I remember as a child receiving Nintendo Power every month. I'd look forward to it. A decade ago, you'd have to resort to video game magazines to find out information about a game and whether or not it's worth your time. You'd rely on a paid opinion, and Nintendo Power was notorious for hyping the game with highest bid.
In February of 1991, Metal Storm graces the cover of Issue 22 with the cover art, a 12 page spread of maps and strategy going across the back-side of the poster, and also the poster itself had the Metal Storm Mech (though that could have been a different month). Quite a lot of press. Thanks to the Nintendo Power hype machine, I was exposed, but at the time I didn't think anything of it because I was more focused on Mega Man, Mario, and Sonic.
Flash forward to a couple years later when I read a review of the game saying it was the hardest nintendo game to date. "Oh really? Metal Storm?" I muttered to myself. Interesting. At least I think this review said it was the hardest. Maybe they meant hardest to find or something.
Flash forward again to last night when I finally played the game for the first time. This game is pretty damn awesome. It is quite tough, but it's that challenging kind of tough, not the impossible kind of touch. Zach and I ended up beating the game through on Normal in one sitting last night in the span of about maybe 2 hours. It's not that the game is so difficult, it's just a different point of view getting used to playing with gravity.
Metal Storm / Nintendo Entertainment System / 1990-91 / Irem (the makers of R-type)
Metal Storm is a side-strolling 1 player game where you control a mecha through 7 action-filled levels. Each level has 2 parts and then a boss with the except of level 7 where you just fight all the previous bosses again. There's no real story except what the game tells you at the very end after defeating the final boss.
Metal Storm has two very unique game design features that i haven't seen in any NES game, or any other video game past that.
1. You can shift the gravity of the stage, so you either run across the ground, or run across the ceiling. It may seem like a dumb idea, but this key feature makes the game challenging to try and defeat enemies while navigating the levels.
2. Levels are vertically infinite. This goes hand in hand with switching the gravity around. Some stages are just straight, but some stages have you navigate through much larger mazes, where the screen move in all 4 directions, rather than just left and right, or up and down.
Throughout the six actually designed levels of Metal Storm, the design gets more and more intricate. Level 1 is your basic side scrolling level. You don't really need to switch gravity a whole lot, but it's there for you to mess around with and get familiar with it's exploits when in later stages, it is your greatest defense.
Level 2 gets right into the usage of gravity switching, as shown in those above screen shots. You have to navigate through an infinite maze, where you must switch gravity every now and then in order to correct jump through platforms. and so on....
Most controls are basic. Run left and a right, jump, and shoot. It takes a little getting used to for switching the gravity. You can switch when you're on the ground or in the air, but you can't continuously switch in mid-air. you must touch the ground before you can change. To change gravity, if you're on the ground you hold up and hit the jump button, or if you're on the celing you hold down and hit the jump button. There's no one button to hit to switch so sometimes you'll be holding the wrong direction trying to change gravity. this is also a little weird when you're on the ceiling and you want to duck, you must hold up, instead of down.
It takes a little getting used to, but once you get used to it, it's not awkward anymore.
Gameplay aside, navigating through rightside up and upside down levels simutanously while defending yourself against other mechs, gunners and spaceshits is quite a task. Once you get hit by anything, you die. You don't have a life bar, or anything. You can get an item so you can get hit twice before you die, but thats it. Anything more, would make this game too easy, I'd say. The game gives you infinite continues already, what more do you want?
This game can get pretty intense, but as said before, it's the good kind of intense. most of the time when you die, it's some dumb mistake you shouldn't have made, not because 25 enemies rushed you (not like the nes could have 25 sprites on a screen at once anyways). All situations in the game can be taken care of with a little patient and practice.
For a Nintendo Game, the animation is quite above par. Most walk cycles, explosions, and movements have 5-10 frames each making the game look very fluid, very fast. Some Levels also have multiple layers moving in the background for an added shiny effect. Very high quality stuff packed into this game.
As earlier stated, Metal Storm took Zach and me about 2 hours to go through the first time. But there are multiple difficulties once you've completed the game. You get Expert mode, and then after that Second Quest mode. Expert mode features more enemies, and Second Quest features tougher enemies with the exact same stages. It's nothing all that new. If there were a speedrun for this game, it'd probably be about 20 or 25 minutes long, if that.
Yeah, the music is pretty boring and generic, and the sounds aren't all that great either. Fortunately the overall game experience isn't tarneshed.
There is absolutely no inkling of story in this game whatsoever, until you've defeated the final boss and text rolls on the screen telling you what has happened. "but this is the nes age.. story has no place in a side-scroller."
Metal Storm features some very very interesting game design concepts that put a very interesting spin on a very overly used genre of the time, which made it both difficult and fun at the same time.
I'd definately reccommend this to anyone looking for a challenge from the past.