Hard to dislike what is already such a singularly perfect rail shooter. Sadly, where this remaster of sorts fails its original is just about every facet (save for thee untouched OST) of what made thee 1995 classic so inspired.

Graphically an immediate downgrade. Nothing packs a punch. Accidental abstractions called "enemies" thanks to chunked pixelated models are no longer left to thee imagination of an already imaginative game. Sky soaring blurs are now corporeal; less fascinating. Spires of missiles are missing those high impacts crunches & rattling bolts sound like pea shooters.

Less was inarguably more, but that much you already knew.

You die an absurd amount in these games, let alone any run n gun, & you will die often. It is not a matter of how - you will be shot, blown up, cut up to bits, made into ground beef, turned into a mummy then dissolved, plummet to your death - it is a matter of when. Threading a needle of stray fire will only happen sometimes & what a glorious sometimes it is.

All said, you pay no mind to it. Thee deaths are inconsequential, for thee most part. What deaths ultimately represent in Metal Slug games is thee harrowing loss of yr favorite weapon type. Even parting ways with a deadly friend you knew for so little hardly hurts - you will see it again in a matter of time. It is all forgiven for just how intricate thee sprite work is, how animated each frame is, how detailed thee screen can get, how inspired these games are. Every board is a new surprise, every enemy type a new obstacle course to jump over.

Alas, this game flattens so much of those loving details. Gone are any shocks! Surprises! Twists! There isn't even an inkling of a stupidly goofy narrative or unique moments. Ah, moments. Too much is reused: sprites, ideas, challenges. MS4's idea of difficulty can be boiled & simmered to more enemies, a static stand off of incoming gunfire heading straight for you.

In all of its chaos of flashing bullets & warm flames, speeding missiles & gooey particles, I am bored.

A (neon) genesis for rail gunning. Art haus shooter pressurized diamond. Humanity alone is incapable of striving towards such innovation, ribbon & bowed; a true mechanical dream. Alternative Focault essay title.

Utilizes every iota of its arsenal at least once during any & all angle or angel. To peer at a target down thee barrel is to be on its opposite end all thee same. Never comfortable in a clean board, always pushing you to fill every inch of thee screen with unbridled chaos & in chaos, is warmth; is achievement.

Crowning royale of what 3D can be: not a mirror to our own world, but an ever-shifting perspective.

By all accounts should not work as well as it does. Arguably creatively bankrupt given its lead designer is out of thee picture. Not a single original song that cannot be found in thee previous two installments are in here. There is one level, essentially.

Somehow, perhaps through brute force or a magical whim, it's a masterpiece of contextual compounding. Every Katamari game compounds. They all start thee same way, after all: microscopic. What is to be collected, rolled up into one wad, varies, but thee scale & scope also begins at ground level, only to eventually wage war with every building on earth.

What this game does so drastically different, intentionally or not, is leans its entire mission statement onto this concept. Practically every stage is thee exact same (time of day fluctuates): always starting small, increasing its scope level by level until you become thee all-consuming ball of joy. This repetition is a constant reminder of humble beginnings, a true Sisyphean feat, an accidental greatest hits.

Pitch a tent in it, I'm camped! There is a genius somewhere in here, likely taking form of innate complicity in being a voyeur to horrors for thee sake of capturing them in image(s). That in & of itself is a gut churner. Sadly, there are far too few opportunities to capitalize on such a theme. Limited interactivity is thee name of that game, baby, I would never ask for more control here. I would ask for more eroticisms, more moments for your eyes to be passive gashes. After all, its humor is intentional, the deathly sparse set designs are a complimentary nausea, but every facet of this game ends under-realized, even its finest strengths.

Much is to be said about not just encouraging, but forcing players through a near-identical second run in order to conclude its story. Critiques for this are completely valid, if not a little misled. This is not thee first game in its genre to pull this stunt, albeit not as well executed as others. But where its repeat run lacks in content, it makes up for it by recontextualizing tone. Not thee tone of its story, nor its horror, but in your tone. You know this house, you know these doors, you know (most of) these weapons. Your first run ends in tragedy, but you remember these halls, these puzzles, these answers, & maybe you can fix it. A silver coin might be silver all around, but each side yields a different answer; a potentially different fate.

Aesthetically perfect, mechanically stilted as good horror ought to be. A one-button heal-all can't exactly be excused, negating urgency of life. However, I urge you not to use it, if possible.

Fears not of its own secrets. No alternative playstyle or hidden level or walkthrough to reveal a sleight of hand. Quite thee opposite. Here, it's transparent of its own shocks & spooks & scares & unnerves. In fact, it goes so far as to proudly chisel a plastic plaque keeping numerical track of its own twists, encouraging players to see them all.

It's thee inverse of what I hold so dearly: mystery, unexplained. To have such confidence in these sometimes subtle, sometimes outlandish anomalies that thee developer is willing to forgo your curiosity in order to enjoy thee scares present is something I cannot condemn in thee slightest.

Rocking out is always possible even without any instruments at hand. You just gotta believe! or: Makeshift guitars through & through stir thee imagination. It's all in thee mind!

There is no denying thee simplicity of its charm. It's almost intoxicating how immediately easy it is to become 2D, grossly colorful popping reds & yellows, cool cool cool! You fly & spin, you jam & lam. Granted, to songs that aren't quite as infectious as its brotherly series, but with an equally endearing cast. Designs that strike as alien yet can somehow be drawn from memory after a single playthrough. Progression of character is stunted immediately after a familiar tutorial, which is soured with lateral learning. "It's all in the mind!" repeats in thee mind of Lammy to overcome fears, but flying, maternity, & putting out a ferocious building fire hardly feels in tune with what is deemed necessary in becoming a rockstar, opposite to what PaRappa aimed to achieve by thee end of his life-in-a-day journey.

Possibly oversimplifying each missions intent here, or maybe it's all in my mind.

Falters towards thee end, limping along losing a bit of its mystique by leaning too heavily on its own narrative rather than allowing its literal bone-chilling setting to do most of thee heavy lifting. Which, thankfully, that atmosphere does for a well majority of its runtime. Are you lost? You are lost.

Sharp corners, a seemingly endless sheet of a white void; trees that look the same; sled dogs that might very well turn on you without a second thought but never do; a friend you're unsure is a friend. Who are you? Are you you?

Of course you are, but you are lost.