Metal Slug: Awakening - TV Tropes

You only get to play as Tarma, Eri and Fio after unlocking them, though.

Metal Slug: Awakening (previously titled Metal Slug Code: J) is a 2021 video game produced by SNK, with collaboration from TiMi Studios (a subsidiary of Tencent Games) for the iOS and Android.

A mobile entry in SNK's 90s' classic shooter, Metal Slug, it features the original cast of Marco, Tarma, Fio and Eri on top of a set of new playable characters. Three characters can be selected at once and switched around to stack damage from their weapon's elements on enemies.

The game features several scenarios in its "World Adventure" mode. In the first, Marco defeats General Morden who had boarded the Keesi II but the villain is escorted by forces led by an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh to a pyramid. From there on, Marco's journey will lead him to underwater cities, floating islands and another planets.

See also Contra Returns, by the same developer.

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Metal Slug: Awakening contains examples of:

• Adaptational Attractiveness: All four of the main characters get a generous dose of this thanks to a new art style that pays homage to their original cartoony designs, but significantly tones down the more exaggerated or downright grotesque aspects (especially for Marco and Eri). The characters are slicked-up and even received the Adaptational Curves treatment, as seen in their intro. (This is especially notable for Eri, whose debut has the camera focusing on her... uhm, assets.)
• Adaptational Badass:
  • The player characters, whom are no longer the One-Hit-Point Wonder from the original games. As in the 2006 3D game, each player comes with their own health bar and can survive multiple gunshots, or at least getting hit by two tank rounds, before they die. Justified because, unlike the original (is an arcade game), the remake runs on checkpoints.
  • This trope actually plays both ways, with Rebel soldiers each having their own health bars. Now basic enemies don't die in just one hit, with the damage varying depending on the weapons the player is using (for context, it takes two Flame Shot rounds to cause enough damage to kill a single rebel). Additionally, shielded Rebel soldiers, upon having their shields shot off, no longer panic like idiots; they instead continue attacking the players a second after their protection is blown.
  • Remember the first R-Shobu from the original game's Villeneuve Mt. System, way back in Mission 1? It's been upgraded from just a mook to a Mini-Boss, capable of spamming missiles and machine-gun rounds all over the area. It's also built with multiple lifebars which Marco needs to deplete before finally going down. Later on, however, the R-Shobu turns up as a regular enemy.
  • The Mosque Artillery from Metal Slug 2 is a mid-level Mini-Boss that attacks with slow-moving missiles, and has pathetic health to boot; a rookie can destroy all three of these turrets while suffering minimal to zero health loss. In Awakening? It's much more durable, it can fire even more missiles at a frequent and unpredictable rate, and once its health are reduced to half, it begins launching waves of artilleries that comes at the players in a straight line. The remake effectively turns a Zero-Effort Boss into a Wake-Up Call Boss for players.
  • Mummy enemies from the pyramid levels are noticeably stronger and more durable than the original games, and it takes at least two Flame Shot rounds to even kill one. While mummies were only capable of attacking from close range in the original games, Awakening features mummies which can launch projectile attacks (in the form of balls of mummifying gas) from a distance or vomit mummifying smoke that covers half the screen.
  • The Iron Nokana's and Dragon Nosuke's bottom flamethrower in the original games can be avoided by simply running backwards. In this remake, both their flamethrowers have been upgraded to the point where their fire can actually cover the other side of the screen, for just a few seconds, necessitating the players to run backwards and jump to avoid getting incinerated. No doubt players unaware of this new upgrade would suffer some health loss when fighting either of these two bosses.
  • The Big Shiee, during both its battles, gains a new ability to spam missiles from both sides of the screen thanks to having multiple missile launchers attached on its sides; players will have to shoot down its missiles while avoiding its cannons.
  • Big John, considered one of the easiest bosses of the franchise, gets an upgrade as well. Its descending claws now have the ability to electrify their surroundings, and its fireball launcher can fire multiple projectiles at a much faster rate, as well as having a powerful and hard-to-dodge energy beam the original version lacks.
