7 arcade perfect Metal Slug games in the palm of your hand?
Never has there been such a satisfying condensation of goodness since the “grilled stuffed burrito” from Taco Bell.
I picked up the compilation on Wii with my system a month or so back, and while I found it to be an excellent addition to my Wii library (and the minuscule amount of quality software for the Wii), it did suffer in a few (MINOR) areas - the control schemes were all slightly “imperfect” (some completely un-playable), and the color palettes were all a bit washed-out.
I’ve been looking forward to picking up the PSP version since I saw it was announced, and I’m very happy to report that it has NOT disappointed.
There’s not THAT much to say about Metal Slug Anthology for PSP, but all points should be noted -
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All the games appear to be arcade perfect (generally the same as the Wii version) in terms of their “code”, controls (UN-LIKE the Wii version in this ONE area), graphics and audio.
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2 player mode is present on each game (no game sharing) if a second PSP is present with a second copy of Metal Slug Anthology.
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Games can be SAVED at any point on any level, which is ALWAYS a welcome feature on a portable system.
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There are NO issues with the control button layouts on the PSP, and the “twitch” game play works as wonderfully as you’d expect on a system with a D-Pad / + Button layout like the PSP.
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The color palette appears to be much less “washed out” than on the Wii collection, but this may have more to do with the richness of the PSP’s LCD screen and less with anything SNK did purposely.
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And, lastly, unlike the (very nice, but somewhat “useless”) unlockables in the Wii version - you can use some of the unlockable art as “PSP Background Wallpapers” … hey, it’s not much, but it’s something PRACTICAL!
So, yeah, other than that, there aren’t any “surprises” or standout features that make it drastically different, but if you’re a Metal Slug fan, and you own a PSP … this is a no-brainer, and there isn’t anything better apart from owning a full size Neo Geo Arcade Unit and all the Metal Slug games that were released for that … and a copy of Magician Lord just for good measure.
This one scores high (in it’s genre(s) of twitch shooter platformers / classic compliations) for being such a wonderful, complete, and WELL TRANSLATED / EMULATED collection of games with a corrected / normalized control scheme from the previous console release.
9 out of 10