Metal Slug: 2nd Mission (Neo Geo Pocket Color)

Metal Slug: 1st Mission was an effective adaptation of the run and gun action of Metal Slug to the handheld Neo Geo Pocket Color, but it still had some elements like its brutal parachuting segments and slow boss fights that had room for improvement. With the intel on what worked the first time and the know-how from the first tour of duty though, the developers tasked with making Metal Slug: 2nd Mission were in prime position for an improved experience, and sure enough, this sequel feels like an improvement over its predecessor in most every single way.

 

Metal Slug: 2nd Mission takes place after the original Neo Geo Pocket Color adventure, the remnants of the enemy force from that previous conflict upping their game. Seeking even greater military might, word is the Phantom group has somehow made contact with alien forces, but with the government a bit leery about such bold claims, this so-called Second Mission is ultimately executed by sending singular soldiers behind enemy lines secretly to investigate if there is any truth to the matter. Right out of the gate you are free to choose from two characters to play as, Gimlet a pretty straightforward soldier eager to fight while Red Eye stands out as a more fun option in terms of personality. Red Eye is a spunky rookie looking to make a name for herself, and in the optional pre-mission briefings, she’ll contrast Gimlet’s focus by instead often barreling into a warzone even before she’s been told she’s not meant to.

 

There are greater differences between the two main playable characters than their behavior during briefings though. Metal Slug: 2nd Mission provides a surprisingly beefy range of 38 unique missions to tackle, nearly doubling the previous game’s offerings, and this is where your first incentive for choosing a character lies. Red Eye and Gimlet have a few wholly unique levels to tackle, but how you fight your way through enemy territory can be a bit different between them as well. Gimlet and Red Eye both pack standard, somewhat weak pistols, but find a weapon pick-up and you’ll find yourself able to take out enemy soldiers and vehicles far more easily. You’re always able to carry grenades around with you, pressing Options making you toss one without the fussy detection of 1st Mission involved, but other power-ups like the Machine Gun last as long as you have ammo for it and it both fires quickly and deals good damage. From there though, the two heroes diverge, Gimlet having the exclusive short range Shotgun that tears through things with ease while Red Eye keep spraying flames in front of her with the Fire Gun. The Rocket Launcher and Bazooka are fairly similar which gives both a heavy weapon without much fluff attached, but then the Missile Pod gives Red Eye a homing missile while Gimlet can try to hit foes high or low with a well positioned Grenade Launcher shot. The differences in approach are noticeable but don’t make either one feel weaker, meaning while a second run to see the other character’s path would already be enhanced by the new locations sprinkled along the route, you also have something slightly different to change up how you handle fighting foes.

Funnily enough, despite Metal Slug: 2nd Mission saying right off the bat there will be aliens involved and some can even be seen on the box art, they might take a while to even appear in the adventure depending on the route you’re on. Ultimately the alien menace and their advanced tech are primarily part of the game’s later stages, a nice injection of variety to make those final stages feel more climactic. Before then though, Metal Slug: 2nd Mission does make good use of varied infantry types and more dangerous machines and vehicles to keep the other stages involved.  Continuing on from the first game’s strong focus on well-positioned foes, Metal Slug: 2nd Mission puts its soldiers where it knows they can be pesky if you don’t approach them right, such as in a burning city where you’ll want to leap over flames in this platforming-heavy run and gun but need to watch out for the soldiers with jetpacks flying in to mess up your leaps. Small rooms might trap you with some bazooka wielding foes who you need to dispense with quickly or you’ll feel the pain, especially since Metal Slug: 2nd Mission has reduced your health down to three bars that represent three hits to death. On the bright side, enemies often drop life-refilling food, but it decays incredibly quickly, a feature returning from 1st Mission but feeling more at home here as the gamble of rushing into to grab it feels like a weightier choice when it is more likely you could die if you ignore other active threats.

 

Levels often ask you to do a bit of exploration to find your way forward, and depending on the stage you’re in, you might even be able to find secret exits to take you to some of the game’s hidden stages. On the one side, this definitely grants the game more depth and replayability, but it seems with the increase in available stages, Metal Slug: 2nd Mission also started to get a little too obtuse with how it hid some of them. Sometimes the game asks you to behave in strange ways or do unnatural things to find them, so while there are a few more reasonable splitting paths to find, others can feel like they’d be impossible to find naturally… which is why the hostage rescue system exists. Earning points in Metal Slug: 2nd Mission will gradually upgrade your military Rank, hostages in particular giving a big boost to it when you find them throughout levels. Despite being represented as blond bearded men, each of these hostages is actually a specific character who might have some useful intel, but they’ll only reveal it if you’re high enough Rank to hear it. At first, rookie players will get things like basic gameplay tips when they consult the rescued POWs, but once your Rank is high enough they can start helping with useful info like how many hostages might be in a single stage or they’ll give you those vital clues on how to unlock the hidden stages. It can still feel like a bit too much work to get to a few of them, but otherwise it does make rescuing POWs and poking around the full breadth of stages more rewarding.

