Retro Yearly List #22 [1996: Metal Slug]

Heavy Machine Gun!

I still remember being amazed by MS graphics on arcades inside a local mall, didn't know that such great sprite animation was possible. Unfortunately did not have the chance to play it that much on those times, so everything here was kind of new to me.

Metal Slug offers a standard run-and-gun with a solid experience from beginning to end, it is a small one, but pretty satisfying.
Gameplay feels smooth and I almost had nothing to complain about, the only annoying point for me was there is a kind of delay while turning around to the other side, having to hold the button a bit too much for it to happen, but you can get used to it. All the weapons feel great to use here, I loved the fire and shotgun ones, to be more specific.

The overall art design is awesome, with everything here fitting the war theme well, the enemies are one of most diverse and creative I've seen in games of the genre, stages are beautiful and alive, you can interact with them and destroy almost everything from the environment, worth mentioning the cars being crushed by the Metal Slug tank, piece of art. The bosses are great, but they could be more like the sub-boss guy in the snow stage, other than giant war vehicles, you know?

Graphics are a masterpiece, incredible and detailed animation on every corner, sometimes I just caught myself admiring the background environment falling apart into the water, simply amazing.
Music is well made and fits the stages, although none of them really caught my attention during gameplay.
For the lore we have that nice excuse for a good run-a-gun, but it has some depth, and would evolve throughout the series.