And there is a deceptively high skill ceiling. Characters use their skills by spending adrenaline, and adrenaline is built up by traveling to the extremes of their movement range.
Beyond that, however, unit placement is important to utilize sync attacks. Essentially, if one of your characters attacks while that enemy is in another unit’s sights, the stationary unit will add to the attack. If you’re careful and need to take down a particularly hefty enemy, you can position three characters so they’ll each join in for one big attack.
There’s no requirement to follow the turn order, either. Sometimes, a character will get a bonus move for performing an action, which allows you to reposition them. If you take advantage of this, they can act in two separate sync attacks.
The importance of placement in Metal Slug Tactics means that things keep moving and rarely slow down. There isn’t a lot of importance placed on sync attacks at the beginning, either, so it can make the game feel deceptively simple.
There’s a variety of missions that pop up which range from escort missions to enemy extermination. Each one has a sub-objective which will net you additional bonuses if you can pull them off.
The boss battles are a bit more interesting. The demo only has a single one against Big Shiee, the Yamato-style battleship on treads. I was delighted since it’s also my favorite boss from across the series.
The battle is interesting since your soldiers leap across floating cargo containers. Every couple turns, a section of ground will drop into the water, killing anyone atop them. You have to attack Big Shiee in the middle, but you can’t simply ignore the soldiers who pop up with every new clump of junk. This means you have to keep moving and take your shots on the big ship whenever you have an opening. It’s pretty enjoyable, though there seems to be some effects missing in the demo.
Speaking of which, the visuals are nice but not exactly up to the legendary standards of the original series. It’s pretty difficult to live up to Nazca’s pixel art, but it’s not bad. My biggest issue with the visuals is the menus and HUD, which don’t share the pixelated art of the gameplay. Any high-resolution text next to a pixel art backdrop is going to look awful. They might as well use Comics Sans.
After some hesitation, I eventually began enjoying my time with Metal Slug Tactics. It’s a deceptively simple strategy game, not unlike something such as Chroma Squad. Its link with the Metal Slug series feels largely cosmetic, but Leikir is making the most of it by incorporating familiar bosses and enemies.
I’m not blown away, but I am looking forward to when the full version arrives this Fall. I’d like to see greater enemy variety, most of all. Tanks were mentioned in the demo, but aside from the eponymous Metal Slug, there were none to be seen. Here’s hoping that this small slice of Metal Slug Tactics is just the foundation for something special.
Metal Slug Tactics is releasing on PC and consoles in Fall 2024.