Mirroring its predecessor though, Metal Slug: 2nd Mission does have one pretty reliable way to find a few of the alternate level routes: failing during the flying sections. Metal Slug: 2nd Mission will often include vehicle sections in levels. The Metal Slug tank is a powerhouse great for tearing through most opposition, but they’ve made sure to give it some trials like a slippery ice stage full of spikes where losing the tank to such hazards will punish you if you only treat it as a power trip. The Slug Sub, though, feels a little undercooked, the submarine a bit too capable and often put into plain underwater sections that don’t test it enough while also giving it little to do. The Slug Flyer can sometimes find its aerial sections demanding or a breeze, the screen automatically moving during them as you need to weave around or shoot down incoming dangers. Lose all your life in the Slug Flyer though, and the next level is actually an effort by your character to salvage things, a jetpack with limited fuel used to break the fall as they need to fight their way to solid ground before they run out. The descent is actually not that difficult, the fuel limit seems to be more to prevent you from being overly cautious, but while your generally low health does make regular stages pretty tense if you’re not able to rush in and grab food often, the bosses can also be surprisingly easy at times too.

 

While 1st Mission boss battles sometimes drag on far too long, some of Metal Slug: 2nd Mission’s big battles instead wrap up surprisingly quickly. This does, in part, come from how vulnerable they are to your powered-up weapons and a good amount of grenades, their lower difficulty at least meaning you aren’t often in a bind if you are forced down to your pistol, and near the end the game does start to increase how difficult and mobile bosses can be so you can’t as easily overwhelm them with firepower like you can early on. A rise in difficulty over time is fairly appropriate, and at least before you start to get to the conflicts that demand more from you, you can get some conceptually impressive fights like the Terrain Carrier which is like if someone put an aircraft carrier on tank treads. A lot of the fights actually return from other Metal Slug titles or even 1st Mission, but they do fit in well when considered alongside the larger levels they inhabit, not meant to carry as much of the experience compared to stages with unique pronounced identities and different ways to navigate them in search of more weapon ammo or the helpful POWs.

THE VERDICT: Metal Slug: 2nd Mission is bigger and better than the first go around, and for the most part, that added breadth benefits it. Levels with diverse themes and good range of different weapons and vehicles make finding alternate routes or searching for POWs entertaining even if the game hides some secrets too deep, and while bosses take a while to be more challenging fights, the overall stage design presents frequent danger that mixes well with the type of firepower you’re bringing to the table.

 

And so, I give Metal Slug: 2nd Mission for Neo Geo Pocket Color…

A GOOD rating. Perhaps a bit tellingly it can be hard to keep some details between 1st and 2nd Mission straight, and ideas that worked in the first one like the leaping soldiers or sections where you’re trapped and facing enemies that gradually pour in are found in both and work well for the same reasons. Metal Slug: 2nd Mission added in elements like the jetpack descents and submarine levels, but mostly it feels like it is honing the core action and that’s not a bad approach to take. The regular levels can feel dense despite being technically small, because you know exploring small side paths or entering doors can lead to those helpful POWs or some useful weapon ammunition. Amusingly, reducing health to a hard and consistent three bars of life to perhaps get the game closer to the arcade difficulty didn’t actually get the game fully there, but that’s to its benefit truly. You take even simple soldiers seriously enough but aren’t held back trying to play too cautiously because of the frequent health drops, Metal Slug: 2nd Mission only really feeling like it needed some stronger pressure during boss battles to counteract the weaponry you’ll be bringing in from the stage.

 

Had there been a 3rd Mission, perhaps we would have seen the submarine stages find their footing, maybe the boss encounters would all hit that sweet spot, and a balance in how deeply buried some levels are could be sorted out. Metal Slug: 2nd Mission does feel comfortable with its design though, knowing how to space out its run and gun stages to include some involved navigation but plenty of consistent action with an effective rollout of new enemy types. With its added bits of unique personality and such a range in stages, it feels less like this is just Metal Slug adjusted to a handheld and more a military adventure made in a mold that suited it.