NEO-GEO and Metal Slug fans, here is something special for you today. Indie developer Division has released a demo for their upcoming Metal Slug-inspired 2D retro platformer, Aqua Ippan.
Aqua Ippan is an action platform game for PC that feels and plays like a true arcade classic, and pays homage to the Metal Slug series with its artstyle, detailed animations and jazz-fusion music.
This is a dream come true for all Metal Slug fans, and we highly recommend downloading the demo from here. Basically, this is the closest to a new Metal Slug game we’ll ever come. So, if you were fans of the series, you should definitely download it.
I seriously can’t praise it enough. Aqua Ippan runs at silky smooth framerates (compared to the slideshow that Metal Slug was back in its days) and looks retro-amazing.
Enjoy!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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Looks really good, i don’t what the owners of MS series rights are waiting to release HD versions of the games with upscaled assets and 60 fps support, it will be a dream come true
…they’re sprite based games dude, you don’t want them upscaled or at full 60. It just won’t work at all.
it can.
A sprite can be upscaled with AI, i get that some people want them at their original res, but what you’re saying about framerate is just totally wrong, just look at the video in this article
I’m not, the game is built on slowdown. You pump the game for higher frames on an emulator and the balance is totally out of whack. And the game would look ugly as f*k upscaled with AI, it’s just genuinely unnecessary.
You’d have to account for each subpixel animation to make sure it’s properly animated, when in reality it looks just fine if you just scale it normally.
The video means nothing? It’s a completely separate game entirely.
If you use Mame32 Overclock feature you could get rid of most of the slowdowns and it’s much better this way, it’s not built on slowdowns, these are actual issues, this is not bullet time, as you can witness MS2 had slowdowns that were addressed (mostly) in MSX, if it was built on slowdowns they would just keep them instead.
“And the game would look ugly as f*k upscaled with AI”
No, these games looked perfect back then on CRTs, the AI upscale will only make them look as good as they were but on modern screens/monitors, because modern monitors will never give these games the beauty they once had unless you play them at native pixel perfect resolution on a tiny 300×200 window
“You’d have to account for each subpixel animation to make sure it’s properly animated”
That’s why interpolation exists
“The video means nothing? It’s a completely separate game entirely”
They’re so close you could even mistake it for a new MS game, same art style, same character design, same animations, it’s almost a clone, just smoother
There can be both intentional and non-intentional slowdowns. While MSX did, in fact, reduce the amount of slowdown it was not wholly removed. There are a countless number of shmups and run and guns that would drastically increase in difficulty if it didn’t have some kind of slowdown to make the bullets more legible. I’m speaking from both experience and testimony that a good deal of this series is built with that in mind. Ignoring this would make a poor remaster, as many would be playing a different, harder, game than the original.
You don’t interpolate animation. This doesn’t look good either. The timing would be thrown off balance. All this would create are products equal to those “smooth” anime videos that don’t understand a hint of craft or intention.
You didn’t substantiate how AI could possibly recreate the CRT look other than saying, “they just will”. All AI can do properly in terms of animation, is remove a little bit of grain. But pixel art aren’t grainy cels on film. They’re blocks of sprites in code, and to recreate the CRT effect you would need to recreate an illusion that varies by television set. This would involve an AI that doesn’t exist, which is vastly outside any reasonable remaster effort.
Aqua Ippan does not have the same animations, they’re completely new. It’s a completely separate game with color choice considerations for a modern display. It is also balanced for full speed gameplay. You can’t just look at two similar games and conclude, “yes I can turn one into the other because they’re so similar”.
Sonic Origins is 60fps pixel and looks really nice. The way you slide and loop around the zip lines, snowboarding intro to the winter zone, and the special levels that were animated to look like sprite scaling all are pixel perfect and smooth. Side by side the Genesis version looks like sonics spinning around under a strobe light lol
Metal Slug: Stunning & Brave Edition.
My goodness!! That looks incredible. So excited for this. Gonna play this with CRT royale filter and it’ll be a blast.
I am truly thankful to the owner of this web site who has shared this fantastic piece of writing at at this place.
No gore no thanks
right? dissapointed.
Oh great, #MeToo Slug.
