Metal Slug Tactics’ demo is pure nostalgia for better and worse

rockpapershotgun.com:

I’ve always loved the art of the Metal Slug series of side-scrolling shooters, so I’ve been keeping a keen eye on the fetching grid strategy antics of Metal Slug Tactics ever since it was first announced. For as long as I’ve been excited, I’ve also been worried. It’s been a polarising experience, like being alternately fed delicious sandwiches and those inedible rotlogs they sell at Subway. Still, I’ve remained cautious: is all this great pixel-art just a shroud pulled over a ho-hum tactics game to rescue it from naffness? It’s with this in mind I hungrily dove into the Steam Next Fest demo, as one might hungrily dive into a bin to eat literal garbage if their only other option was Subway.

I jump into the first mission as Metal Slug mainstay Marco Rossi, a man who will not take off his bandana under any circumstances. The official fan wiki describes Marco’s appearance as a cross between Sylvester Stallone and David Bowie. I get distracted imagining Stallone singing Space Oddity for a bit, then decide I better play some videogame, much like a Subway worker returning from break and realising they must slap together another horrendous vomit-tube of a sandwich.

Every turn each character gets one move and one action, but if you take the action first, you also lose your move. This feels on the more restrictive end as far as action economies go, but you can use "synchronisation" attacks to stretch that economy out, further than a pack of Subway meat over a thousand anemic dirt-loafs. These are special tag-team actions you trigger for free by setting up orthogonal flanking postions. For now, though, it’s just Marco. I can pick between a pistol and a machine gun, but the latter has limited ammo. It’s here I notice some nice quality-of-life bits. You can undo moves and fast forward enemy turns, though there is a restriction on the undo-ing, which I’ll unfurl below like a yellowing lettuce leaf on a stale roll that costs eighteen pounds, or sixteen pounds with ten years' worth