Metal Slug

[WhereEaglesDare]

Can anyone here honestly say they can beat a Metal Slug game, or even a single mission on a single Quarter?  That game is a Devil in Disguise.  Blowing your mortgage money just trying to get through mission 3??!!  Maybe that's what really caused the housing crisis.

[bkenobi]

I do ok on some versions of Metal Slug for the first level or two, but then I always end up jamming a ton of "quarters" through just to keep going.  I think it tells you how many house payments you will be missing if you beat the game.   

[XCVG]

Original Metal Slug, one life for the first level. But it wasn't authentic- I was playing on NeoDS on my DS when I was bored one day. I don't think I could do it on a real cab.

[mytymaus007]

Thats what i hate about that game and others like it. i was bored after the 1st time i played it. The won who has the most money wins! I think thats why the true classics are classics Game Over after one quarter

[Malenko]

original metal slug, I could get to like the 3rd stage (level 4 -default) difficulty. You can easily beat the first stage without dying, heck I can get to the end without firing a single shot, all knife kills. Metal Slug 2 jacked up the difficulty and so did 3. I didnt play much/any of the slugs after that

[MaximRecoil]

Thats what i hate about that game and others like it. i was bored after the 1st time i played it. The won who has the most money wins! I think thats why the true classics are classics Game Over after one quarter

I agree, but I don't mind the one rematch deal you get with Punch-Out or Super Punch-Out.

BTW, I think that Rampage was one of the worst, if not the worst offenders in the "quarter sucker" category. I don't even think it is possible to avoid damage in that game; it would be like trying to dodge rain drops to avoid getting wet.

[bkenobi]

Avoiding damage isn't a problem as long as there is a healing mechanism in the game.  Rampage had food in some of the windows.  However, it still eats "quarters" pretty quickly when I play.

[Benevolance]

Not to mention that the temptation to 'accidentally' hit your ally in Rampage is pretty huge.

[Hoopz]

Not to mention that the temptation to 'accidentally' hit your ally in Rampage is pretty huge.

You say that like it's not supposed to be done.  I love hitting a buddy in the back of his monster's head.   

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

Thats what i hate about that game and others like it. i was bored after the 1st time i played it. The won who has the most money wins! I think thats why the true classics are classics Game Over after one quarter

I really like being able to go on playing if I want to practice the later levels, but the incentive to get as far as possible on one credit/ get a high-score is still there; it's not the game's fault that people don't stop after one credit. Besides, all good games can be played again and again, and only if you beat the game in one credit, can you really enjoy the end credits.

[DJ_Izumi]

Metal Slug is one of the prettiest sprite games ever, but yeah, it's hard as hell.  One of the reasons I havn't gotten MS3 on XBLA yet but fully intend to get MSXX when it comes out this 'Spring'.

[WhereEaglesDare]

MSXX  is that a sequel to MSX?

[Mauzy]

Closest I've come to beating a metal slug game was actually only watching a 3 and 7 year old play for two and a half hours on MSX. The older kid went through 76 "credits" on my machine...

[DJ_Izumi]

MSXX  is that a sequel to MSX?

Metal Slug XX is the PSP and XBLA port of Metal Slug 7 actually.  Not sure why they felt they had to rename it.

[Xiaou2]

 Metal Slug looks great.. but the gameplay is too simple, so its gets a bit
boring after a while.

 Its not that hard.. compared to a game like Ghouls and Ghosts.  That game is
insanely HARD... even with unlimited credits.

 Metal Slug, should have a Limited Continue system.  At very least, that would
give people incentive to get good... to finally get to see the end.

 Thunderforce II  for Sega Genesis  had a feature like that.  You got like 5 lives,
and like 3 continues (credits).   That amount of men in totality let you get
fairly deep in the game, but not even close to being able to beat it.  You also
had to beat it on the Hard level setting.  If you chose Med, it would end the
game at like level 6.   Its the best shooter Ive ever played.

[DJ_Izumi]

Metal Slug, should have a Limited Continue system.  At very least, that would
give people incentive to get good... to finally get to see the end.

Operators don't want you to get good, they want you to put more money into the machine.

[bkenobi]

Metal Slug, should have a Limited Continue system.  At very least, that would
give people incentive to get good... to finally get to see the end.

It does!  When you run out of quarters, you are out of continues.   

[pinballwizard79]

Metal slug, NARC & Rambo are quarter whores indeed.

[Malenko]

Metal slug, NARC & Rambo are quarter whores indeed.

I always thought SMASH TV was the worst. Now I know very good players can beat the first stage without a continue but I dont think anyone in the world can beat it on a single credit

[shfifty]

i'm pretty sure the game was designed to eat quarters (or $1's in Australia). When you get to the later bosses it seems almost impossible to avoid some of the attacks. A guy i worked with claimed he did MS1 with 10 credits, even that is near impossible

[Hoopz]

A guy i worked with claimed he did MS1 with 10 credits, even that is near impossible

I think that depends on other settings though.  Bump it from 3 lives per credit to 5 and move the difficulty level from normal/hard to easy.  Much different game. 

He may have been talking about doing this on an emulator which is different than a real arcade game. 

[jbarnatt]

My brother can do it on the original Metal Slug. The cab is in my avatar. My friend and I did it too. Who says 99 lives is cheating? But, my brother really can do it.

[solidteezme]

Gotta love the Slugs, wish i could get them to work on my cab

[WhereEaglesDare]

why cant you?  I managed to find Nebula and the games and I have been spending my lunch hours playing it.

[solidteezme]

You need nebula? i might be sounding dumb now, but shouldn't you just be able play them in mame?

