I love the idea of Metal Slug Attack Reloaded. Not the game itself, but the concept of bringing these sort of gotcha games the live on mobile to the PC without the micro-transactions when they sunset them when revenue begins to stall out. It’s a win/win for everyone involved as these games based on huge series get new life and publishers can still make more money when the cost of keeping the servers online on mobile are no longer profitable with those pesky micro-transactions.
But while I love the idea the execution can be pretty hit-or-miss considering these sorts of games were never really designed as traditional games and instead designed to take your money for a chance to get that special drop you want, or that exclusive character that can slaughter everything in game. It really all depends on it the developers work to make the game engaging, something that is easier said than done. You really have to ask yourself one question: is the game still fun when you remove the pay-to-win aspect of the gameplay?
Metal Slug Attack Reloaded is a tower defense gacha game that is essentially a love letter to the franchise, much like most of these types of mobile games are. They survive off the fans who have that itch to spend/grind in the hopes of getting that special character that they loved as a kid. In that regard, Metal Slug Attack Reloaded succeeds thanks to its nice and detailed 2D pixel art graphics that look like they were ripped right out of the NEO GEO.
In terms of fan service the game features over 300 characters to collect and upgrade from five separate factions. A lot of those characters are unique to this game and like many titles, those new playable characters have the waifu thing going on in order to make them more appealing to hunt for. While this isn’t really my thing, it works here because I’m a huge fan of pixel art and seeing cute anime girls in that style is a lot of fun. But with so many characters there are going to be a lot of fodder characters and many that don’t quite fit into the Metal Slug aesthetic, including those anime ladies.
Metal Slug Attack Reloaded features a story, but considering Metal Slug is an arcade game the story never really mattered. What we get here is fine enough for a mobile game to keep you going, but don’t expect anything resembling a coherent or top-tier story. And while the story might be silly and left untouched, the team did make some alterations to the core game to make it work better without the F2P aspects of the original. The most notable change are the re-balanced units that make it a better overall experience and make lower tier units now not be nearly totally useless.
They have also removed the limitations of sortie points from the original. This means that you can play as much as you want without spending points to try again. If you come across a tough stage you no longer have to fear a replay cost. This allows you to experiment more with your unit structure and find a winning strategy with a team without any risk. As mentioned before they have also removed any sign of micro-transactions, which is great, but some hardcore players of the mobile original have noted that there are characters missing from this release. There are hundreds of characters here, which are more than enough for me, but there is always the chance that the team releases DLC character packs if the game does well.
Gameplay is your basic tower defense in 2D. You select you team and battle against the enemy squad on a single plane. Each character that you select (you get 10 to choose from in each battle) will cost AP points. These points build automatically and so there is some strategy to each fight. If you fill you team with high AP characters then you might have your base destroyed before you even have the money to deploy one. This also goes the other way and you might be able to call a lot of lower-tier characters that will get ripped apart by high class enemies. Walking that fine line between the two if where the game really shines.
Add in the fact that each character has a special attack and that every unit can be upgraded and buffed with items, and you have for a fairly deep experience, especially for fans of the Metal Slug universe. There is also an AP boost during battle that you can spend on which makes your AP rise faster, but knowing when to risk points on this can either help to work against you if done at the wrong time as it can leave you on the back foot. You also have the ability to be as involved as you want to be. You can select when to call characters to the battlefield, when to activate their specials, when to use your team special, and when to buy faster AP growth. But if you want to sit back and experiment more with a specific team you can let the computer make all the battlefield choices.
I was surprised with everything the game has to offer. There are a number of modes, including an online mode that I’m sure will get exploited in no time. The Call To Arms system of getting new characters is a blast to use and the cast is fun, especially for fans. I was playing the game and having a great time and even my girlfriend started watching and began to get invested in the gacha system, especially with the cute anime characters. For just under $10 Metal Slug Attack Reloaded is pretty great, until it isn’t.
Remember all the way back at the beginning of this review where I spoke about execution? Well, that pesky little things pokes its head out to bite the game in the ass. There is a lot of grinding to be had in Metal Gear Attack Reloaded, more-so than in the original because of the removal of micro-transactions. There are ways to game the current system since you can easily go back to early stages and farm points on stages that won’t be a big challenge. This isn’t a deal breaker, especially if you avoid doing this, but one thing really hurts the overall experience that everyone will face if the difficulty wall that you will hit by world 8.
No matter how good you think you might be doing you are going to hit that wall and hit it hard. Instead of working to make a story mode that increases in difficulty at a fair pace, the game instead just throws up a “time to grind” wall when you hit stage 8. The spike is incredibly noticeable and I can see a lot of players walking away from the game. The game essentially ends at this point as it becomes nothing more than grinding levels to beef up your team over and over again in stages that you’ve beaten already. This is also made worse as there is no easy way to auto-level your team. After every few battles you’ll be spending a tedious amount of time in the menus upgrading each individual character.
This isn’t bad early on, but when you have over 300 characters to choose from, you are going to be forced to ignore so many fun characters. As the game progresses you’ll be micromanaging and grinding more and more. It’ll quickly begin to feel like you aren’t playing a video game and instead doing homework. But such is the way with trying to keep a F2P game engaging when you remove the F2P aspect of it. Metal Slug Attack Reloaded, much like other mobile gacha games fails to translate well when its main focus is on nickel-and-dimming the player and not in the gameplay itself.
Still, I had a lot of fun with Metal Slug Attack Reloaded and felt like I got my monies worth ($9.99) by the time I hit that wall of tedium. I just hope that the team continues to make improvements and help the overall progression of the game. And fingers crossed that some sort of event system gets added back into the game which would go a long way to help players come back to the game for more than the grind itself.
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