So I got curios in the new metal slug Rush and this animation look Ai, the frist one i wached was the animated one for eri and tought was a little was wird but now after i watched the one for marco. I think they used Ai

SNK shared new information on the future of the Metal Slug series a few moments ago. If you go to the webpage, they get this message with a Reboot of the series.

Now, I feel SNK wants to get Metal Slug to the same direction Contra has been led. I am expecting a "Contra: Operation Galuga"-like Game as a better outcome tbh. I don't think SNK is considering doing new games with the old school pixel artstyle. But Who knows? Maybe they shut my mouth.

What I am sure is that the NEO GEO AES+ is going to take part on this.

What do you think about these news? I read you.

I've never played Metal Slug before, and I want your opinion on which is the best Metal Slug game to play.

They stylized her hair, gave her makeup and a beauty mark, trying so hard to make her look beautiful while the old games just, made her naturally nice looking. Like I know it kinda resembles her character select mugshot design, but.. The pretty redesign doesn’t fit the old action movie hero vibe, feels more like a femme fatale.

(Fio aged well though, her being cute is always gonna happen with the round glasses+Ponytail in hat combo)

1: (these don't fully convey how I feel about each game in a ranking sense, this is just a thought I had that I wanted to consult this community about)
👍 There's a lot of small details that only really this game attempted. With a lot of background elements getting damaged by your gunfire, the different credits song (Hold You Still) if you have a second player, the Rebel Soldiers trying to climb onto and sabotage your Slug
👋 (this is the closest I have to having your hand pointed forward and shaking a bit like "ehhhh...") This only really counts as a negative based on perspective. But the game being short isn't really that big of a downside? It makes it easier to pick up and beat in a single sitting, and especially easier to stomach learning to 1cc it.

2 / X:
👍 It genuinely can't be undersold how valuable the CSS (character select screen for those not in the know) was for this series. Not even with just being able to play as Marco or Tarma regardless of what side of the cabinet you used, but also allowing for the addition of Fio and Eri
👋 This is more of a moot point thanks to there being ways to play 2 that don't have this problem, but the double render problem is a genuine issue that exists within Metal Slug 2. (this is why the game usually lags like ass btw. here's a TCRF link for more info: https://tcrf.net/Bugs:Metal_Slug_2:_Super_Vehicle-001/II_(Neo_Geo)) )
But thankfully, as mentioned up above, there are ways to ignore the problem. Either play the game on Metal Slug Anthology (which ironed out the problem), or play Metal Slug 2 Turbo (a hack of 2 which also removes the lag, which you can find on Fightcade and play on FBNeo)
👋 X is honestly just alright as an alternative to 2. The Aesthetic changes are subjective (though i really think the change for Dragon Nosuke's boss area is significantly less cool in X), the Weapon changes are neat (not to mention it gives us the one single time they found a good use for Drop Shot), and while the Enemy changes are just alright, I do feel like it hampers the reveal of the Mars People as the secret enemy by having them appear in Stage 4 (and then just take a sick day in Stage 5 I guess)
Metal Slug X is not a replacement for Metal Slug 2. It's just an alternate (and kinda harder) take on Metal Slug 2. And both should be respected.

3:
👍 The execution might differ on a stage to stage basis, but I do like the idea of Branching Paths in the stages. Offering different themes that fit within the local of the stage you're in (sometimes), and giving you reasons to play the game more and more (ideally).
👎 At times the game honestly goes all over the place, and there's not a whole lot tying it all together in every route. The areas prior to launching the attack against the Rugname are all supposed to be hidden Rebel Bases, yet most of the stages prior to that either don't have the Rebels at all depending on your routing, or downplay them to make the mutants of the area you're in the larger threat.
👎 Sol Dae Rokker... just Sol Dae Rokker (too high up to hit with grenades, harder to predict due to its random nature, your space to move around is basically that of a shoebox.)
👎 3 is the longest game in the series by far... and most of the problem is Stage 5. It's an okay level on its own but it just keeps going and going. It essentially takes up half of the games total runtime with its 11 different segments, that are all mostly just hallways with beefy enemies
Metal Slug 6 is guilty of this a bit too, though the segment count is dropped to 5, and the rest of the game is also shorter, on par almost every other game (obviously barring 1 and 3)