• Adaptation Deviation: The level in Ronbertburg City from the very first game has a memorable moment where players gets the Flame Shot after killing a sergeant — right as parachuting rebels start descending from the skies, allowing the players to roast numerous enemies before they hit the ground. Awakening, however, substituted the Flame Shot with the introduction of the Ice Shot — so instead of raining Men on Fire, it's raining Human Popsicle(s).
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • The very first boss players (as Marco, the sole playable hero at the time) will encounter is the Big Shiee, who in the original series doesn't show up until more than halfway through 2 (during the Hong Kong level, Mission 4). Subverted in that you don't actually fight it to the death; rather, halfway through the boss battle, a nuke suddenly blows up the arena and stops the battle entirely, and then you get to fight it in a rematch in a re-enactment of the original game's Hong Kong level.
  • The first unlockable character in the remake is Fio, who shows up in the Villeneuve Mt. System, lifted from the original series' very first level. In the series proper, Fio wouldn't appear until Metal Slug 2.
  • Big John from Metal Slug 4 is somehow found as a boss in one of the Metal Slug 2 flashback levels, even though he's a mech that doesn't belong to the Rebel Army.
• Adaptation Origin Connection:
  • The Black Hound tank, which shows up as a boss in several levels, is implied to be a weapon made by Morden's Rebels this time around, since its original creators, the Ptolemaic Army of Metal Slug 5, are nowhere to be seen during those battles. The Ptolemaic Army themselves are still present in this game, making it unclear if they were involved in the Black Hound's creation.
  • The Mosque Artillery turns out to be controlled by Allen O'Neil, operating all three turrets at the same time. In the original games they're operated by three random rebels, O'Neil doesn't even appear in the same stage.
• Adapted Out:
  • Although the Ptolemaic Army from Metal Slug 5 is present, the guerillas (the first type of Ptolemaic soldier encountered) are nowhere to be seen at all. This includes the Ptolemaic snipers and the cultists.
  • The pyramid levels from Metal Slug 2/X are recreated faithfully as well, with the Aeshi Nero's tower visible in the background... but surprise. surprise, the Aeshi Nero is not in the game. Rather, after defeating the last batch of mummies at the tower's foot, you're suddenly attacked by the Black Hound, and after defeating it you're then greeted with the "Mission Complete" screen without even facing the Aeshi Nero.
  • The next level where you attack the rebel depot on the train is included in the remake, but the segment where you're attacked by three Hammer-Yangs from under a bridge is skipped over. As a Bait-and-Switch, the scene remake zooms out to show the player on a bridge over waters (much like the original), and just as players are bracing themselves for another tough battle, the game suddenly zooms back in to the players.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • The Rebel Air Force gets hit by this trope, hard. While Rebel planes like the Flying Tara and Eaca-B aren't that strong to begin with, here they're practically made of cardboard, getting shot out of the air by a handful of machine gun rounds. For perspective, the scenario in 1 on the rooftops of Ronbertburg City where players battle three Eaca-Bs is replaced by... players battling dozens and dozens of the same airplane models, which they can destroy three to five at a time thanks to their Heavy Machine Gun/Ice Shot.
  • The same thing can be said for the Rebel Army's light helicopter variant (the MH-6S Masknell), whose firing rate has been deceased compared to its original counterpart. And thanks to the player being more durable and granted the ability to attack diagonally, returning fire is much easier. The Masknell Squadron that shows up occasionally (a group of five helicopters, led by a red Regimental Masknell) is also a breeze compared to the original games, as their ability to spread bullets all over the screen is replaced by the lead Masknell launching bullets in one concentrated location instead.
  • Downplayed example with the Tani-Oh, which uses gatling guns and landmines much like its original counterpart. However, its landmines don't explode on contact and only detonate after three seconds, meaning players can simply waltz over them while attacking the Tani-Oh. And since this time around players can attack downwards without resorting to pressing the down, jump, and shoot buttons at the same time, they can damage the Tani-Oh's while running around the area, making the boss battle considerably easier.
