Completion time: 1:02:01

I’ve never been a big fan of games being obnoxiously difficult. Other than Demon’s Souls (the original and the remaster) and Nioh, I’ve steered away from those games that want to be macho but end up being really unsatisfactory to me. That’s what the Metal Slug franchise was to me as well. This PS1 version of X though, was made even more frustrating by just its gunplay performance overall.

While the majority of the game is without major gameplay impeding slowdown, there were constant issues with firing my gun. Button presses wouldn’t register, or would be super delayed (game side, not based on lag from the TV). This made the majority of the experience that much more miserable, as trying to fire the pea shooter that I’m stuck with after my inevitable death to next to impossible to avoid slow moving projectile, was a chore I wanted to be rid of ASAP.

The audio and visuals overall are serviceable enough. What really helped my sanity was unlimited continues. I don’t know what I would have done if I were restricted to a certain amount of credits in total. I think I went through 45 continues or something awful like that.Some of those were just intentional deaths to get to a continue, just to get a heavy machine gun back, as playing with the pea shooter is absolutely dreadful.

Other than the game its self ending, the highlight for me was watching a once enemy but now friendly soldier fly his plane up into the opened bottom of the alien spaceship, very much like that scene from Independence Day. Outside of that though, Metal Slug X was something I wanted to end almost as soon as it started. Over an hour to complete it, felt like it took 5 hours, and I wish it took 1/4 the time it took.

Rating: 3

Twitch VOD: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/921585529
YouTube video: