I think despite it's many, mostly minor, issues lying in this game it is an overall great game to play. Making a 3D game out of an IP that's been pretty much 2D for the entirety of its existence is no easy task but the developers did an outstanding job trying to replicate and live up to a lot of the details the original games had. I think they did a good job and converting the artstyle into textures and designing set pieces that would be found in the Arcade cabinets even if it took me awhile to get accustomed to the chibi models that are inherently a reflection of the era this game came out in. I was very surprised to see just how much of this game was already in English, I was worried I wouldn't understand the plot or the objectives this game has but for the most part I could get away with not knowing Japanese for like 95% of this game (the item descriptions is where its an absolute if you somehow believe in not using a Wiki or Gamefaqs). in its presentation I found that the only issues this game really has in that aspect is that the English voice acting was poorly done (very reminiscent of standard anime voicework of the same year) and that the animations were a bit basic during the cutscenes. My initial impressions of the gameplay made me feel like the game was very poorly done with the controller layout not helping its case, things like the slug being jank to control and the rocket launcher not having auto aim just felt offensive on my first couple of missions but the more I played and really dove deep into the game the more I understood a lot of the design choices they made. for the most part a lot of the sections in this game are intentionally designed to get you to play a specific manner or to force you to think about quick and effective methods to beating the enemies in your way. Your auto aiming will prioritize small time soldiers and incoming projectiles first before the tanks and trucks so if it seems that you are losing a fight by being outnumbered its more likely you've rushed in too quickly and let yourself get surrounded by a multitude of enemies than it is a condensed area. Most enemies don't engage with you first until you reach a certain distance to them and will stop chasing when you're far enough with few exceptions like helicopters with a set follow path and the enemies that for some odd reason are designed to follow you ruthlessly wherever you are. The game has its share of enemies in the sky seen early on in the game but its obvious even the devs did not find their use satisfying because you get only a decent bit of encounters where an enemy is above your line of sight afterwards and most of those are helicopters. I thought it was a stupid choice to not include auto tracking for the rocket launcher until I played the later levels and understood that the developers would prefer the player to be allowed to cheese enemies in the distance rather than be upclose and wait for its loading times AND THEN lose a run because the auto aiming locked on to the soldiers and not the rest of the fleet of heavy machinery targeting you. As for the Slug being jank it turns out you actually are given the option to upgrade your character(s) into improving the quality of the Slug controls, and you're even allowed to upgrade the slug both aesthetically and mechanically to tailor to your playstyle (although if I had to guess certain upgrade like the flamethrower shine better in specific missions more so than others). For the most part the gameplay as a whole is very reminiscent in the style of progression Earth Defense Force has to offer in its character upgrade system (not 1:1 of course but moreso on how playing specific characters is precisely how you can get points to upgrade the characters you just played) and the ammo and health management as a whole is very akin to the third and first person shooters of the era. I think the first and last boss encounter are very telling on how much budget and resources they had left because the first boss as a whole is just way more well designed, from its animations, attack patterns, even the introduction is just cool as hell to see. Meanwhile the final boss fight is a bit more straight forward and not leaving you constantly feeling like you're gonna slip and lose with a simple mistake. the 2nd Allen encounter is another great example of them losing assets to enhance scenarios because its obvious how artificial his difficulty is in order to prolong the game's runtime. Overall though I very much enjoyed this game and I wish SNK either ported this (with QOL patches) or just made another game like this on modern hardware because this style of game for Metal Slug made for a great conversion and a lot of what makes this game limiting can boil down to the hardware it came to, It's a shame SNK and Metal Slug fans alike will dog on any new 3D SNK title nowadays because they're probably not interested in touching something similar to this ever again.