Metal Slug Tactics is not what I expected. Luckily, that’s not a bad thing. Instead of Final Fantasy Tactics, It is Into the breach with some clever twists that give it some of the run-and-gun roots of the classic arcade series. I’ve had a lot of fun with it so far, even if it does come with a few obvious annoyances.
First the good news: a few hours with Metal Slug Tactics (developed by Leikir Studio and published by Dotemu) convinced me that it was a decent strategy RPG, combining the rogue-like structure and emphasis on puzzle combat with some new character mechanics that help spice things up a bit. Instead of a linear campaign, you select a group of fighters, select a region, and then progress through random map encounters until you get to a boss fight.
On the battlefield, fighters like Eri, Fio, and Marco each have unique equipment and abilities that can be upgraded and customized over the course of a run. Unlike traditional grid-based strategy games, most attacks occur along a straight line from the character’s current position, so positioning, terrain and elevation are crucial factors in whether a battle goes your way or not.
I remember metal snailIn the original 2D side-scrolling shooter incarnations, your characters gain a bonus called “adrenaline” as they move around the battlefield. It grants additional benefits and buffs and rewards versatile and aggressive play rather than just sitting back and moping around. Synergy abilities allow nearby allies to engage in follow-up attacks to take advantage.
The result is a battle that requires you to think quickly and adapt to the situation at hand, rather than thinking of a strategy in advance and just worrying about executing it. Combined with chic retro pixel art and a solid soundtrack is the overall picture Metal Slug Tactics The gameplay experience feels tight, rewarding and well balanced between carefully crafting solutions to the combat puzzles at hand and keeping the action moving with quick missions and easy objectives.
Okay, now the bad news. While they’re done Metal Slug Tactics Above all, it does justice to the fans’ great trailers Been staring at it for yearsthere are some real flaws. I played on PlayStation 5 (it’s also on Game Pass), where I experienced both a frustrating amount of stuttering in performance and, even worse, some really poorly optimized UI and font sizes in quality. Life page.
These days, most games seem to be designed with a PC monitor a few feet away from your face when it comes to screen layout and the size of features like action menus and text boxes. But even if you start from this baseline, Metal Slug Tactics It was particularly difficult to read and navigate from a living room, even when I moved closer than three feet to my television. While browsing Steam and various subreddits, I noticed that complaints specifically about font sizes and readability for the Switch and PC versions are also popping up.
Both the shaky performance and abysmal UI (I really wish the UI and fonts weren’t so hard to decipher on console) can probably be fixed with post-release patches, but the lack of polish and strained eyes are hard to fix ignore. The rest Metal Slug Tactics is an addictive, if not very deep, roguelike-style retro strategy game that is worth checking out for fans metal snail and games like Into the breach equally – especially if the team behind the game can solve the other problems.
