The world is once again on the brink of a takeover by the evil General Donald Morden and his army of rebels. Only the Peregrine Falcon squad led by the heroic Marco Rossi stands in the way of the Rebels establishing their New World Order. This could be the plot of almost any entry in the Metal Slug series, which is best when you don’t take it too seriously. A remake of the microtransaction-laden gacha tower-defense mobile game, Metal Slug Attack Reloaded tries to keep the goofy tone of the series while removing the worst bits of the 2016 version.
At least they try to remove the frustrating bits. Thankfully, the Switch version has no microtransactions – but it still feels like a gacha game that expects you to log in every day and grind your way to victory. The result is an uneven but still fun game that is limited by its origins.
Like most of the series that spawned it, Metal Slug Attack Reloaded’s story is paper thin at the best of times. Marco Rossi and the Peregrine Falcon Squad lead the charge to stop the Rebel Army from taking over the world. It’s unclear whether this is to be done through expert strategy or brute force, as the gameplay that follows each cutscene is an exercise in sending wave after wave of units at the enemy until you manage to destroy their base. It’s the kind of simple, mindless fun that works well as a mobile game but feels lackluster when ported to console. Even adding a “sequel” to the story, cleverly titled Another Story, doesn’t change the fact that there isn’t really enough of a plot to see you through the dozen or so hours it can take to complete.
In each battle you buy units with AP (Action Points) and send them across the battlefield to destroy the enemy base or die trying. More powerful units cost more AP, but you can upgrade your base to regenerate AP faster, allowing you to buy more powerful units faster. This fairly basic game flow is interrupted when you activate a unit or your base’s special move, but you spend a lot more time buying units to send them on a slow death march to the right side of the arena.
The little bit of strategy that comes into play is really what unit you choose to take to each level. Choosing a unit that can attack flying enemies isn’t usually necessary until the game throws a scene at you that consists almost entirely of flying enemies. Each unit can be leveled up, evolved into a stronger form, and acquired equipment to increase their stats. This is ostensibly done in the name of customizing your deck to suit your playstyle, but is actually a holdover from Metal Slug Attack Reloaded’s early days as a gacha game.
Every time you complete a mission, you get medals and tickets. Tickets are used to upgrade your units or base stats, giving you an advantage in the next mission. Medals power the game’s gacha mechanics and allow you to pull a handful of units, allowing you to unlock one of the game’s over 300 characters from across the Metal Slug series to fight for you in battles. Metal Slug Attack Reloaded is significantly less predatory than most mobile gacha games tend to be, but that also highlights how superficial and simple the unfair system can be.
This system is the reason for one of the biggest problems with Metal Slug Attack Reloaded – the brutal and often unfair spikes in difficulty that occur throughout the campaign. Sometimes you come across a level that is suddenly much more challenging than the previous one. No amount of strategy in how you deploy your units will help. This often involves swapping out units in the deck for others that are better suited to the enemy at hand. However, this can mean trying to get a better and more powerful unit, a lengthy and sometimes frustrating process that was originally intended to encourage players to scavenge for a rare or better unit. However, without microtransactions, it feels unnecessarily harsh to the point where it almost breaks the game.
Fans of the Metal Slug series will enjoy seeing some of the goofier armies and units featured in the game. There are the usual Rebel and Regular Army characters, but you’ll quickly run into Martian aliens, mummies and samurai mechs along the way. It somewhat detracts from the game’s already flimsy plot to assemble an army consisting of all these factions, but you’ll barely notice it when you summon a giant slug to devour your enemies. The only downside is that the roster is a mere fraction of the original game’s hundreds of units.
If the story mode isn’t enough for you, there’s the option to play against local or online players using your deck of choice, though beware – just like any other gacha game, there will be people who will grind for hours and simply wipe the floor with you and your team. That’s just the nature of the game, but luckily you can avoid online battles altogether if you want to play more casually.
When Metal Slug Attack’s servers shut down in 2023, fans probably thought their favorite tower defense gacha was gone forever. Unfortunately, they were half right. As it is, we’re not convinced that the hours of grinding required to progress the plot are really worth it.
Conclusion
Metal Slug Attack Reloaded removes some of the worst bits of the original mobile game’s mechanics, but the reduced roster and brutal difficulty spikes emphasize the excessive grinding required to make these kinds of games profitable, and likely won’t satisfy all but the diehards. fans of the original. For better or worse, it’s exactly like a mobile game that was ported to the Switch, warts and all.