Metal Slug Triple Pack

Metal Slug Triple Pack is a Windows-exclusive compilation released on Steam in 2015, bundling three foundational entries from SNK’s legendary run-and-gun series: Metal Slug: Super Vehicle-001 (1996), Metal Slug X (1999), and Metal Slug 3 (2000). Players engage in chaotic, co-op arcade action against General Morden’s army, utilizing an arsenal of weapons and the iconic Metal Slug tank across humorous, destructible pixel-art battlefields, capturing the essence of the classic Neo Geo era.

Metal Slug Triple Pack: A Canonical Compilation of Arcade Perfection

Introduction: The Slugthat Roared

In the mid-1990s, as 3D polygons promised to redefine gaming, a small team of ex-Irem developers at Nazca Corporation bet on a different future—one forged in the fires of hand-drawn pixels, explosive slapstick, and a deeply ingrained belief that arcade action could be both viscerally thrilling and通往. Their creation, Metal Slug, did not merely join the pantheon of great run-and-gun shooters; it redefined the genre’s ceiling for expressiveness, humor, and chaotic joy. The Metal Slug Triple Pack, released on Steam in 2015, serves as a curated time capsule, bundling the trilogy most revered by purists—Metal Slug: Super Vehicle-001 (1996), Metal Slug X (1999), and Metal Slug 3 (2000)—into a single, accessible package. This compilation is not a remastered reimagining but a direct, faithful port of the arcade originals, preserving the indelible legacy of the Nazca team’s vision. This review will argue that the Triple Pack is more than a convenient collection; it is an essential historical document, offering a pristine window into the peak of 2D arcade craftsmanship, where tight gameplay, breathtaking animation, and subversive anti-war satire coalesced into a timeless formula. Its value lies in its unadulterated presentation of the series’ foundational ethos, even as its technical limitations and lack of modern concessions highlight the gulf between then and now.

Development History & Context: From Irem’s Ashes to Neo-Geo Glory

The genesis of Metal Slug is a story of corporate dissolution and creative rebellion. As detailed in the Bitmap Books history and corroborated by developer interviews, Irem’s arcade division shuttered in 1994, scattering a talented cohort of planners, artists, and programmers. Key among them were Kazuma Kujo (planning), Takushi Hiyamuta (sound/music), Meeher (stage design), and the legendary artist Akio. With support from a former Irem executive now at SNK, they formed Nazca Corporation—a studio explicitly tasked with creating a heir to Irem’s beloved side-scrolling shooters like GunForce II and In the Hunt.

Their initial concept was a submarine shooter, but location tests revealed a critical flaw. “It was too bulky and awkward,” Kujo recalled. The pivot was radical and brilliant: shift from controlling a tank to a soldier who could enter the tank. This simple change transformed the game’s identity. The “Super Vehicle-001” became a power-up, a transformative tool within a run-and-gun framework, rather than the sole focus. The team worked with a intimate, collaborative efficiency. Kujo and Meeher split stage design to avoid overlap, while Akio’s hand-drawn sprite animation—characterized by “immovable chins” and “kneeless legs”—became the series’ signature. Programmer Atsushi Kurooka faced the monumental task of rendering these lavish animations on the Neo-Geo MVS hardware’s limited sprite budget. “We would ‘cut’ them to minimize the bounding number of sprites,” he explained, manually optimizing every frame. The sound design, composed by Hiyamuta on a basic synthesizer, drew inspiration from Thunderbirds and progressive rock, aiming to deliver maximum energy in the few minutes an arcade session afforded. “You have to give the player everything you’ve got right from the start,” Hiyamuta stated.

The Triple Pack contains the first three games from this golden era. Metal Slug 1 (1996) established the template. Metal Slug 2 (1998) ambitiously expanded the scope but notoriously suffered from severe slowdown, a byproduct of pushing the aging Neo-Geo too far—its systems were improved, but the hardware strain was palpable. This led to Metal Slug X (1999), which Kujo termed a “tuning version,” utilizing a smoother engine and rebalancing difficulty while adding a trove of new weapons. The pinnacle was Metal Slug 3 (2000), which the team felt “stretched the pure experience and vision of the original game to its absolute maximum,” with branching paths, unprecedented enemy variety, and a final act that plays like a non-interactive film.

This era ended with SNK’s bankruptcy in 2001. The original Nazca team dispersed, and development passed to Noise Factory (for MS4 onward) under tighter budgets and with artists like Hidenari Mamoto inheriting legacy code he “couldn’t read.” The Triple Pack thus represents the final products of the original creative collective—a trilogy whose evolution from grounded military shooter (MS1) to surreal science-fantasy epic (MS3) charts the unrestrained creativity of its makers before corporate and technical realities imposed constraints.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive: Satire, Conspiracies, and the Absurdity of War

The Metal Slug narrative is famously skeletal in-game, delivered through brief cutscenes and announcer chatter, with deeper lore residing in manuals, artbooks, and later spin-offs like Metal Slug Attack. The Triple Pack’s story is a trilogy of escalating absurdity, cloaking a sharp anti-war core in layers of cartoonish spectacle.

