Metal Slug 2006 - Mission 10 (Normal, Tarma, New Game)

THIS. MISSION. IS. COMPLETE. BULLSHIT.

Usually a good final stage takes every element the game has taught the player about and combines them to create the final test of skill for the player. But what happens when a game is almost exclusively full of shit in the lead up to the final stage? You get a stage with awful cameras. A stage with awful platforming with an engine that doesn't feel optimised for it. You get swarms of enemies attacking you from all angles, on and off screen, all with a million HP. Yes, you can and will die if you miss a jump in the outdoor sections of this stage. No, the camera doesn't go any lower than what I've shown in the video. Yes, you WILL get sniped the moment you land from an impossibly difficult jump. Yes, the freaking birds will harm you for no reason.

When I first got the Smoke Bomb in this game, I remember vividly thinking to myself, "the fuck am I gonna do with non lethal smoke bombs in a Metal Slug game?!" But then I realised they were made for Mission 10 to be played like a cheap knockoff Metal Gear game. When a Metal Slug game encourages you to play more like a Metal Gear game, you know we've hit rock bottom. Isn't the whole point of a Metal Slug game to feel good about causing mayhem and blowing up anything that moves? This stage feels like it deincentivises that by making it difficult to take your time killing enemies since SO MUCH is going on all around you, and you need ammo for the final boss, and the enemies have so much health it's more a chore to kill them than a joy.

This game feels like more effort has been put into Fio's boob jiggle physics than the actual gameplay.