Welcome to our Is that a good free mobile game series. In this series we look at games from both the App Store and the Play Store and review them. At the end of the article we try to answer the question – Is the current game a one of the best smartphone games? Is it a good free mobile game? For this review, we’re looking at Metal Slug Attack by SNK!
Your Answer Upfront:
Overall, while graphically pleasing, Metal Slug Attack is nothing more than another generic pay-to-win app masquerading as a game, taking the Metal Slug franchise legacy and grinding it into dust. It’s always a shame to see something like this happen, more so when there are heavy-hitting names attached to these toxic practices that have been plaguing mobile gaming almost since its beginnings.
What is Metal Slug Attack?
When you say SNK to the right crowd (gamers from a more civilized age or retro afficionados), you’re probably going to start hearing stories of the golden age of pixelated art styles and coin eating arcade machines. What you’ll probably NOT hear about is more modern SNK titles, which I would have expected to be in high demand and highly praised. SNK is, for a lack of a better term, one of the OG gaming giants, right?
Well, sort of. Shortly after the start of the 21st century they went bust and a couple years later sort of came back, at least in name. So, your father’s SNK (or at least older brother’s) is definitely not the same gaming giant.
The disparity between SNK and what is now called SNK Playmore Corporation is made even clearer when you look at the titles they’ve released in the past few years
We can’t generalize with every company that goes through this, and I hoped Metal Slug Attack would prove this point. I was, to say the least, very surprised in my findings.
Metal Slug Attack got released in 2016 as a direct sequel to Metal Slug Defense, both of which are spinoffs of the larger (and highly appreciated) Metal Slug series.
Unlike its predecessor, Metal Slug Attack has been a resounding failure, even though it currently boasts over 20 million downloads and seemingly decent ratings on both Google Play and Apple’s App Store.
How is Metal Slug Attack’s gameplay?
Leaving these ratings aside for a minute, let’s look into what the experience is actually like.
I’m a big fan of tutorials that guide you through the basics, and Metal Slug Attack doesn’t disappoint in that department, for the most part. While the tutorial is fairly short and doesn’t go into extreme detail, it’s more than enough to get you started.
Once you’re done with the tutorial, some of the complaints other users have start to make themselves clearer.
With some sort of event or promotion going on seemingly all the time, you’re bound to be getting a bunch of currencies and even free units. Normally, I wouldn’t mind seeing that, considering not everyone is willing to spend money on microtransactions.
The problem is that, as far as I can tell, you’ll be blasted with enough free stuff to the point where you’ll have a roster of overpowered, completely unbalanced units at your disposal, with little to no restrictions on their usage. Adding to the lack of balance is unit upgrades which will break everything even further. Having such a roster at my disposal, I’ve averaged the battle durations to around 20 seconds per battle. I’ll come back to this in a moment.
Does Metal Slug Attack have a story?
Since I mentioned battles, there seems to be quite the number of available missions to go on, which is great. Metal Slug fans will point out that there’s an actual story behind the franchise and, aside from a few subtle hints and references, there’s none of that present. Or at least no backstory worth mentioning. Unfortunately, these battles can be set to “auto”, with the game doing all the hard work for you (and, more often than not, better than you).
The Another Story idea is actually interesting, theoretically providing you with side-missions and lore involving characters present throughout the Metal Slug franchise. Unfortunately, this falls flat on its face too.
Who is Metal Slug Attack for?
I really want to like Metal Slug Attack, given its deep roots, but SNK Playmore seems to care more about their bottom line than about producing a quality game that can be enjoyed by Metal Slug veterans and newbies alike.
I honestly don’t even know who Metal Slug Attack is supposed to cater to. SNK calls it a Real Time Strategy Tower Defense game, but I find no strategy or tower defense throughout the game. The only strategy that seems to be involved is setting up your roster, which gets me back to the complete lack of balance I mentioned earlier.
Having read through about 4 years of reddit posts and store reviews, it seems that SNK’s answer to the heavy unbalance is to… release even more overpowered units to get people to buy more currency to… get stronger units? Wait a minute. This is Gacha all over again!
I wrote about Figure Fantasy in the not so distant past and, while Metal Slug Attack doesn’t make the Gacha aspect as clear, it’s definitely present. Unlike Figure Fantasy, Metal Slug Attack doesn’t have ridiculously priced in-app purcha-… $50 for 4750 medals (the premium currency) and, what’s that? VIP TIERS?! AGAIN?! You get the idea.
Is Metal Slug Attack heavy on Free 2 Play monetisation?
What manages to make the “for profit” aspect of the game aside are the annoying loading screen banners that, more often than not, point you towards the in-game store to spend coins on units, consumables and other nonsensical packs and pseudo-subscriptions. Somehow the meaning of “Gift” has been twisted so far that it no longer means what we thought. You get lulled into the promise of something shiny, only to end up staring at yet another storefront.
There’s even “limited” availability sales that you can only access when leveling up. Somehow, SNK has managed to tie nearly every aspect of the game into a microtransactionable action. Lost a game? Here, have a free retry, but the next is going to cost you! Want to upgrade your units? Well, you’re out of doodads and whatchamacallems.
Even once you ignore all the microtransactions and stick to the free stuff SNK throws around, some things just seem added as an afterthought.
The Treasure Hunt mode is just a timegated way of giving you some bits and pieces. P.O.W. Rescue is more or less a timegated series of missions that seem to offer “valuable rewards”.
Another interesting feature, yet odd choice, is the guild system, which I assume is tied into some sort of PVP and group-based activities. Accompanying this social feature is something I truly dread: a chat feature which seems to have little to no moderation. You know how people act on the internet and you can see why, while nice to have, chat systems need to be very well thought through.
Does Metal Slug Attack have any redeeming qualities?
All disappointing “features” aside, SNK did get a couple things right. As far as art assets go, Metal Slug Attack is further proof that you don’t need ultra-realism and raytracing to make a game look good. And it doesn’t just look good, it sounds good too! Perhaps my only complaint related to the art assets is the choice of having so many oversexualized female units. Very few games don’t play that card, and Metal Slug Attack is definitely not one of them.
Is Metal Slug Attack a good free mobile game?
Overall, while graphically pleasing, Metal Slug Attack is nothing more than another generic pay-to-win app masquerading as a game, taking the Metal Slug franchise legacy and grinding it into dust. It’s always a shame to see something like this happen, more so when there are heavy-hitting names attached to these toxic practices that have been plaguing mobile gaming almost since its beginnings.
Fewer and fewer games are getting released that are actually worthwhile, with microtransactions being the framework of most new releases.
As for a conclusion, the fact that I’m awarding Metal Slug Attack a very generous 2/5 stars should speak for itself.
Now that I’m done with this, I’ll go play some more Dragon Battle on my iPad (available for FREE on iOS starting January 10th 2022. Completely. Free.)
How To Download Metal Slug Attack?
Metal Slug Attack is available for Android Phones and Tablets on the Play Store and for iPhone and iPads on Apple’s App Store. The game is, sadly, not available to be played on M1 Macs.
Where To Next?
Congrats, you made it to the end of the article where we answered the question: Is Metal Slug Attack a good free mobile game? I hope it was beneficial to you. It’s also beneficial to us to have you stick around the blog more. We have more reviews of good free or premium mobile games, such as Thumper: Pocket Edition or QB Planets!
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