Metal Slug 1 (2028) presents a relatively straightforward, Dieselpunk-tinged military crisis. The rebel General Donald Morden, a clear Saddam Hussein analogue, stages a coup. The Peregrine Falcon (PF) Squad—the stoic Marco Rossi and the sunglasses-clad Tarma Roving—are deployed to recover the stolen SV-001 “Metal Slug” tank and dismantle Morden’s fortress. The plot is a canyon-ride of iconic set-pieces: desert canyons, snow-capped mountains (featuring the first battle with the eternally returning Allen O’Neil), and a final oceanic assault. The tone, while violent, is surprisingly somber in its single-player ending—a pan across ravaged landscapes and fallen soldiers, suggesting pyrrhic victory. Supplemental material reveals Morden’s motive: his wife and daughter died in a terrorist attack he blames on government corruption. This tragic backstory, absent from the game itself, reframes him from cartoon villain to tragic revolutionary, a nuance the series would often play for laughs.

Metal Slug 2/X (2029) is where the narrative truly spirals into the bizarre. Morden returns, now allied with the Mars People, squid-like aliens from Mars. The PF Squad is reinforced by the S.P.A.R.R.O.W.S. unit: the demolitions expert Eri Kasamoto and the medic Fio Germi. The globe-trotting campaign—from Saudi Arabia to Egypt, a Eurasian rail line, and the metropolis of New Godokin City (a stand-in for New York)—introduces the series’ now-iconic transformations: the Mummy state from insect venom and the Fat state from overindulging on food items (Fio’s canonical weakness). The climax sees the Mars People betray Morden, abducting him in their UFO, the Rugname. In a moment of surprising détente, the Rebels and Regular Army unite to save Earth, with a Rebel pilot sacrificing themselves to destroy the Rugname’s planet-killer weapon. Morden’s survival and the status quo’s restoration set the stage for perpetual conflict.

Metal Slug 3 (2031) is the narrative and thematic zenith. Morden’s resurgence coincides with global paranormal phenomena: livestock thefts, CEO abductions, and freaks of nature. Eri and Fio deduce a Martian prelude. The stage routes branch brilliantly: players might battle giant crabs on a tropical beach, fight through a zombie outbreak in a Russian base (a result of a Rebel super-soldier project), infiltrate a secret factory, or explore ancient desert ruins unleashing unspeakable evils. The plot thickens when Morden is revealed as a Mars Person in disguise; the real Morden is abducted, and the hero is too. The final act is a desperate Battleship Raid on the Rugname, culminating in a fight against the Martian ruler Rootmars. The heroes escape in a damaged Slug, only for Rootmars to ambush them during atmospheric re-entry—a final, cinematic struggle where combined effort and re-entry heat critically wound the alien. The ending, with the Slug splashing down in the ocean, is one of triumphant, hard-won survival. Thematically, MS3 masterfully balances its anti-war satire (the sheer, gratuitous carnage you cause) with its slapstick humanity (the way enemy soldiers panic, chat, and perform idle animations). As Hiyamuta noted, the screams and chatter provide a “narration that has nothing to do with the player,” painting the grunts as victims of a absurd, cyclical conflict.

Across the trilogy, the narrative evolves from a concerned war story to a cosmic satire. Morden transforms from a geopolitical threat to a perennial punchline, repeatedly killed, resurrected, and even joined by aliens. The core joke is the normalization of the extraordinary: fighting zombies, yetis, and aliens is treated as routine tactical nuisance. This escalation, however, never loses sight of the underlying tragedy—the world is perpetually on the brink, and our heroes are simply the latest in a long line of mercenaries trying to stave off annihilation for another day.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems: The Refined Dance of Destruction

The Metal Slug gameplay loop is deceptively simple: run, shoot, grenade, jump, and occasionally commandeer a “Slug” vehicle. Its genius lies in the exquisite tuning of this loop across the trilogy, where each entry adds layers without disrupting the core feedback.

Core Combat: Players begin with a semi-automatic pistol (unlimited ammo) and a stock of grenades. Pick-ups replace the current weapon, creating a constant risk/reward calculus: do you keep the powerful but limited Rocket Launcher, or swap for the crowd-controlling Flame Shot? MS1 offers a tight set: Heavy Machine Gun (HMG), Shotgun, Rocket Launcher, Flame Shot. MSX and MS3 drastically expand the arsenal with weapons like the Laser Gun (a screen-piercing beam), Enemy Chaser (homing missiles), Drop Shot (arc-ing explosives), and Iron Lizard (bouncing projectiles). A crucial innovation in MS6 (not in this pack) allowed carrying two weapons plus the pistol; here, weapon management remains a tense, moment-to-moment decision.

