Things I like about Metal Slug 3:
The word “Slug” repeated over and over again!
Cool Vehicles (slugs)!
Shoot ‘em Up levels!
Weird transformations!
Slightly Weirder Transformations!
No contact death on basic enemies!
A bonkers plot!
Kidnapped playable characters!
Satisfying Finale!
Gorgeous animation from start to finish!
Things I don’t like about Metal Slug 3:
Every
Single
Boss
Takes
Forever.
Can you enjoy a videogame completely except for being annoyed every five minutes? Don’t know. Don’t care. Gonna go murder some soldiers from ostrich-back now.
FGC #353 Metal Slug 3
- System: I remember when this title was relegated exclusively to arcade/Neo Geo machines. Now it is on (take a deep breath) PlayStation 2, Xbox, Wii, PC, PlayStation 3, PSP, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Nintendo Switch. … Not Xbone? Weird.
- Number of Players: Two, simultaneously. That is the best way to play this. That is the best way to play anything.
- Favorite Character: There are choices other than Fio? I mean, I guess they have to let someone have a go when she gets captured, but I’m not certain why they bother.
- Favorite Weapon: Shotgun works excellently in this adventure, because there really isn’t that much distance on the screen at any given moment. Take note, modern shooters! Just because you can cram a lot in a display at once, doesn’t mean you should.
- Did you know? The Playstation 2 version of Metal Slug 3 had a number (two) of interesting (not really) minigames that could be enjoyed for a while (upwards of ten minutes). Unfortunately, they never reappeared on any of the future ports, because that would take an extra seven seconds of programming.
- Would I play again: Metal Slug X is probably my first choice for soldiers vs. kinda-nazis or maybe Martians, but this is a close second. It might see some play again in the future, but no promises.
What’s next? We’re going to do something a little different. All next week, we’ll be tackling two games “head to head”, and comparing and contrasting like this is a sixth grade writing assignment. It should be fun! Or horrible! It’s a land of contrasts! So we’re going to kick it off by comparing two very similar and wildly different adventures of one Sonic T. Hedgehog. Please look forward to it!
Metal Slug 3 is on Xbox One, dood. It’s available via backwards compatibility with the Xbox 360 release of the game on XBLA, which you also forgot about.
Anyway, I played Metal Slug 3 on PS4* a while back. It was a fun ride while it lasted, but I probably won’t play through it again anytime soon. It’s not even the bosses that were the problem for me, it’s that the final stage has like three to four stages worth of ground to cover between the finale fakeout and the real finale wrecking up the Mars People’s mothership. Like, I can only tolerate losing my imaginary quarters** to increasingly aggressive waves of bullet sponging monstrosities for so long, you know?
And if you prize your sanity, don’t try to go for POW trophies/achievements in versions where they exist. Your saved POW count always resets to 0 when you die (Not if, WHEN. I know how cruel these games are), so good frickin’ luck with that.
* Via the port of Metal Slug Anthology for PS2 on PS4. I assume the separate release of the game also on PS4 has better emulation, but minor loading issues aside the MSA port’s good enough.
** I bet this game made a ton of Yen off anyone crazy enough to try to make it to the end in the arcades.
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