As soon as once more, the world is on the cusp of being taken over by the evil Basic Donald Morden and his Insurgent Military. Solely the Peregrine Falcon Squad, led by the heroic Marco Rossi, stand in the way in which of the Rebels establishing their New World Order. This could possibly be the plot of nearly any entry within the Metallic Slug sequence, which is at its greatest if you don’t take it too critically. Metallic Slug Assault Reloaded, a remake of a microtransaction-laden gacha tower-defence cellular sport, does its greatest to uphold the goofy tone of the sequence whereas stripping out the worst bits of the 2016 model.
Not less than, it does its greatest to take the irritating bits out. The Change model doesn’t have any microtransactions, fortunately – however it does nonetheless very a lot really feel like a gacha sport that expects you to log in each day and grind your option to victory. The result’s an uneven however nonetheless pleasurable sport that’s constrained by its origins.
Like a lot of the sequence that spawned it, the story of Metallic Slug Assault Reloaded is paper-thin at the perfect of occasions. Marco Rossi and the Peregrine Falcon Squad lead the cost to cease the Insurgent Military from taking on the world. It’s unclear if that is meant to be carried out by means of skilled technique or brute energy for the reason that gameplay that follows every brief cutscene is an train in sending wave after wave of items on the enemy till you handle to destroy their base. It’s the type of easy, senseless enjoyable that works effectively as a cellular sport however feels lacklustre when ported to a console. Even the addition of a ‘sequel’ story, cleverly titled One other Story, doesn’t change the truth that there actually isn’t sufficient plot to see you thru the dozen or so hours it’d take to finish.
Every fight sees you buying items with AP (Motion Factors) and sending them throughout the battlefield, the place they may destroy the enemy base or die making an attempt. Extra highly effective items value extra AP, however you may improve your base to will let you regenerate AP extra rapidly, permitting you to buy stronger items sooner. That fairly fundamental circulation of gameplay is punctuated if you activate a unit or your base’s particular transfer, however you’ll spend way more of your time buying items to ship on a sluggish loss of life march to the suitable facet of the world.
What little technique comes into the sport is basically through which unit you select to take into every stage. Choosing a unit that may assault flying enemies isn’t normally obligatory till the sport throws a stage at you that options flying enemies nearly solely. Every unit will be levelled up, developed to a extra highly effective type, and given tools to spice up their stats. That is ostensibly carried out within the identify of customising your deck to fit your play model however actually it’s a holdover from Metallic Slug Assault Reloaded’s origins as a gacha sport.
Every time you full a mission, you’ll earn Medals and Tickets. Tickets are used to improve your items or base stats, providing you with an edge within the subsequent mission. Medals gas the sport’s gacha mechanics and will let you pull for a handful of items, permitting you to unlock one of many sport’s over 300 characters from throughout the Metallic Slug sequence to battle in battles for you. Metallic Slug Assault Reloaded is considerably much less predatory than most cellular gacha video games are typically, however that additionally highlights how superficial and plain unfair the system will be.
This technique is the explanation behind one of many greatest points with Metallic Slug Assault Reloaded – the brutal and sometimes unfair issue spikes that seem all through the marketing campaign. Sometimes, you’ll come throughout a stage that’s all of the sudden far tougher than the earlier one. No quantity of technique in the way you deploy your items will assist. Typically, it’s a case of swapping out items in your deck with completely different ones extra suited to the enemy at hand. Nevertheless, it may well imply making an attempt to drag for a greater, extra highly effective unit, a prolonged and sometimes irritating course of that was initially meant to encourage gamers to pony up cash to make sure a Uncommon or higher unit. With out the microtransactions, although, it feels unnecessarily harsh to the purpose the place it very almost breaks the sport.
Followers of the Metallic Slug sequence will take pleasure in seeing a number of the extra goofy armies and items represented within the sport. There are the standard Rebels and Common Military characters, however you’ll rapidly run into aliens from Mars, mummy canine, and samurai mechs alongside the way in which. It considerably breaks the sport’s already flimsy plot to place collectively a military consisting of all these factions, however you’ll barely discover as you summon an enormous slug to engulf your enemies. The one draw back is that the roster is a mere fraction of the unique sport’s a whole lot of items.
If the story mode isn’t sufficient for you, there’s the choice of taking part in towards native or on-line gamers utilizing your chosen deck, although be warned – similar to another gacha sport, there can be individuals on the market who will grind for hours and can merely wipe the ground with you and your staff. That’s simply the character of the sport, however, thankfully, the net battles will be prevented altogether in case you desire to play extra casually.
When Metallic Slug Assault’s servers shut down in 2023, followers in all probability thought their favorite tower defence gacha sport was gone perpetually. Sadly, they had been half-right. Because it stands, we’re not satisfied the hours of grinding wanted to advance the plot are actually value it.
Conclusion
Metallic Slug Assault Reloaded removes a number of the worst bits of the unique cellular sport’s mechanics, however the scaled-back roster and brutal issue spikes spotlight the extreme grinding wanted to make these sorts of video games worthwhile and can in all probability fail to fulfill any however probably the most hardcore followers of the unique. For higher or worse, this feels precisely like a cellular sport that has been ported to the Change, warts and all.