Metal Swoke
All I see are fvcking old games!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/40f23352e7b4358366f892c34754fb5347434e2bed9599a5a9e8dc37a0cc5ef5.jpg
All I see is someone who can’t even fathom that there is more to a game than graphics… some people don’t like the CGI looking 3D super high graphical performance aesthetic (or game play most of mostly 1st/3rd person action/adventure). Simply because a dev team chooses to make a game using a certain art style doesn’t make it “old”.
Go and try that shltty influencer talk with some kid who just discovered gaming, dude.
I grew up playing shltty stuff like this (that was lit back there), but my taste in games evolved and all that I want is to stay the hell away from shlt I’ve play my entire childhood.
If you want to be stuck in the past, that’s your problem, but don’t go assuming shlt you don’t even understand.
Btw, that’s just Metal Slug with woke shlt shoved on it, making your statement even more stvpid!
How is it “woke” – Ares and Fio were female characters from the OG Metal Slugs; if it is woke, how does that make my comment even more stupid (what’s the relationship between liking a certain gameplay style & social politics) and why is it “a problem” that I prefer pixel art to CGI and gameplay that is centered around how skilled you can get vs how many hours it takes to beat a game… remember how amazing it felt when you finally beat that last boss for the first time instead of seeing the game over screen once your lives and continues were out?? Having a cartridge that you had forever and see new content by getting to a stage you hadn’t ever reached instead of buying DLCs?? And what was I “assuming” that I don’t understand? You just said the stuff you used to think was lit is sh**ty now and based on how looks said you only see an old game.
I was born in the 80s and it isn’t that I only like games that are 16bit or less. I enjoyed some games on my PS3. Dreamcast was the pinnacle era for me. But the big AAA titles now just feel like having your hand held through a generic action film pandering to whatever has the broadest appeal. I actually do know a lot about my personal experience of the games I played as I grew up. don’t know explaining how other people, including myself, have different tastes than you is influencer talk… or why you seem so angry about it.
Something wrong about this trailer that i can’t quite put my finger on it. The graphics are on point, could even accuse then of stealing the original sprites, but the enemy behaviour is just… braindead. And the choice of weapon is just r-tarded, a harpoon.
Not even worth commenting on the lame female protagonists, indie games already got the sjw brain worm and won’t even consider releasing a male character.
Why does it bother you so much that they used a female character? Metal slug had Ares and Fio – and when your playing you can’t even really notice the gender.
I would say they modified the sprites, the Sfx blatantly sound like a direct rip of the audio files. Surprised they didn’t get a cease and desist order from MS studios lawyers lol
I know about that, i just don’t like the whole design of the characters in general, too bland.
What did you mean about indie devs being social justice warriors too scared to design male protagonists? That has nothing to do with how bland it looks, and sounds more like a political view… Who cares if the character is boy, girl, robot, whatever the hell a Q*Bert is? lol
I said those particular female characters look bland, it’s like they want to create a female character but don’t go all the way. Apart from that the game looks like a Metal Slug clone.
Again, how is that related to having a “sjw brain worm”? You seem like you’re avoiding what I am actually asking
Sjw’s love bland design.
Oh, didn’t know that. I follow what you’re getting at then
Case in point is the Flat art design. It took forth along these years.
Took forth along these years? Sorry, I don’t know what you’re referring to. Or was that supposed to be one sentence. Legitimately interested in trying to understand what that second part means
It’s called Corporate Menphis: “Corporate Memphis (alternative names: Alegria art, big tech art, or flat art) is an art style named after the Memphis Group that features flat areas of color and geometric elements. Widely associated with Big Tech illustrations in the late 2010s[1] and early 2020s,[2] It has been criticized by most as uninspired”
ok so was a single sentence. just was confused by the period and wasn’t sure if it was that or meant took “fourth” like 4th place, I understand. I am actually very familiar with the movement and agree from experience seeing them around the offices the medtech company I work how utterly generic that corporate “art” is. More like the direction that marketing took their ad design in — Metaverse looked like a 3d version of it when Zuck revealed it to a laughing world.
Stolen Slug, just like that ROLW game taking SOTN sprites. Lazy lazy lazy zzz
Wow – the first half of this comment thread is just incel city. How many ways can you hate on a Metal Slug Clone because it has female characters in it – especially when half the characters in MS were female!
No one was yelling about Tomb Raider being snowflake, gender-affirming woke shlt. Was it just cause Laura Croft had massive knockers? Is there some rule I never heard of where girls must be thirst traps in order to be in a video game?