Jack Red reviews Metal Slug Anthology (PS4)

Hi everyone I'm Jack Red, ever since I found out about Metal Slug Anthology. I wanted it so bad, I am very happy to later find you can play it on PlayStation 4. So recently, I finally chose to go for it since this franchise had a reception among hardcore gamers. The real question is was this game compilation worth the time as well as money to get or not?

I will be directly linking my reviews of the games included to save you time.

Metal Slug, Metal Slug 2, Metal Slug X and Metal Slug 3 reviews
https://jackred1989.blogspot.com/2018/11/jack-red-reviews-metal-slug-1-3.html

Metal Slug 4, Metal Slug 5 and Metal Slug 6
https://jackred1989.blogspot.com/2020/03/jack-red-reviews-metal-slug-4-6.html



Metal Slug Anthology is on a few platforms like Wii and PS2. But I own it through PS4 that's virtually the PS2 version with trophy support. They do reuse the general trophies for each Metal Slug game. The line up of games is Metal Slug, Metal Slug 2, Metal Slug X, Metal Slug 3, Metal Slug 4, Metal Slug 5 & Metal Slug 6.

1. Beat the first boss
2. Rescue ten prisoners of war (for the most part don't die)
3. Beat the game
4. Beat the game with five continues or less

Among beating the games is unlocking a picture gallery of that entry. Unlocking the final one gives you the special picture gallery. You also get to listen to all their soundtracks through an option. They also included a written interview with the developers. Usually in most game compilation that includes interviews.

It is done with a couple of videos. But here it's a long lengthy written interview that has some great questions answered. I also liked the controls for this section since you can quickly get back to where you were if you took a break from reading it. Yes, there's a save feature just not save state/load state. Most of these were ported from Neo Geo while Metal Slug 6 was ported from the arcade version.

For the most part, the emulation is faithful as well as solid. There's a lot of load screen pictures too. You not only see the level of care, you are deep within it as well. Metal Slug Anthology is honestly one of the finest game compilations I ever played. I loved they allow infinite continues since these are one hit death games.

There's more than enough action with a surprise level of ridiculous you can't believe. There's a lot of variety among everything really. Metal Slug doesn't let you choose which level you want to replay like some newer ports do. I don't think that's much of an issue for the most part since most stages are short.

One of the longest stages included is the final stage of Metal Slug 3. I should mention thanks to this compilation, Metal Slug 6 was brought to the United States. Yes you heard correctly, this game compilation given us a chance to play a game that may never have came here otherwise. Metal Slug 6 does have an Easy & Hard mode that I go more into details about in it's review blog.

Every stage has a boss fight waiting for you. Let's be honest, get use to dying a lot. You will quickly memorize the stages fast. The actual trophies for PS4 emulating the PS2 version are well selected. I know among first seeing them you might think, Geez could they picked a variety of stuff to do for the trophies?

Honestly, I felt these trophies are well selected. Yes some will take time but there are ways of getting them. It is one of the most fun trophy hunts I had in my time playing PS4 games. This is virtually packed with content to keep you entertained for years to come. I would give this an almost perfect score if I was doing a score system.

I can't name anything major enough to complain about. You are getting seven games which two of them are versions of one entry for twenty bucks. Honestly, that's a great deal for seven action packed games. Yes, you can play with other people offline. Overall, this is worth checking out especially you recently became a fan like myself.