[WhereEaglesDare]

Youd Think so since it is Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, but guess not

I did try also and couldnt get it to work, give it a try.

[bkenobi]

Metal Slug (all of them) play fine in MAME.  There are some stutters here and there, but from what I understand, this is the way they play on the actual MVS hardware.  I don't think there are any versions out there that MAME can't play at this point.   

[Bender]

They work fine in mame for me
On MS1 I can get past the first board on 1 credit and I'm slowly working on the second
If you learn the patterns of where the guys come from and what the boss does I think it can be done
How many missions anyway?

[solidteezme]

i got the neo geo bios and they all show up in mala, but when i select any of the Slugs just goes to blank screen for an instant then back to my gamelist.

[bkenobi]

There was a change to the way NeoGeo roms were organized a while back.  I don't remember the exact change, but it had to do with moving one file into the bios from each game (or perhaps it was the other way around).  In any case, you just need to update your roms and you'll be good to go.  Alternately, just don't update your MAME past that version and things will be fine.

[WhereEaglesDare]

Hmm maybe Im doing something wrong....  I'll have to fool with it i guess, I just fugured that MVS games didnt work on mame.  Itll be awesome if they do.

[Reckless]

A few years ago I played Matel Slug every day... I think I ve beaten MS3 about 30 times or so ^^

at this time I could finish Metal Slug 1 with one coin on default difficulty.
Its also easy to get to the allien bosses of the 2nd level in MS3.
In MS2 you can also get to the third level with one coin easily...


but from these points on you better have much coins ready

I playerd MS6 on the wii with a friend a few weeks ago and in the latter levels we were just laughing how much money we would waste if we would play in an arcade ^^

[WhereEaglesDare]

at this time I could finish Metal Slug 1 with one coin on default difficulty.

I would love to see that....

[bradx]

Thats what i hate about that game and others like it. i was bored after the 1st time i played it. The won who has the most money wins! I think thats why the true classics are classics Game Over after one quarter

many games in MAME allow you to turn off continues.  i always do so if possible.  however, most of these games, and even the bullet hell shooters, you can get really far on one quarter if you try hard enough.  i havent beat any of the metal slug games but i always found them to be too easy, not too hard, and they throw gimmicks at you that are guaranteed to kill you the first time if you never saw them before, but just as easy to avoid the next time you play. 

whoever mentioned smash tv, believe it or not, it has been beaten on a single credit. 

[SophT]

Metal Slug was always a little too "slow" for me.  I found my groove with MSX, which, afaik is just MS2 with some slowdown/bug fixes.  Perhaps my partiality to X comes from the fact that the MVS at the local pizza place only had MSX/Bubble Bobble.

Anyways, I can make it through the first 3 missions in MSX (4- default) on a single life.  Sadly it does take me about 12 credits to make it through missions 4 & 5 

/I can also make it to like level 30+ on Bubble Bobble, that's my game.

[Paul Olson]

I bought a Metal Slug cart last week for my 4 slot cab that I bought earlier in the week. Tonight I made it through the first mission without dying.

BTW, you can change the number of continues allowed in the soft dipswitch settings. I doubt that most ops would ever limit these though. No sense in slowing down the insertion of quarters.

This game is definitely easier than MS 3. I could see getting through at least the first three missions on 1 credit with practice. I have played MS3 on my MAME cab, and to be honest, there were times I didn't even realize I had died.

[Retro_SA]

I can finish Metal Slug 1, 2, 3 & X with one credit.  But that's nothing, go have a look at some of the Mame Replay records.  Those guys finish it without even dying once.

http://replay.marpirc.net/

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

i'm pretty sure the game was designed to eat quarters (or $1's in Australia). When you get to the later bosses it seems almost impossible to avoid some of the attacks. A guy i worked with claimed he did MS1 with 10 credits, even that is near impossible

Hahaha I don't mean to sound negative but is it possible you're incredibly bad at video games? MS1 is by no means a hard game, if you keep playing it you'll learn how to evade all of the enemies' attacks quickly. Just find out what the end bosses' patterns are and you'll 1cc it soon.

If you want brutal, quick shooting action (albeit of the shmup variant) down- buy DoDonPachi and try to get to the 4th stage without dying. It will take you months. And still this is considered a walk in the park in comparison to its sequel or most other games Cave has made.
Btw are most arcade classics from the first half of the 80s even playable for you? They're all much much harder than Metal Slug... anyway, it honestly wasn't my intention to rip on you, I just wanted to put a couple of things into perspective.

MSX, which, afaik is just MS2 with some slowdown/bug fixes

This is incorrect. It does have those, but there are also important changes to the gameplay (enemy placement, some of the bosses appear at different points, refined gameplay); it's just that teeny bit better than MS2.

[SophT]

it does have those, but there are also important changes to the gameplay

Ah, thanks for clarifying that for me.

If you want a game that's actually hard try GunForce or GunForce II - the ancestral predecessors of the Metal Slug series.  The difficulty is increased because you have 2 semi-independent guns which can make aiming a nightmare, more crude graphics/gameplay, and the fact that they hadn't really nailed "the formula" that the MS series is known for yet.  Yet they're still some fun games.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

it does have those, but there are also important changes to the gameplay

Ah, thanks for clarifying that for me.

If you want a game that's actually hard try GunForce or GunForce II - the ancestral predecessors of the Metal Slug series.  The difficulty is increased because you have 2 semi-independent guns which can make aiming a nightmare, more crude graphics/gameplay, and the fact that they hadn't really nailed "the formula" that the MS series is known for yet.  Yet they're still some fun games.

I've seen the videos on youtube, as soon as I have some time to spare I'll add it to my game list. FUnny thing about these games is that they used the same death screams for this and for MS...