METAL SLUG

The game is great, but the port feels bad. The performance isn't as smooth as it should be and the controls do feel a bit laggy. So I would not recommend buying it right now.

I have all the mainstream Metal Slug games on every system they were offered for. This includes original SNK MVS cartridges and a full custom SNK MVS consolized system. I am running Unibios 4.0 on my console and emulator platforms. This BIOS does open up the available regions and even cheats if you choose to use them. I also have the "Complete Metal Slug PC Collection" from several years ago. It's a decent collection but you need 3rd party game pad mapping software as it's made for keyboard only. I have played all the titles through emulation in Retroarch and through FPGA hardware simulation with a MiSTer FPGA setup. Okay now that you know I am very familiar with all ports and original copies of the Metal Slug series I'll give my honest opinion on this series offered by GOG. I give them all 5 stars tat are well earned. They are not expensive. They are mapped to my Xbox One wireless controller by default. Other than cheats, they have options for every difficulty level, a set number of lives or freeplay, They have video options for all standard PC resolutions up to 1920 X 1080p. You can choose your aspect ratio as 4:3 (original) or 16:9 in all available resolutions. I see some reviews with complaints about slowdowns in the games. This is common at exactly the same places on all my systems. It is matching the original NeoGeo console and arcade systems. It is possible to have these games in high resolution and no slowdowns but that would take a very expensive total remastering of each title. These are NOT remastered games and the low price should indicate that. I hope they are all fully remastered someday but until that day comes, these are as good as it gets. These also cost about 10 times less than a fully remastered title would start at.

The port is great, the slowdown that some players comments are actually part of the game. For example in Metal Slug 2 in the first level there is slight slowdown after you blow the first truck with soldiers, this is also present in the original arcade. It's a limitation of the the hardware of the MVS. So it's part of the "OG Experience". Why this "Slowdowns" are not present in other emulators like MAME?? Well because the emulated MVS is overclocked....

The short of it is that this has "legacy" slowdown which just shouldn't exist anymore. If any modern console game showed up on PC and had technical issues because it was a dump of a console game and not enough was done to hone it for PC hardware, it would be eaten alive. This game is a good game from the a "retro" era, however shortcomings due to "retro" technology should get ironed out when something is released on superior technology and a price tag is attached. So despite liking the core game, I know realistically what it is, and I have to hit not recommended. Not as good as Metal Slug 3, but still a good game. Just like all the currently available Steam/GOG versions of Metal Slug, this has slowdown and audio speedup/slowdown issues while more superior ports had neither. Again an option to switch Legacy mode on or off would have been great. All of these ports also have one really odd bug: when the "GO" icon flashes on the screen, my character will just start running to the right and won't stop until death. It's rare, but it happens. I like these games, especially Metal Slug 3, but these ports aren't very good.