The Slug System: The SV-001 tank is the series’ icon. It provides three hit points, a powerful cannon, and infinite Vulcan minigun fire. It can jump, crouch (to throw grenades from the hatch), and perform a suicide ram. Different Slugs appear: the fast Camel Slug (MS2/X), the flying Slug Flyer (MS2/X onward), the sniper-like Slugnoid (MS2/X), the submarine Slug Mariner (MS3), and the elephant-mounted Elephant Slug (MS3). Each has unique handling and armament, carefully balanced for specific level sections. The Triple Pack showcases the evolution: MS1’s Slug is almost solely for damage sponge and mobility; MS3 integrates Slugs as puzzle-solving tools (e.g., using the Slug Flyer in a shoot-‘em-up section, the Mariner for underwater navigation).

Character Progression & Differentiation: In MS1, character choice is purely aesthetic (Marco for P1, Tarma for P2). MS2 introduces Eri and Fio, but they play identically. True character evolution begins post-MS3 (with MS6 formalizing it). For the Triple Pack, all characters function the same, a design choice that emphasizes shared-campaign co-op over个性化. The later games’ unique mechanics—Ralf’s two-hit durability, Clark’s invincible backbreaker, Trevor’s powerful but laggy kicks, Nadia’s point-scoring taser—are absent. This uniformity is a design hallmark of the early trilogy: every player experiences the same chaotic toolset, a pure test of execution over build optimization.

Systems & Innovations: MS3’s defining mechanical feature is its branching stage paths in Missions 2, 4, and 6, offering radically different environments (zombies vs. crabs vs. yetis) and dramatically increasing replay value. It also introduces prisoner rescue (POWs) as a sub-goal, granting 1-Ups and items. The fat transformation (from excessive food pick-ups) slows movement but enlarges bullets—a powerful trade-off. The mummy state (from insect venom) slows you further but grants a devastatingly short-range spit attack. MSX refines these with new weapons and the “big” variants of existing ones (e.g., Big Shotgun). The HUD is classic arcade: a minimalist score counter, weapon/ammo display, grenade count, and POW tally. There is no map, no complex inventory—pure, instinctual action.

Flaws & Quirks: The Triple Pack ports preserve the originals’ notorious slowdown, especially in MS2 during dense explosions or screen-filling bullet curtains. MSX and MS3 largely alleviate this but do not eliminate it entirely. The continue penalty is harsh: you lose your weapon, grenades reset to 10, and your POW tally resets—a brutal incentive for credit-feeding. MS3’s final mission is infamous for its artificial length, featuring three consecutive auto-scrolling sections (slug-ride, spaceship infiltration, slug-ride again) before the on-foot finale, making a single-life run a marathon of endurance. These are not bugs to be patched but features to be mastered, part of the series’ merciless, skill-based charm.

World-Building, Art & Sound: A Living, Breathing Hellscape

The Metal Slug universe is a place of breathtaking, hand-crafted contradiction: gorgeous, vibrant environments pulsing with imminent, cartoonish death. This aesthetic is the trilogy’s unifying genius.

Visual Direction & Animation: The Neo-Geo’s sprite-scaling prowess allowed Nazca’s artists to create backgrounds and characters of unprecedented scale and detail. Akio’s animation philosophy was one of obsessive life. Every soldier has multiple idle animations: eating, chatting, scratching their head, panicking when you sneak up. They reload their guns with theatrical flair, even though reloading is mechanically irrelevant. When killed, they don’t just collapse; they are flung, dismembered, melted, or vaporized in a spectacular, context-specific burst of gore (censored to white sweat in Western releases, a toggleable option). The Slugs themselves are characters: the Camel Slug pauses to drink from puddles, the Slug Flyer’s pilot waves cheerfully. MS3 pushes this further with Branching paths that feel like entirely different games—a zombie-ridden snowfield, a dense jungle with giant insects, a ghost ship—all rendered with the same meticulous pixel art. The color palette is impossibly rich, from the sandy beiges of MS1’s deserts to the lurid greens and purples of MS3’s alien swamps.

Sound Design & Music: Hiyamuta’s soundtrack is a masterclass in genre-blending synth. MS1’s themes are driving, rock-tinged anthems (“Assault,” “Steel Beast”). MSX introduces funkier, more playful tunes (“Windy Day”). MS3 culminates in some of the series’ most iconic tracks: the frenetic “Flying Power,” the haunting “Sol Dae Rokker,” and the triumphant “Final Attack” reserved for the endgame. The sound effects are equally iconic: the thwack of the Heavy Machine Gun, the whoosh of the Rocket Launcher, the gory squelches and splats of enemy deaths. The announcer—particularly the hammy, booming voice from MSX onward—is a character in itself, bellowing “HEAVYYYY MACHINEGUN!” and “WHOA, BIG!” with theatrical glee. It provides constant, diegetic reinforcement of the player’s actions, turning every power-up into an event.

