Yeah, I’ve been drooling over Metal Slug 7 since it was first announced. It now joins Contra 4 and Bangai-O in the shooters-with-mainline-sequel-on-DS club. Make no mistake, this is Metal Slug that you know and love! I’ve played through 4 stages, so I’m sure that’s good enough for a quick preview of this game.
I’ve had this game for a few days now, so why am I still at level 4? You can partly blame it on multitasking, or you can blame it on me sucking. I played through the normal mode, and I died like crazy. There’s a difficulty selection, and I stuck with normal. I haven’t tried out easy or hard, yet. If you’re worried that being on the DS would somehow make the game easier, I’d have to say, look at Contra 4! Seriously, why would anyone think this would be toned down on the DS? C4 proved that developers aren’t making watered down games for the system, and Metal Slug 7 is no different!
Marko’s getting flushed down the toilet.
In typical side scrolling shooter fashion, you run from left to right while killing everything in sight, rescue prisoners, find items, and beat the boss. Along the way, the prisoners you rescue will give you items or weapons. Use your weapons and grenades wisely, or you’ll end up dead. I had fun plowing through hordes of enemies while doing some simple platforming along the way. I say platforming because you’ll jump bullets more than cliffs. Each character retained their own uniqueness carried over from Metal Slug 6. I have to ask, what took them so long to do this? Now, picking a character or sticking to one can make a huge difference depending on your style of play. Ralf and Clark return in this game, so I’m guessing they’ll appear for the future sequels, too.
Everything that made Metal Slug so great is kept in tact for this bite size sequel. This could also be seen as a negative, though, since it really doesn’t offer anything new to the series outside of new Slugs and weapons. They probably wanted to go the safe route for their first DS outing. I tried the combat school, but I’m not sure what I’m suppose to be doing. Seems like there’s a mission objective to fulfill, but I just ran through pretty much the same stage. I didn’t really try to stay alive though, just run in, kill, and get killed. The bottom screen is completely useless. I don’t care, as long as I can slaughter everything in sight.
I have no clue what they’re trying to show with the bottom screen.
Speaking of slaughter, killing someone is especially satisfying in the Japanese version, thanks to the red blood. I just don’t get Japan, they censor No More Heroes, but leave red blood in Metal Slug? Are we going to get sweat in the American version? Oh, and for some reason, coins pop out of enemies very often now. I’m guessing it’s probably there for people to brag about high scores, although I don’t see why they couldn’t just hide more secret useless items like they used to.
I’ll probably put down Metal Slug 7 for now and go play Game Center CX. I can easily go back to it once the English version is released. I pretty pleased with this sequel, but there are a few nagging issues that may or may not be my fault. I’ll have to play more to see.
You know, an Indiana Jones side scroller wouldn’t be a bad idea.