  • The Keesi, unlike the original, doesn't have flunkies assisting it. And thanks to the boss arena being expanded, when the Keesi starts using its Weaponized Exhaust, the player can simply run to a corner of the area, where the exhaust's flames won't be able to reach them, and return fire from their safe position (unlike the original where players need to be constantly running to avoid getting incinerated). Granted, the Keesi can drop a napalm strike unlike its original counterpart, but that attack only covers a single portion of the arena and isn't that difficult to avoid.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The game features optional auto aiming to help with how finicky touch screen controls can be, but it has flaws such as being unable to aim upwards at prisoners who are hanging out of reach. Also, the option to switch targets by touching the screen must be manually enabled in the options menu.
  • Oddly enough, the game rushes your progression after a certain point by triggering an event that raises your level by about 40 and upgrades your currently equipped weapons to match it. This has the effect of completely breaking the Story Mode's difficulty curve, with only the final boss being able to put any resistance and only the newly unlocked side modes and the post-Story content being able to provide players an actual challenge.
  • You can switch resources between weapons, cores and clothing with only a small price in sapphires for it.
• Arc Villain: Each story arc features its own villain, with General Morden being presented as a Big Bad Wannabe who manipulates them and provides them with his troops and technology but either gets kicked out at a critical moment or just runs away from Marco.
• Attack Drone: One item deploys a flying drone that copies your current weapon. In Pursuit mode, you can enable both it and a turret to help fight the incoming enemies on the arena.
• Badass Biker: Tarma, much like his original incarnation, favours a motorcycle as his transport. While playing as Tarma in certain levels, you can actually have him speeding around on a bike while kicking all kinds of ass, an element absent in the original games.
• Bag of Spilling: You lose your currently equipped item between levels, but sometimes one will be dropped during a boss fight. If you can collect it during the intermission scene afterwards, then you can begin the next level with it.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The Brazilian Portuguese localization loves using male pronouns for female characters by mistake. It also translates "Return/Go back" on the menus as "Devolver", which means to give back something to someone.
• Bottomless Magazines: The game does not feature the basic Handgun weapon with infinite ammo. Instead, you equip on each character a semi-infinite version of any other special weapon that takes a moment to reload whenever the ammo runs out or when you stop firing. Switching between characters upon running out of ammo is the way to prevent that pause between attacks.
• Bowdlerise: Mai Shiranui's usual skimpy kunoichi outfit has its cleavage covered up in this Chinese game.
• Compressed Adaptation: For most of the part, Awakening adapts the plot of the first three Metal Slug games (1, 2/X, 3) with elements borrowed from sequels occasionally peppered throughout its stages, basically compressing the entire franchise into a single game.
• Crossover: Bizarrely, Kyo Kusanagi was added to the playable cast before Ralf, Clark and Leona. So far, Leona and Mai Shiranui are exclusive to the original Chinese version.
• Deadly Disc: Allen O'Neil comes equipped with this weapon, in addition to his usual Heavy Machine Gun and grenades — notably, his machine gun has a razor-sharp circular disc protuding from its front in the manner of a bayonet that deals additional damage to the heroes if they fail to avoid it in time.
• Death from Above:
  • The first boss battle against the Big Shiee is interrupted by a nuke that drops on the arena. Subverted when Marco survives the incident and comes back in the next level after an unspecified Time Skip in the Villeneuve Mt. System.
  • The Keesi, upon having enough health depleted, will retaliate by descending and revealing a massive cannon on its snout that drops a napalm strike right underneath it (a trait absent in the original games). It's not really as tough as it sounds, though — dodging that napalm attack is simply a matter of running to the corner of the screen.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • Oddly enough, Tarma has no role in the "Kemut Ruins" Story Mode scenario and can only be unlocked in the Hot Pursuit side mode.
