For this week's iPhone Friday i tried Metal Slug Rush, from Revive Contents, on my iPhone 14 Pro.
I've had Metal Slug Rush on my phone for a little while, but it wasn't until it got a big update this week that i decided to give it ago. ever since i downloaded it, the game has had a low review score but it was surprised that even with this update the score hasn't improved, if anything it might've gotten worse.
I was also surprised that there was an additional data download. at least it gave a heads up about the download but we didn't have much to watch in the background. thankfully it's not big and didn't take very long at all. But this did give a hint as to how strange the gameplay area might be. the video that plays doesn't fill the iPhone screen vertically or horizontally!
Once the download is done we're taken to the home screen. there is no tutorial, nothing to guide us on where to go. all the icons are on, there's nothing locked. i've played enough games to know what each of these mean, but for someone unfamiliar with modern mobile gaming this could easily be overwhelming.
Starting a mission takes us straight into a mission. i initially didn't move my character, assuming there'd be some sort of tutorial or guide as to what to do but there's nothing. the game has started and expects you to know what to do and how these sort of games work. thankfully i do and it quickly became apparent that this is a basic one of these. in the hour of this video, i didn't come across any gameplay mechanic that seemed overly new or interesting. In some respects, Metal Slug Rush feels like a cheap cash grab rather than a game that has had substantial development time behind it.
It is also in the mission where we can see the bizarre gameplay screen. there's soo much space up top and down at the bottom but what's even weirder is there's space on the sides, too. the analogue controls appear when you touch the screen so you can see where i initially put my thumb on the screen. but my thumb kept moving around and i often got into the situation where my thumb was covering my character, an enemy, or both.
I did enjoy the look of the characters and enemies. i've never played a Metal Slug game so i'm not familiar with any of it and the game doesn't have any sort of encyclopedia to help introduce them to us. but the maps these missions took place on were often really quite bland. i don't know if this is true to the games, but playing it they stood out as boring in comparison to the characters, weapons, and enemies on screen.
I didn't really enjoy my time playing Metal Slug Rush. even when i thought i knew what to do, i missed things like Auto Equip, i thought the loot boxes were dull, even simple things like item fusion didn't seem to work right. when you level up things, there's nothing showing what the improvement was. having everything unlocked on the home screen meant i was woefully unprepared for any of the dungeons i tried. But what i really found strange and annoying is the inability to play past missions. from playing it, i don't know how i'm meant to level up and beat levels if i get stuck. it feels like my only option is going to be trying the same level i can't beat over and over again until i get enough of what ever it is i need to improve something.
In the end, there are better games of this style. there are specific franchises like My Hero Academia and Medabots who have their own versions of these sort of games. i think i can only recommend this game to fans of Metal Slug, but even they may find the game a little offensive to their memory of the series.
Version 1.0.5 Played
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