Metal Slug X (the Playstation port)

Arcade ports are this interesting thing, due to how wildly different they can end up. You can have your acceptable, as close to the original arcade as possible with some caveats kind of ports, like X-Men vs Street Fighter for the Sega Saturn. There's complete dogshit that makes you wonder why there was even an attempt to port them in the first place, like X-Men vs Street Fighter for the Playstation. On the flipside, there are console ports that vastly outclass their original arcade counterparts, like Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast. There's also a favorite of mine: heavily compromised ports on underpowered systems, but still feel real good to play. That's where you get stuff like Fairy Land Tale on MSX2, Rodland on the ZX Spectrum, and Ninja Princess for Sega's SG-1000.

Metal Slug X on the Playstation, is it the ideal way to play the game? Lord, no. Absolutely not. Long load times, I'm pretty sure the controls have dropped inputs, and it exposes how much the original PSX just could not handle 2D sprites, because the animation in what is otherwise a masterclass of sprite animation is completely cut down to its basics; you can quite literally count the frames of animation on the titular Metal Slug tank. In any other circumstances, I would write off Metal Slug as being as bad as any other SNK port on the system (parenthetical aside to give a small amount of credit to the King of Fighters '99 port for having the excellent arranged soundtrack and being able to play as Kyo and Iori without needing a code). At this point, you would be better off emulating the original Neo-Geo game, since it's the literal original arcade game, with the added bonus of being able to enjoy a classic SNK game without financially supporting modern SNK by buying the Arcade Archives version or something similar.

I find myself still managing to like this version of Metal Slug, in spite of its many issues. I think it's due to there being an amount of care and effort placed into other aspects of this release to try and make up for not being particularly Arcade Perfect™️. Like it's some sort of consolation. Like, yeah, we tried our best, but it wasn't enough, but here's some nice artwork! And it is some really nice art! You can see those screenshots up above, of the immaculately detailed level select, or the cutesy sprite edits in the loading screens. The included art gallery (which doubles as a sound test) shows off the nice concept art for the new characters, Eri and Fio, as well as some extremely detailed line work explaining the plot.

There's more to Metal Slug PSX than a gallery; I just wanted an excuse to post some of the artwork. While there is a Time Attack mode and a "How Long Can You Last On One Life?" mode, there's still more. The real meat of this port comes after finishing the game: Another Mission. Another Mission is a series of small challenges that really change the Metal Slug experience. Taking a game about running and shooting and turning it into what feels like a Nickelodeon game show. Jumping across a series of missiles, Contra style, in order to cross a body of water that will kill you if you touch it. Fending off enemy soldiers or aircraft, armed only with a small amount of grenades. They tend to be permutations of those two concepts, but they are pretty addicting in spite of their simplicity. Addicting because, like any "Caravan" mode, this also has high score tables. Placing first will unlock more missions, but you're going to keep playing, because you want to get more points. It's always about more points. That desire to improve your performance.

Metal Slug X sits at this weird intersection. It is a pretty rough port of an otherwise great game. I can do the "there are better ways to play Metal Slug today" thing, but given that this Playstation port came out in 2002, there were better ways to play it then. That being said, the extras are absolutely worth checking out, even if exists in a compromised framework. So now there is this version of Metal Slug where the worst aspect of it is...Metal Slug. It feels like a Metal Slug mini-game collection that included a port of the original game as a bonus, like an unintentional version of Guilty Gear Judgement including a bonus fighting game. But I guess that's what makes this game so interesting. A port of an arcade game where the port of the arcade game is secondary. It has this, I hate to say it because the term has been so bastardized, cozy vibe as a result. A disc full of great artwork, and a series of bite-sized challenges that you can spend an hour or so on before heading to bed.

Before I wrap this up, I should make sure to mention that, despite the US release having cool Shinkiro artwork on the cover, it is absolutely outclassed by its Japan cover: