DEV Community: sun jack

Metal Slug (1996): The Hand-Drawn Arcade Run-and-Gun That Still Holds Up

sun jack — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 08:28:26 +0000

Some games you remember for their story. Metal Slug you remember for the explosions, and for the fact that every single frame of them was drawn by hand.

Released in arcades in 1996 on SNK's Neo Geo MVS, Metal Slug (subtitled Super Vehicle-001) was developed by Nazca Corporation, a small studio founded by former Irem developers. It became the start of one of the most loved run-and-gun series ever made.

👉 Play Metal Slug in your browser (free, no download or sign-up)

The Setup

You play as Marco Rossi or Tarma Roving of the Peregrine Falcon Squad. General Morden and his Rebel Army have launched a coup, and the military's newest weapon, the SV-001 "Metal Slug" tank, is caught up in the chaos. Your job is to fight through the Rebels, get the Slug back and take Morden down.

That is about all the story you need. The game spends its energy on six missions packed with jungles, ruined towns, snowy mountains and heavily fortified Rebel bases, each ending in a huge boss fight.

How It Plays

The controls are about as simple as arcade games get: move, shoot, jump and throw a grenade. Everything else comes from what you pick up and how you survive.

Weapons: You start with a basic pistol, but rescued prisoners drop power-ups like the Heavy Machine Gun, Rocket Launcher, Flame Shot and Shotgun. Each has limited ammo, so you are constantly swapping.
Knife attacks: Get close to an enemy and the fire button turns into a melee slash, which hits hard.
Prisoners (POWs): Tied-up bearded prisoners are scattered through every mission. Free them for points and item drops.
One-hit deaths: A single bullet kills you, so the game rewards learning enemy patterns and keeping on the move.
Two-player co-op: A second player can join at any time, which turns the game into glorious chaos.

The Metal Slug Itself

The tank is the star of the show. When you find one, you can jump in and suddenly you have a vulcan cannon that aims independently of the direction you move, plus heavy cannon shells for anything big. It can take a few hits before it is destroyed, and getting out just before it blows up is a skill every regular learned the hard way.

Later games added planes, camels, mechs and more, but the original tank is still the most iconic vehicle in the series.

Why the Art Still Holds Up

The pixel art is what made Metal Slug famous, and it has aged far better than most 3D games from the same era.

Every soldier, explosion and bit of debris is hand-animated. Rebel soldiers chat, cook over campfires and panic when they spot you. Enemies scream and run, buildings crumble piece by piece, and bosses fall apart in stages. Add the famous voice shouting "Heavy Machine Gun!" when you grab a power-up, and it is easy to see why so many people still remember it.

It is also genuinely funny. The game takes its war setting about as seriously as a Saturday morning cartoon, and that tone carried through the whole series.

Tips for First-Timers

Free every POW. The items they drop are your main source of better weapons.
Use the knife. Up close it deals more damage than most guns.
Keep moving. Most deaths come from stray bullets, not from bosses.
Save grenades for bosses and for enemies behind cover.
Bring a friend. Co-op makes the harder missions much more manageable, and twice as fun.

If you get hooked, the rest of the series is waiting: Metal Slug 2, X and 3 are widely considered the high point of the franchise.

Under the Hood (for the Devs Here)

Full disclosure: I built OnlineRetroGame, the site linked in this post. Since this is DEV, here is one thing that building it taught me about arcade games.

A console game is usually a single ROM file. A Neo Geo game like Metal Slug is not: it is a romset, several ROM chip dumps packed into one zip, and the arcade emulator (FinalBurn Neo, compiled to WebAssembly) expects to receive that zip exactly as-is.

My loader normally sniffs each file's magic bytes to detect its real format and unpacks archives in the browser before handing them to the emulator. Arcade romsets have to skip that step and be passed through untouched, otherwise the emulator cannot find the chips it is looking for. It is a small detail, but it caused a lot of "why won't this boot?" moments.

On phones and tablets, an on-screen gamepad turns taps into keyboard events, so the same emulator setup works on desktop and mobile.

Give It a Try

Whether you pumped coins into this cabinet in the '90s or you have never seen it before, Metal Slug is still one of the best 20-minute arcade experiences around.

🎮 Play Metal Slug online

Did you ever beat it on one credit? Tell me in the comments.

The King of Fighters '97: The Orochi Saga Finale That Never Left the Arcade

sun jack — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 07:13:03 +0000

If you spent any time in an arcade in the late '90s, especially in Asia, there's a good chance The King of Fighters '97 was the cabinet with the biggest crowd around it. Released by SNK on the Neo Geo MVS in 1997, it closed out the Orochi Saga and went on to become one of the most-played fighting games of all time.

👉 Play The King of Fighters '97 in your browser (no download or install needed)

The Story: Closing the Orochi Saga

KOF '97 is the third and final chapter of the Orochi Saga that began in KOF '95. The tournament has grown into a worldwide televised event, and that huge audience is exactly what Orochi's remaining followers have been waiting for.

At the heart of the story are the three clans that sealed Orochi away long ago: Kyo Kusanagi, Iori Yagami and Chizuru Kagura. The trouble is that Kyo and Iori can barely stand to be in the same room. The newcomers of the New Faces Team (Yashiro, Shermie and Chris) turn out to be far more than a rock band, and the ending, where two bitter rivals are forced onto the same side, is still one of the most memorable moments in the series.

Gameplay: Two Modes, One Classic

The core is the classic KOF format: pick three fighters and battle another team of three, or play one-on-one in Single mode. Each character uses four buttons: light punch, light kick, heavy punch and heavy kick.

The big addition in '97 is the choice between two fighting systems:

Advanced Mode builds on KOF '96. You get dashes, short hops, rolls and a power gauge that stores up to three stocks, which fill up as you attack and defend. Spend a stock on a super move, or press A+B+C to enter MAX mode for a powered-up window.
Extra Mode brings back the KOF '95 feel. You charge your power gauge by hand, dodge in place instead of rolling, and once your health bar starts flashing red you can fire off desperation moves freely.

Advanced Mode is faster and more combo-friendly; Extra Mode is slower and more about reading your opponent. Having both in one game is a big part of why '97 kept players coming back.

The Roster

All the series favorites are here: Terry, Andy, Joe and Mai from Fatal Fury, Ryo and Robert from Art of Fighting, the Ikari Warriors with Leona, Athena's Psycho Soldier team, and more. New for this year:

Shingo Yabuki, Kyo's enthusiastic (and very self-taught) would-be student
The New Faces Team: Yashiro Nanakase, Shermie and Chris
A Special Team of Fatal Fury guests: Billy Kane, Ryuji Yamazaki and Blue Mary
The Sacred Treasures Team: Kyo, Iori and Chizuru, finally standing together

Then there are the hidden fighters that every arcade regular whispered about: Orochi Iori and Orochi Leona (both consumed by the Riot of the Blood), awakened versions of the New Faces Team, and the final boss himself, Orochi.

Why People Still Play It

KOF '97 became a phenomenon in China and Hong Kong in particular. Arcades kept their cabinets running for years after newer games came out, and there is still an active competitive scene today. Its engine is fast and easy to read, and even its famous quirks and glitches have become part of the culture around it.

SNK clearly knows it too: the game was re-released in 2018 as The King of Fighters '97 Global Match for modern consoles and PC, more than twenty years after it first hit arcades.

Tips for First-Timers

Start in Advanced Mode. Rolls and stored power stocks make it more forgiving for new players.
Roll with A+B to escape pressure or get behind a slow attack.
Learn one simple combo per character, for example a jumping heavy attack into a crouching light kick into a special move.
Pick a balanced team. Kyo, Iori and Terry are all great characters to learn the basics with.

Default keyboard controls on the browser version: arrow keys to move, Z / X / A / S for the four attack buttons, Enter to start and Right Shift to insert a coin. On phones and tablets an on-screen gamepad appears automatically.

How It Runs in a Browser (for the Devs Here)

Full disclosure: I built OnlineClassicGame, the site linked in this post. Since this is DEV, a quick look under the hood:

The arcade version runs on FinalBurn Neo compiled to WebAssembly, loaded through Nostalgist.js (a lightweight wrapper around RetroArch's web build).
The front end is plain vanilla JavaScript (ES Modules) + Tailwind CSS, with no build step.
On touch devices, a virtual gamepad translates taps into keyboard events, so the same emulator setup works on desktop and mobile.

Happy to answer questions in the comments if you're building something similar.

Give It a Try

Whether you're coming back for nostalgia or meeting Kyo and Iori for the first time, '97 is still one of the best ways to see what made SNK's fighters special.

🎮 Play The King of Fighters '97 online

Which team did you always pick? Let me know in the comments.