a good military run-and-gun for sure, with many of the hallmarks of the series (the metal slug vehicle, saving POWs, incredible difficulty, weapon variety). there's little reason to go back and play this one considering how much more ground the later ones tread, and with much more interesting locales and bosses to boot

(just a note: I played this one on the ps2 metal slug anthology. solid collection, with the only downside being load times between the missions)