Atmosphere & Tone: The world of Metal Slug is a crapsaccharine dystopia. The settings—beaches, cities, jungles—are postcard-pretty, Immediately undercut by the staggering violence. This dissonance is the source of its unique black comedy. The world isn’t grimdark; it’s a Looney Tunes warzone where a soldier’s head can be blown clean off in one frame, only for a nearby comrade to casually wipe the blood off his face. The sound of war is a cacophony of explosions, screams, and Hiyamuta’s frantic synths. It’s an immersive, sensory overload that perfectly captures the chaotic, adrenaline-fueled delirium of arcade combat.

Reception & Legacy: A Peak Preserved in Time

Contemporary Reception (1996-2000): Metal Slug 1 was an instant arcade hit, praised for its stunning visuals and addictive gameplay, though noted as brutally difficult. Metal Slug 2 was celebrated for its ambition but criticized for its severe slowdown, a fatal flaw on the aging Neo-Geo hardware. Metal Slug X was hailed as the definitive version of MS2, fixing the performance and adding content. Metal Slug 3 met with universal acclaim, often cited as the series’ masterpiece for its level design, variety, and sheer audacity. It won several arcade awards and solidified Metal Slug as SNK’s flagship franchise alongside King of Fighters.

The Triple Pack’s Release (2015): Arriving during a retro-wave renaissance, the Metal Slug Triple Pack was positioned as a straightforward, no-frills compilation for PC. Its reception was niche but positive. Critics and fans appreciated the inclusion of the “holy trinity” (MS1, X, 3) without the perceived missteps of later entries (MS4-7, often seen as less essential or produced by a different team with lower budgets). However, it was criticized for its bare-bones presentation: no scanlines filter, no rewind function, no online leaderboards, and the original slowdown intact. It was seen as a preservation effort, not a modernized port. The MobyGames entry reflects this modest profile—a single user rating of 4.0/5 with no critic reviews, indicative of its cult-as-opposed-to-mainstream status on Steam.

Legacy & Influence: The Metal Slug trilogy’s legacy is profound. It set the gold standard for hand-drawn arcade action, influencing countless indie shooters and embodying the “pixel-perfect” aesthetic. Its integration of vehicle combat within a run-and-gun framework became a series hallmark. Its commitment to slapstick detail—where every sprite tells a story—inspired developers to infuse even the most violent games with personality and humor. The series proved that 2D could remain commercially and critically viable in the 3D age, at least on niche hardware like the Neo-Geo and later on compilations.

The shift to Noise Factory marked a palpable change: tighter budgets, recycled assets, and a gradual loss of the original’s anarchic spark. Metal Slug 6 and 7 added welcome mechanics (weapon switching, character-specific traits) but often at the cost of the earlier games’ cohesive, hand-crafted feel. The Triple Pack thus stands as a monument to the Nazca era. It captures the series before corporate transition, before budget cuts, before the move away from Neo-Geo. For historians, it is the purest artifact.

Conclusion: The Essential Artifact

The Metal Slug Triple Pack is not the most polished, feature-rich, or accessible way to experience Metal Slug today. Compilations like Metal Slug Anthology offer more games (though with emulation slowdown), and modern ports sometimes include gallery modes and minor enhancements. But for the purist, for the historian, for anyone seeking to understand what made the series a phenomenon, this compilation is definitive.

It bundles the three titles that represent the creative apex: the groundbreaking simplicity of MS1, the refined, weapon-rich chaos of MSX, and the sprawling, visionary masterpiece of MS3. These are the games born from the specific alchemy of Nazca’s founding vision—a perfect storm of tight controls, breathtaking hand-drawn animation, explosive humor, and a subversive, humanizing anti-war heart. Their flaws—the slowdown, the harsh continues, the dated UI—are not negatives to be patched away but integral parts of their arcade DNA, reminders of a time when challenge was uncompromised and player skill was the ultimate currency.

Playing the Triple Pack is to time-travel to the golden age of the Neo-Geo, to see the pixels that defined a generation of action games. It is a testament to the idea that a video game’s soul resides not in its technical specs or feature list, but in the tactile joy of its moment-to-moment play, the life breathed into every sprite, and the unapologetic, joyous excess of its design. For this reason, the Metal Slug Triple Pack earns its place not just as a collector’s item, but as a canonical text in the history of game design—a perfect, preserved snapshot of a team that believed, against the rising tide of 3D, that 2D could still deliver the most explosively alive experience in all of gaming. It is, quite simply, essential.