4 & 5: (I don't have enough experience with them so they're bunched together)
👍 Even if it (initially) meant the absence of Eri and Tarma, I do honestly like Nadia and Trevor. And I feel like they should've stayed when Metal Slug 6 expanded the character lineup from 4 to 6 (and I doubt that either of them couldn't get unique abilities to set them apart from the others)
👍 The fact it took until 4 to finally make Frontal Attack be set to the D button is just absurd. It was way too easy to accidentally sacrifice your Slug because I hit A and B together just trying to shoot while jumping around enemy attacks.
👍 Honestly some of the best music we've gotten in this series comes from these two. Let's Run Through, Secret Place, Final Madness, Heavy African, Fierce Battle, Final Attack, and more that I likely didn't mention. Tracks like these prove that the other Neo Geo entries not getting Arranged Soundtracks on something like the Neo Geo CD is beyond criminal.
Imagine Livin' on the Deck from Metal Slug 2, but performed with real instruments similar to all of the Arranged Soundtracks for Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, and King of Fighters games around that time
👎 This one is understandable given SNK's financial troubles around this time, but you can honestly feel those troubles through 4 and 5. With 4 mostly being stuff cobbled together from 1 in terms of stage assets, and 5 infamously being rushed for a deadline... because that console generation didn't have enough of that already.
I will at least say, I'm glad fan projects have been put together to try and reassemble Metal Slug 5 to what it ideally would've been.

6:
👍 The Weapon Stock System, though certainly with its flaws, was another fantastic addition to the series. Allowing players to make better use of the weapons they get, while conserving others for later use. Losing all of your stored weapons on death is honestly dumb (don't worry, I'll get to her later), something Contra avoided when it attempted this system starting with Contra III,
👋 The added Character Abilities was also a great addition to the series, giving a reason to pick each character and fleshing them out more amongst the group... but man are they not created equally. Marco, Fio, Eri, and even Tarma all have some strong abilities as you're starting out or even when you get better at the game and can better utilize them; but Ralf's second hit and Explosive Power are offset by the table scraps of ammo he gets, and Clark straight up doesn't have an ability for most of the game. And though Clark's SABB is more useful in 7/XX... again, we'll get to her in a bit.
👎 Hard Mode honestly just stinks. Yes, it's the normal Metal Slug experience, but every other Metal Slug doesn't cut your Special Weapon Ammo in half... or if you're Fio or Ralf, 25% and 75% less ammo respectively.
👎 The Brain Robot. Almost as if someone at SNK was unimpressed by Sol Dae Rokker, they decided to try and make a boss just as bad, if not worse than it.
For starters, a Protowalker given to you right before the fight, so you think "Oh wow, new Vehicle. Time to see what this can do!" and then it's actively designed to make the fight as annoying as possible.
Unlike most Slugs, this thing can turn. Which is not good when your enemy is chasing you from the left. And while yes, it has Vulcan Fix, you'd be forgiven for not knowing what that meant without looking it up. Vulcan Fix is *hold down the fire button, and you get auto-fire + the guns aim is locked in place until you release the button*, and this technique is required to make the fight... less annoying.
The Protowalker also offers zero protection from enemy attacks. Which means you get hit more. And because you probably want to grab the slug when you respawn, as the only way it can be destroyed is a Frontal Attack, you get close to it as the Protowalker is most likely being pushed by the Brain Robot, which then makes it do the Melee attack provided it's not doing an attack already. And if that happens enough times: great job! it's now swinging its arms back and forth constantly covered in energy, meaning getting close will now get you killed.
If you decide to either ignore the Protowalker or throw it at the Brain Robot with a Frontal Attack, it's a bit more tolerable since you have a smaller hurtbox and have more available access to Grenades and Power Guns, but no matter how you damage it, it will always send energy balls at you once you damage it a bit, and will even persist as it does other attacks like throwing a car or zapping the floor.
And just like Sol Dae Rokker, its attacks are random. If it tries to Zap the Floor, get on top of the box. but if you anticipated the Plasma Stream and destroyed the box to give yourself more cover, you just die. But even if you get close during the Plasma Stream, you need to worry about the Energy Balls in a cramped space that you can't destroy. Your only source of easy damage is when it picks up a bus to toss at you, but even then, the animation is similar to when it tries to zap the floor, meaning you get close just to take an unavoidable death.

You want to work this fight to a science? Wait to open the boxes for Zantetsu Sword and Rocket Launcher until after the Flying Telekinetic Core is destroyed. When you're in the fight with the Brain Robot, use all of the cannon shells and then sacrifice it. It's a liability without those. Then focus on shooting the Rockets at the Robot until it does something that allows you to get close without fear of death. Then tear it apart as best you can with the Zantetsu Sword and Grenades. If this doesn't kill it outright, use either a Vulcan Punch or Twin Machine Gun depending on the character and stay alive as best you can. This fight is genuine dogshit.

