However, now that I’m equipped with more knowledge about the way the Neo Geo worked, and the way the arcade originals should play, I can see this collection for what it is: a haphazard port that’s not running the original code at all. This 20 dollar package includes nearly every major entry in the franchise, and when it first released on the PS2 and Wii in 2006, I thought it was a great emulation of the original arcade games. In 2016, thanks to the PS2 classics program, the PS4 got a shiny new release of the Metal Slug Anthology. Official Metal Slug Anthology promo screen,

Here they are, ranked from worst to best.

Perhaps more bizarrely, this same now-crusty arcade game from the year 2000 has been released on the PS4 three different times in three different unique conversions. I like Metal Slug 3 just fine, and I’ll admit I owned that Xbox disc at launch, but it’s shocking to see what passed for value 16 years ago. The notion of paying 40 dollars for a conversion of a single old arcade game on a disc seems rather absurd now, but in 2004 it was good enough for an astounding 76 average on Metacritic. Metal Slug 3 was perhaps the first entry in the series to gain significant notoriety in the US, thanks to a heavily-marketed premium-priced port that released on the original Xbox. It started out way back in 1996 on the powerful Neo Geo arcade hardware, before spawning numerous sequels and ports across different platforms all the way up to the three current machines. SNK’s long-running action series is one part Contra, one part luxurious hand-animated film, and many parts fun goofy nonsense. Official ACA Neo Geo Metal Slug 3 Promo Screen,

Metal slug 1 arcade