Metallic Slug Ways isn’t what I used to be anticipating. Luckily, that’s not a foul factor. As a substitute of Remaining Fantasy Ways, it’s Into the Breach with some intelligent twists that assist infuse it with among the traditional arcade collection’ run-and-gun roots. I’m having a enjoyable time with it up to now, even when it has some obtrusive annoyances.
First, the excellent news: a couple of hours with Metallic Slug Ways (developed by Leikir Studio and revealed by Dotemu) satisfied me it’s a good technique RPG that mixes the roguelike construction and emphasis on puzzle fight with some new character mechanics that assist spice issues up a bit. As a substitute of a linear marketing campaign, you choose a squad of fighters, select a area, after which progress by random map encounters till you get to a boss struggle.
On the battlefield, fighters like Eri, Fio, and Marco every have distinctive tools and abilities that may be improved and customised all through a run. Not like conventional grid-based technique video games, most assaults occur alongside a straight line from the place the character is at the moment stationed, making positioning, terrain, and elevation key elements in whether or not a struggle goes your approach or not.
Harkening again to Metallic Slug’s unique 2D side-scrolling shooter incarnations, your characters accrue a bonus referred to as “adrenaline” as they transfer across the battlefield. It grants extra benefits and buffs, rewarding versatile and aggressive play reasonably than simply sitting again and turtling. Synergy talents, in the meantime, let close by allies take part follow-up combo assaults to press the benefit.
The result’s fight that requires you to suppose in your toes and adapt to the state of affairs at hand as an alternative of devising a method forward of time and simply worrying concerning the execution. Mixed with slick, retro pixel artwork and a strong soundtrack, the general Metallic Slug Ways expertise feels tight, rewarding, and well-balanced between thoughtfully teasing out options to the fight puzzles at hand and maintaining the motion transferring with fast missions and simple targets.
Okay, now the dangerous information. Whereas the completed Metallic Slug Ways principally lives as much as the attractive trailers followers have been gawking at for years, there are some actual shortcomings. I’ve been taking part in on PlayStation 5 (it’s additionally on Sport Cross), the place I’ve skilled each a irritating quantity of stuttering on the efficiency finish and, even worse, some actually poorly optimized UI and font sizes on the quality-of-life facet.
Most video games these days really feel designed with a PC monitor a few toes out of your face in thoughts in the case of display structure and the dimensions of options like motion menus and textual content bins. Even beginning at that baseline, nevertheless, Metallic Slug Ways was notably painful to attempt to learn and navigate from a lounge setup, even once I moved inside 5 toes of my TV. Checking by Steam and numerous subreddits, I’ve seen complaints particularly about font sizes and readability for the Swap and PC variations cropping up as nicely.
Each the shaky efficiency and depressing UI (I actually want the UI and fonts weren’t such a headache to decipher on console) can in all probability be fastened with post-launch patches, however the lacking polish and strained eyes are laborious to disregard. The remainder of Metallic Slug Ways is a compelling, if not tremendous deep, retro roguelike technique expertise that’s price trying out for followers of Metallic Slug and video games like Into the Breach alike—particularly if the group behind the sport can get the opposite points labored out.
