Metal Slug Tactics gives turn-based strategy a hyper-stylized shot of adrenaline

Metal Slug Tactics pushes hard on the boundaries of the vaunted run-and-gun arcade series. You can run when it’s your character’s turn, but it’s a certain number of tiles. You can gun, but not rapidly, and only after considering the most optimal target and tools.

Is this just Into the Breach with classic-era SNK artwork and aesthetics? Kind of, and you’re welcome.

As a true fan once wrote, Metal Slug games are about “crazy vehicles, amusing enemies and levels, and some of the best sprite art you’ll ever see in gaming.” To my eyes, you’re getting a whole bunch of that in Tactics. Turn-based, grid-mapped tactics have a natural tendency to feel slow and to strip characters down to chess pieces that can do two or three things. Here, the characters and villains cannot stop rocking their bodies, the guns and explosions and scimitars go off big, and the exaggerated-just-enough artwork keeps everything locked into an action-movie mood.

You typically have three characters in your squad, each with a couple weapons (including, of course, a pistol with unlimited ammo). You’re facing a whole isometric level of baddies, and you can see their attack range. Your missions are typically to kill ’em all, kill a number of them, kill a certain few of them, kill the leader, or, for a treat, rescue somebody. You’re fighting in vague but stylized locales around the world to stop an evil general from blowing up the world with his secret army.

Your squad wants to move, because the farther they dash each turn, the more “Adrenaline” they build up to power their special abilities and the more damage they can dodge. If they end up next to cover, even better. At the same time, you want to place your fighter and pick a target that one of your other fighters can target, too, scoring a “Sync” where you can both fire at once. This game despises turtling and will actually pop up a “tip” from your comms manager telling you that moving more makes you tougher.