Metal Slug X: Behind Enemy Lines (越南戰役X: 深入敵後), or Metal Slug X, is a bootleg original game for the Game Boy Color developed by Sintax and published by them in the 2000s, possibly around 2005.[1] It is loosely based on the SNK Metal Slug series.
Overview[]
Metal Slug X is an extensive modification of a previous Sintax game, Zook Hero 3, that alters the graphics and makes major changes to the gameplay. Item drops from enemies are modified, the level select is removed (the whole game is essentially made into one long level), the ability to save progress is removed, and no weapons are acquired when a boss is defeated. The weapon select menu is also removed. However, weapon upgrades may be temporarily acquired via enemy drops, like in the official Metal Slug games.
In the game, the player plays as Trevor Spacey from Metal Slug 4 through 9 linear levels. Trevor is simply a reskin of Zook from Zook Hero 3, meaning that he plays identically to Zook and retains his base functionality, including shooting horizontally and having the ability to roll into a ball (similar to the morph ball from the Metroid series). The game still has health and weapon energy bars for the player, and enemies still drop refills for both, the latter of which can be utilized when the player has a weapon upgrade. Some enemies are original, though others come from various official games. The music is lifted from the Game Boy game Rockman World 2 (Mega Man 2 outside Japan) but plays at a much slower tempo.
Trivia[]
- Another variant of Zook Hero 3, named 新瘋狂阿給 泡泡堂, was produced and released by Sintax prior to Metal Slug X. It does not have the same gameplay changes that Metal Slug X features and only replaces graphics.
- Metal Slug X's ROM contains a lot of leftover graphical assets from Zook Hero 3, including an intro picture featuring Zook (which is an edited cutscene portrait of X from the first Mega Man Xtreme game), graphics for the boss select screen, and boss portraits and descriptions. The palettes for these graphics are also included in the ROM. The main menu and boss select screens from Zook Hero 3 can be re-enabled in Metal Slug X by modifying the game's code.
- The second to last boss is X from Mega Man Xtreme.[2] The final boss is a giant wireframe head resembling Sigma from the Mega Man X series.
- Pressing down and select in-game will cause the player to skip to the next screen. Doing this in Metal Slug X will allow the player to skip screens until they reach the end credits. In "新瘋狂阿給 泡泡堂", this can be performed until the final screen of a level, after which the level will simply be exited. No weapon will be received for doing so and the level will not be marked as completed. The button combo does not appear to do anything in the original game, Zook Hero 3 (tested with the cracked ROM; it is unknown if it works on the original protected cartridge).