It really just jams almost everything from the earlier titles together, and then adds even more goodness on top of it. Metal Slug 3 is richest entry in the series, both in its amount of content and the amount of care puts into even the smallest details. Much of these issues are mitigated by the lower difficulty levels, which greatly reduces their HP so their faster attack patterns won’t show up, but on the default level, it’s almost comically difficult. The flying sun god and boss of the fourth stage, Sol Dae Rokker, has dense bullet patterns that are incredibly difficult to dodge. The robot boss at the end of the third stage, Jupiter King, has such a quick laser attack that it’s almost impossible to dodge unless you’re already moving away from.
![metal slug 6 boss metal slug 6 boss](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/metalslug/images/3/3d/BrainRobot.gif)
Metal Slug 3 is substantially more difficult than the previous games, with bosses that have huge amounts of HP and ridiculous attack patterns. The other major criticism is the difficulty. This single stage can take up to half an hour to complete, which, when tacked onto the previous levels, making a whole playthrough take about an hour, which is a little long for these type of games.
![metal slug 6 boss metal slug 6 boss](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hLN0cDlmpys/maxresdefault.jpg)
This final stage is one of the most massive triumphs of the human spirit and is almost as long as all of the prior stages put to together, which features a shoot-em-up sequence as your heroes blast into the skies, and a huge fight against clones of your captured comrades, before fighting with the hideous mother alien in a spectacular death defying mid-air battle.įor as monumental as this last stage is, it’s also arguably the game’s biggest issue – it goes on for way too long. After the European warfare of the first game and the world traveling mayhem of the second, Metal Slug 3 goes big with the final level, expanding greatly on the alien encounter from the end of the previous game putting you on an epic journey to take down the alien mothership.
![metal slug 6 boss metal slug 6 boss](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/igddijLUFU4/maxresdefault.jpg)
There are also more vehicle segments where you can pilot subs underwater (shades of In The Hunt, an Irem arcade game from the same development team), fly through the sky in the Slug Copter and Slug Flyer, and rocket into space with the Astro Slug. There are tons of new Slugs, including Elephant and Ostrich Slugs (guns strapped onto these animals), a mecha called the LV Armor, and the Slug Driller, which can increase its height to avoid enemy fire. However, some areas are definitely longer or more difficult than others (there’s no real advantage to visit the ice stage in area 2 other than prolonging the experience because it doesn’t skip over any area.) The subterranean hideout, filled with sword-swinging, suicide bombing warriors in stereotypical Japanese garb, is way harder than the other route in the level. Though the level bosses are always the same, it allows for a huge amount of diversity for multiple playthroughs. At the first stage, you can choose the upper route to fight above a river, or take a lower one to dive through the ocean. Almost all of the stages have branches that take you to completely different parts of the level, and some even have branches within the branches. There are only five levels here compared to the six of the previous two games, but each is also much larger than before. The boss is an orb that zaps you with electricity and drops monoliths on top of you. In the same stage, you can rescue an ape, who wears a diaper and wreaks hell with a pair of Uzis.
![metal slug 6 boss metal slug 6 boss](http://www.arcadequartermaster.com/ms/boss1.png)
In this same stage, you get a weapon called the Thunder Cloud, a storm cloud which follows you around and zaps everything in your path. Some of the captured fellows you save here are actually Morden soldiers, but they’re so grateful for being saved that they’ll reward you and run away like regular POWs. You fight yetis for some reason and save a slew of frozen POWs. The second level features a zombie attack – much like the mummies from the second game, you can get turned into a zombie if they vomit on you, which means you can unleash a wave of destruction by spewing waves of bloody vomit all over the screen. If you travel under water, you’ll swim next to giant mutated eels, each inhabiting a cage displaying some feminine name, as if they were vicious pets of some sick and twisted mind. The first stage pays tropical island filled with giant grabs and some of the most beautifully animated flying insects you’re ever likely to find. More than just soldiers (and aliens), there’s an even greater variety of weird enemies to fight. Why? For starters, there’s a huge amount of creativity in practically every level. The third Metal Slug is heralded as the apex of the series.