METAL SLUG 2 - No Death Clear

The Metal Slug Ultimate Collection announcement got me back in a Metal Slug mood, so I went back and got my first deathless clear of Metal Slug 2. I played this on PC through Arcade Archives, which for now, is the best official way to play this game. I feel like a lot of people aren't even aware that the Arcade Archives versions are available on PC because they aren't on Steam - you can only get them through the Microsoft/Xbox store, which presumably, nobody uses. But they're there! And they're great versions of these games. Metal Slug 2 is almost a perfect sequel to the original. You get new weapons, new slugs, new character states (mummy & fat mode), higher difficulty, and more balanced level design. The first Metal Slug is easy for an arcade game, in part because they give you the Slug early in a few missions, which is super powerful, and much safer than playing on foot. In the sequel, they hold the Slugs back until later in the level, making you progress through some areas where any one bullet can hit you. Then once you finally get the Slug, it's a moment of relief as you move toward the boss. Even aside from that though, the general level of difficulty is higher across the board, which just makes the game more satisfying and fun to play. But unfortunately, Metal Slug 2 has one critical flaw... the slowdown. There's a bug in the original code that causes far more slowdown than it should have, and it results in a game that became infamous for how badly it runs. It's so bad that SNK released an updated version of this game - Metal Slug X. X fixes the extreme slowdown, introduces more new elements, packs in more secrets, and remixes the stages a bit. It's generally seen as the complete version of Metal Slug 2, which is why people tend to skip over this game - me included. I've tried it out before, of course, but when picking games to dig into, I went with X and then moved on to each of the sequels. But I always meant to go back and learn MS2, and I've been having a lot of fun with it. The slowdown can be annoying when it gets so bad that it eats your inputs, but for the most part, I find it tolerable. Some of the differences when compared to X aren't so bad either. The stages in X are more densely packed with enemies and secrets, but I still like this as an alternate, easier version of the game. You can progress through it more smoothly, which I don't dislike. But X is still better, lol. There is a hack on MAME that fixes the slowdown bug, so I would recommend trying that out just to see how the game 'should' play. I really hope M2 includes that fix as an option in the upcoming collection, but frankly, I'm not holding my breath. You can also buy the Steam version from DotEmu, which has no slowdown whatsoever! That's not a good thing, but I'm interested in trying it out... Anyway, Metal Slug is one of the best series in gaming, so be sure to check them out if you haven't played one before. 1, 2, 3, X, you can't go wrong with any of them. The later games are still good too, but definitely play the originals first. 0:00 Intro 0:33 Mission 1 3:19 Mission 2 8:39 Mission 3 13:36 Mission 4 18:41 Mission 5 28:06 Final Mission 43:16 Ending & Credits ----- Beat 'em Ups (e.g. Final Fight):    • Beat 'em Ups   2D Action (e.g. Metal Slug):    • 2D Action   STG/Shmups (e.g. Dodonpachi):    • STG Replays