  • The Mars People are omitted from the flashback missions in the Kemut Ruins story and only make a cameo in the ending. It is only several scenarios later that the heroes travel into space to confront them.
• Denial of Diagonal Attack: Averted — this time you can have your player character shooting diagonally and in any direction you want by tapping on the screen. It makes a lot of difficult bosses from the original games a lot easier.
• Direct Continuous Levels: Several stages in Story Mode are connected together, with intermission scenes interrupting the action between the results screen and the mission start call.
• Disney Death: Fio after the Hairbuster Riberts boss fight, from falling off a helicopter. She gets better.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Played for Laughs when the Kemut Ruins story is cleared for the first time — Marco is said to have been hospitalized after being inexplicably crushed under the pyramid's ruins offscreen.
• Elite Mooks:
  • Rebel sergeants dressed in yellow fatigues appears in several levels, and unlike the original games, this time they live up to their reputation — it takes at least ten bullets to even kill a sergeant, and they tend to have faster speed when attacking players.
  • The "special" mummies who can launch projectiles from a distance probably count as well.
• Emergency Energy Tank: One item refills the life gauge on use. The gimmick of "Maze" mode is that your health is repidly draining through a long stage, so you need to keep collecting the healing item from special enemies and use it over and over.
• Excuse Plot: The first hard mode loop in Kemut Ruins is justified in-universe as Marco cleaning up remaining threats to civilians in the desert city. There is no cutscenes between levels, and subsequent hard mode loops have no such justification.
• Extended Gameplay: By clearing the Kemut Ruins story mode, it unlocks a second loop on hard difficulty and without any more cutscenes that skips the flashback levels. Clearing this second playthrough actually moves the story past that point with a new set of levels and cutscenes.
• Fake Longevity: At key points of each story scenario, the player is forced to play it all over again in hard mode to unlock the next part of the story. On Kemut Ruins you at least play what's essentially a full game with a final boss before the first hard mode loop, but in scenarios like City of Atlan it abruptly happens on a cliffhanger at the 2/3 point of the story with no in-universe justification for why the player has to do it all over again.
• Failure Is the Only Option: The first level sees Marco successfully tracking down General Morden, who has boarded the Big Shiee and is about to escape. Unfortunately, it's impossible to capture Morden no matter what — while battling the Big Shiee, a nuke suddenly drops and stops Marco from pursuing Morden.
• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • In Kemut Ruins 16-2, one of the combat encounters might get softlocked due to an enemy somehow spawning out of bounds. This makes it impossible to kill it and continue.
  • Atlan 8-4 must be accessed from the menu because its starting trigger does not spawn after the 8-3 intermission. The cutscene after the boss in 8-4 then plays without audio and with Chinese subtitles, with no subsequent indication that the player is supposed to clear all the stages up to that point again in hard mode to procceed the story.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere:
  • The game treats the factions of Metal Slugs 4 and 5 as if they're just part of Morden's main troops. This leads to things like Big John appearing out of nowhere in a Metal Slug 2 flashback level while the Martians are inexplicably nowhere to be seen.
  • The Elder Centipede that attacks in the post game of Kemut Ruins can be counted as this; in the original series, the Elder Centipede is an attacking unit serving the Invaders, but as the Invaders aren't present here, the Elder Centipede seems to pop up right when players aren't exactly expecting to fight it.
• The Great Serpent: The guardian/boss of the pyramid's inner sanctum, Apep the great serpent, is a giant water-dwelling cobra that attacks players on floating islets from underneath. The player character needs to jump from one platform to another to avoid getting devoured, all while firing back at Apep. Once Apep's health is down to its last bar, it simply swims away rather than fighting players to the death.
• Health Meter: Like in previous mobile spinoffs in the series, the player does not die in one hit and it is possible to upgrade the health gauge. Even minor mooks can take quite a beating in this game if you are underleveled and bosses can come with dozens of life bars.