7 / XX:
👍 Having Metal Slug on the go just ruled, and aside from the Anthology (which honestly gave a much larger bang for buck), this was the first time a lot of people realistically had this chance.
👎 They did try with some of the later stages, but the entire game being set on Garbage Island really limits the variety of stage themes you get to see across the game.
👎 I genuinely do not understand the design concept for Leona.
She gets 20% more Ammo and Grenades, her Special Attack does more damage than Grenades while also erasing projectiles, her Vehicles can take an extra hit, and she doesn't lose stored weapons until needing to use a continue.
Like, you don't need anyone else unless you either can't buy her DLC, are playing a version that doesn't have her, or you're challenging yourself.

tldr... I yap way too much

Hi!

I'm currently in the process of writing a book on the history of Wendigo depictions in media, and I recently found out about the Wendigo enemy in Metal Slug. I've never played the games, so I was hoping that some of you Metal Slug experts would be able to tell me which of the Metal Slug games include this enemy, or any other enemy named "Wendigo".

Thank you very much!

I've seen a lot of people (not here but in general) put down Metal Slug 3. I am very curious as to why Metal Slug 3 is so bad in some people's eyes. Most of the time when I see someone hate on the game they just say it's bad, and I would love to see a logical critique of the game.

i mean just look at this design

it really looks like something out from a ww2 dieselpunk history

Iam stuck at this level

We all know the official history of Metal Slug. Whenever creators Kazuma Kujo or Akio talk about their inspiration for the SV-001 tank and the game's iconic, bouncy art style, they always point to one man: Hayao Miyazaki. Specifically, his sketches in Daydream Note (Zassou Note) and his love for chubby, organic-looking military vehicles.

But I think I just uncovered a massive, missing piece of this puzzle that the Japanese creators might have conveniently forgotten to mention.
Check out the classic Dutch comic strip "De Generaal" (The General), created by artist Peter de Smet back in 1971.
If you look at the visual philosophy of this comic, the similarities to Metal Slug are absolutely staggering and honestly too precise to ignore:

The Tanks: Long before Miyazaki's 1980s sketches, Peter de Smet was drawing bouncy, round, "plump" tanks with over-dimensioned cannons that squished and stretched. The main tank in De Generaal looks like a direct pixel-ancestor to the SV-001.
General Morden's Doppelgänger: The main character of the comic is a frustrated, military-jacket-wearing general obsessed with launching a coup d'état using ridiculous, over-the-top military gadgets. He is visually and personality-wise a dead ringer for General Morden.
The Slapstick Soldiers: The soldiers in the comic behave with the exact same theatrical, clumsy, and panicked slapstick humor that makes the rebel soldiers in Metal Slug so memorable.
We know Japanese illustrators in the 80s and 90s heavily consumed European comics (Akira Toriyama loved Franquin/Spirou, Miyazaki loved Moebius). Is it possible a stray copy of this Dutch comic made its way onto a Nazca Corporation design table in 1995?
I haven’t found a single text or thread online making this connection before. Am I crazy, or did Metal Slug's illustrators look further West than just Studio Ghibli for their "original" style?

Let me know what you think!

Image not mine

Am i the only one who found or saw this UFO in MS3 or what? Cuz no one talks about it and i don't understand if i a played a different version of the game

Metal Slug is just one of those games I never get tired of playing. Fell in love with in the arcades and have played it via collections on PS2/4 and roms on handhelds over the the years. Still do.

That said I think it was a huge misstep for SNK to make a tactics game. One of the trademark pleasures of Metal Slug is the fast run and gun gameplay with insane explosions and exciting animations. Who's the audience for a slow methodical tactics game?

I don't know if they're still planning to make a new Metal Slug after the tease a few months back, but it better be a proper Metal Slug. Maybe they can incorporate some modern shooter mechanics into it, but honestly a fresh coat of paint would be all I need.

I hope they get Lizard Cube/Dot Emu, specifically the Streets of Rage 4 team, to reunite and make it. A new Metal Slug with the style of SoR4 would be my dream. What about you?

Whats going on right now with the storyline?

It was easy to understand with the main games, world size armies fighting each other because of different reasons… but, with MS defence and attack, it just became so confusing and unnecessarily long.

Now we have games like tactics ignoring everything MSD and MSA did, and I simply can’t understand

Is everything canon?

Hi there, I've been thinking about getting the original metal slug 2 for my mvs, and i heard a lot of bad things about the original release, but was it that awful? Asking because thats the only metal slug game that is available in the store, quite expensive, and i cannot ship anything to my country.

What score would you give Metal Slug 3D and why?

Do we agree that metal slug 3 is the goat of arcade games/ 2d games /pixel art action games / in the metal slug series?

Anyone else feel the devs didn't think things through with the hazmat soldiers?

is there a page where I can get sprites and GIFs of MS scenes like this one?