Well, I guess I'll take on the task of being the first reviewer to give a thumbs down to Metal Slug 2, but that's okay; none of the other reviews here mention most of what I'm going to be talking about, nor are they in-depth. So take great consideration when picking up this title. I'm a massive fan of the Metal Slug franchise, and while there's nothing exactly bad about Metal Slug 2 itself, we already have this game on Steam. Us, the fans, have been waiting almost a year for the next installment to be ported to Steam, was it 6? No. How about the amazing 7? Nah. Even 5? Nope. We get shafted with the inferior version of Metal Slug X. This game is already on Steam, just under a different name.
Yes, that's correct, inferior. SNK originally released Metal Slug X to be an updated version of Metal Slug 2, because there were bugs, glitches, and other issues with the arcade chips that were hard to fix. So not only did they fix those issues with X, they improved upon the game itself, and even added more content. There is a difference of 5% between X and 2, and it's mostly negligible. The bosses are the same for the most part, save for the last boss fight which is a good 10-15 minutes SHORTER in Metal Slug 2 than it is in X. Let me also take time to mention that there is no online co-op mode in this game, but there is in X! Even if you do not own X or 2 at this point, you should just go with X since it's longer, better, and has online co-op.
There is absolutely no reason to purchase Metal Slug 2, unless you're a die hard fan with $8 to throw down because you absolutely love the franchise and wish to support it. However, even as one of these die-hards, and having urged and encouraged many people to purchase these titles on Steam so that we can get more in the future, I feel incredibly shafted. Not only over the long wait, but knowing that there's less of a chance of DotEmu and SNK porting the remainder of the series if there isn't enough support to earn back what they at least put into spending to port these titles, only for them to give us something we already have instead of putting their time and resources into something that we don't have.
As for Metal Slug itself? The franchise is one of the greatest run-and-guns of all time. The series has a varying amount of characters, but in Metal Slug 2 and X you get your choice between four. There are six levels in this game, all of which will take you around 40-50 minutes to complete in total. The bosses are big, the levels are greatly detailed, you have a decent variety of weapons that will randomly drop for you such as the heavy machine gun and flamethrower, and the soundtrack is awesome, though not as great as in X. I have gone into more detail in the past about what Metal Slug is in general, and I recommend to take a look at my reviews for Metal Slug and Metal Slug X for that if you are not familiar with the series.
So the bottom line here is to just avoid Metal Slug 2 unless you're crazy about the series, or unless you want to keep supporting DotEmu and SNK's ports of the franchise. It's the same game as X, and if you don't have either just get X instead since it's the updated, longer, better, and has online co-op version of 2. I never thought I'd have something overly negative to say about Metal Slug, but I really cannot believe DotEmu and SNK have released this instead of any of the other 4 remaining titles. As well, I've seen a lot of people complaining about the "slow downs" and "FPS drops", as in the review sections of the other Metal Slug games, these people just have no clue what they're talking about. The game runs at 60 FPS, and the slow downs are intentional; as it was in the Mega Man Legacy Collection. It's how the games played in their original form, and these are true-to-original, great ports.
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