• Invincibility Power-Up: Essentially the purpose of the Slugs in most of the game, as they are normally summoned for a limited time when a special gauge fills up. You can just carelessly shoot enemies up while the Slug is active, as the timer will always run out before their health bar does and send your character back on foot. This is especially helpful in the Maze missions, as the Slugs will prevent characters from losing health.
• Kill It with Ice: The Ice Shot is a new weapon in this remake, which releases a continuous stream of freezing mist that turn enemy rebels into Human Popsicles with lethal results. Use this against tanks and the entire vehicle will be frozen solid before shattering apart seconds later.
• Limit Break: Every character has a special move and a super attack that are both enabled after waiting for their gauges to fill up. Marco's is unique in that it is a time-slow effect that grants infinite ammo, extra power and even comes with its own little Theme Music Power-Up.
• Macross Missile Massacre:
  • Numerous bosses are outfitted with additional missile launchers, including the Big Shiee and the Hairbuster Riberts. In the case of the Mosque Artillery (which is already this trope in the original series), they can fire twice the amount of missiles on the heroes.
  • Marco himself has a missile dispenser in his backpack, which can be activated by achieving his Limit Break, resulting in a dozen missiles blasting nearby enemies. It's very useful against bosses.
• Mirror Boss: Allen O'Neil makes a comeback and battles the players just like in the original games. In addition, there is another Mini-Boss called the Mercenary, a human-sized opponent who spam grenade attacks at the players, though the Mercenary isn't anywhere as fast or as deadly compared to Allen.
• Monster in the Moat: In the inner sanctum of the pyramids, after getting pass the Sphinx boss, the next area is a moat guarded by Apep, a giant serpent boss. The player has to cross the moat's surface on rock platforms while avoiding Apep's attacks from below and dealing retaliatory damage. Once Apep's health is depleted, it then swims away, never to be seen again.
• Mook Promotion: Several minor enemies, like the first helicopter seen in the first stage of Metal Slug 1, are granted Boss Subtitles, a more aggressive behavior and multiple life bars.
• Mythology Gag: The ending of Metal Slug 3 with the gun sinking and hitting a fish was supposed to be a Sequel Hook to 4 featuring mermen as the villains, but the idea was scrapped at the time. The ending to Kemut Ruins in Awakening is a recreation of the ending from Metal Slug 1 where the flying paper airplane is suddenly shot down over the ocean, and the camera pans down underwater like in 3 to tease the villainous faction featured in the next scenario, Ancient City of Atlan.
• Non-Indicative Name: "Maze mode" is the name given to a set of missions that take place in levels just as linear as any others in the game, much unlike the Dungeon bonus level from Metal Slug Advance.
• Non-Lethal Bottomless Pits: Pits and hazards like lava pools deplete a fixed chunk of the life bar regardless of your defense stat and respawn you on the nearest safe floor. If a boss fight happens to have pits, however, than on some instances those are lethal.
• Nostalgia Level:
  • The first story scenario begins with a remake of Stage 1 from Metal Slug 2. Morden appears aboard the Keesi II and is then rescued by ancient Egyptian forces, sending the plot in a different direction than expected.
  • In the first Story Mode, there are times where Marco will tell stories of his past adventures to other characters. These take the form of loose remakes of stages from the original trilogy that are split in two or three parts. Those are the only stages where you can collect weapon boxes as powerups, and they are not playable in the Hard mode loop.
• Parachute in a Tree: This is where players, as Marco, first encounter Fio — stuck in a tree at the Villeneuve Mt. System level, in the background of the R-Shobu mini-boss fight. Since she's stranded in midair, she's pretty much helpless, and she gets unstuck when the R-Shobu crashes at the base of the tree, resulting in a massive explosion that sends the poor girl out of the tree before landing painfully several meters away. (It's one of those instances where onscreen injuries are played for laughs, however, and Fio gets up looking more embarassed than actually hurt.)
• Play Every Day: Awakening gives a variety of small bonuses to collect and tasks to clear each day for experience points. It can take upwards of 10 minutes of menu browsing to get this done with and actually play the game.
