Recently, I've been in a mood to replay Metal Slug. At the same time, though, I don't want to play Metal Slug anymore because I've played them so much over the course of my life, I already know those games by heart. So in order to scratch my itch, I started Googling for clones and games inspired by it.
The closest thing I can compare this search to is searching for a manga similar to Berserk - to many people Berserk is just a manga about a badass, muscular dude, wielding a giant sword and fighting demons and nothing else, and likewise, Metal Slug to many people seems to be just a 2D sidescrolling game, where you shoot things. They don't seem to understand at all what made Metal Slug so good, and their suggestions either somewhat resemble the MS games on a superficial level, while having completely different gameplay (looking at you, Mercenary Kings), or don't have anything to do with them, other than being 2D run n' gun games.
"What exactly was it, that made Metal Slug stand out from other 2D sidescrolling shooters, then, ninja?", you might ask. In short - it was fast-paced, had an incredible amount of attention put into small details (mainly in form of things you could destroy on the stage), the combat was satisfying as all hell, mainly due to how over the top violent every enemy's death was, and the further you went into each game, the more batshit insane it was (especially the bosses).
Here's a short video of the fifth stage from the first game, for those of you who haven't played any Metal Slug games, to sort of see what I mean.
Any suggestions? PC is preferred, but pretty much anything, apart from the current and the one before it generation of consoles goes. Thanks in advance for the help.
The closest thing I can compare this search to is searching for a manga similar to Berserk - to many people Berserk is just a manga about a badass, muscular dude, wielding a giant sword and fighting demons and nothing else, and likewise, Metal Slug to many people seems to be just a 2D sidescrolling game, where you shoot things. They don't seem to understand at all what made Metal Slug so good, and their suggestions either somewhat resemble the MS games on a superficial level, while having completely different gameplay (looking at you, Mercenary Kings), or don't have anything to do with them, other than being 2D run n' gun games.
"What exactly was it, that made Metal Slug stand out from other 2D sidescrolling shooters, then, ninja?", you might ask. In short - it was fast-paced, had an incredible amount of attention put into small details (mainly in form of things you could destroy on the stage), the combat was satisfying as all hell, mainly due to how over the top violent every enemy's death was, and the further you went into each game, the more batshit insane it was (especially the bosses).
Here's a short video of the fifth stage from the first game, for those of you who haven't played any Metal Slug games, to sort of see what I mean.
Any suggestions? PC is preferred, but pretty much anything, apart from the current and the one before it generation of consoles goes. Thanks in advance for the help.