• Player Versus Player: An unlockable option in the game, where you can pit your player in an online arena against two or more challengers elsewhere in the world. Weapons, vehicles, and power-ups are provided for participants to eliminate each other for extra points and bonuses.
• Power-Up:
  • The usual boxes with limited ammo weapons only appear in the flashback levels featured in the first part of the Kemut Ruins story. There's actually a couple of weapons among them that have no equivalent that can be equipped on the player characters.
  • There's a category of items that can be equiped one at a time: a healing box, a circular barrier, a pair of freezing granades and an Attack Drone that copies your weapon.
  • Some levels feature is a flask item that boosts speed for a period of time.
  • The "Hot Pursuit" mode plays as a sequence of roguelite arena fights where after each win you pick one out of a series of powerups and stat boosts. The powerups reset after a level set is fully cleared.
• Recurring Boss:
  • Big Shiee is fought twice, with the first battle (in Mission 1) interrupted by a nuke separating Marco and the boss. It returns in the Hong Kong level for a second battle, this time to the death.
  • The Black Hound, in addition to showing up in the pyramids, also appears in more than one area. In fact, the players will have to defeat it multiple times throughout the course of the game.
• Relationship Values: While interacting with Fio in the first few Story Mode intermissions, you must choose the correct dialogue options to flatter her and quickly unlock her as a playable character. Oddly enough, this is the only time a friendship stat value appears in the story.
• Riddling Sphinx: Visiting the desert ruins a second time shows that the Sphinx (which only shows up in the original games as a background feature) has been converted into a mechanized enemy, which attacks players with eye-lasers and missiles. Players need to solve its riddles while avoiding attacks, and the battle ends when all three riddles are solved, at which point the Sphinx deactivates.
• Schizophrenic Difficulty: The game has a convoluted progression system and reliance on level grinding that makes you switch between several kinds of modes to advance in Story Mode. To unlock most of the modes early, the game will enable an event that boosts your character level by around 40. This suddenly makes the second half of Story Mode 1 run on Baby Difficulty with everything including bosses dying in instants. Only by playing it again on Hard difficulty or unlocking one of the alternate story scenarios with level scaling on their difficulty does the game give a proper balanced challenge.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The final boss in the pyramid, Moro's Legacy, which is described as "an ancient, dormant superweapon which suddenly became active", is the game's counterpart to the Monoeye UFO. It surrounds itself with blocks of sentient crystal shards which circles the arena while blasting players with energy balls (not unlike the Monoeyes) and once all the shards are defeated, Moro's core then activates and attacks by dropping monoliths. Be warned, though — unlike the Monoeye UFO, Moro's Legacy is capable of dropping two monoliths at the same time, as well as firing energy blasts of its own.
• Timed Mission: Most missions in the game are timed and that's how the game locks progress and enforces Level Grinding. Your characters must be strong enough to clear a level in time and in some modes the next level won't unlock without a perfect performance, preventing skilled players from advancing with underleveled gameplay.
• Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: Zig-zagged — the Flame Shot in Awakening seems to be closer to its incarnation from the first game, where it's only capable of firing a single weak fireball that does minor damages to tanks and vehicles. However, it's been granted infinite ammunition, and by holding on the firing button players can launch a Charged Attack, resulting in a Ring of Fire projectile that does wonders on bosses.
• Waterfall Shower: The first level in Villeneuve Mt. adds a moment where Marco interrupts two Rebels currently bathing themselves under a waterfall, who predictably flee when Marco starts shooting at them.
• Wizard Needs Food Badly: The gimmick of Maze mode is that your health is constantly draining due to some excuse like extreme weather or poison, so you need to constantly pick up healing items and summon a Slug at the proper time to clear a long level and a Damage-Sponge Boss. The medkit actually works on both the current character and the benched ones in this mode only, encouraging players to hold out until all three are in critical condition before healing them.

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