When there was a rumor about Persona 3 being remade, I had so many thoughts about how it could go. In my head, a perfect Persona 3 remake would feature the quality of life and gameplay improvements from Persona 3 Portable, the production of Persona 3 FES, and have cut-scenes like the Persona 3 movies while including all content from prior releases to be the definitive and complete package. When it was announced to be a remake based on the original game but with new content, features, and visuals, I was a bit confused. Fast forward to today, I’ve been playing Persona 3 Reload on Steam Deck and consoles, and the end result is pretty darn amazing in most ways, but there are a few things I wish were better.

I’m going to focus on the PC port of Persona 3 Reload and how it plays on Steam Deck in this review, but I will also cover the remake itself and how I find it compared to the originals and Atlus’ recent releases. If you’ve never played Persona 3 before, but have played Persona 4 or Persona 5, you’re in for a treat. In a lot of ways, Persona 3 felt like a bridge between modern and older Persona, and was a lot of folks’ first Persona game. I loved most of the cast, the story, the music, and just living in that world. I didn’t like a few characters in the story, the main dungeon of the game, some gameplay issues compared to newer releases, and the pacing. A lot of the issues have been addressed in Persona 3 Reload which aims to bring in Persona 5 Royal-like gameplay mechanics to the fray with modern visuals and added content, but this has resulted in some of the old game’s charm being lost. It isn’t a huge deal though, but I will get into what I didn’t end up liking in Persona 3 Reload.

The gameplay improvements are across the board essentially here. You see this right from exploration, social life, and interactions. In addition to all the freedom you get during day to day life, Tartarus itself has been dramatically improved. It feels towering and actually manages to make you feel like you’re in uncharted territory while climbing up rather than just hallways like in the original releases. When it comes to combat and dungeon exploration, there are new mechanics like special chests, powerful Theurgy attacks, a baton pass-like mechanic, and more. You can of course command party members, which is something I assumed would be included, but I saw some people worry they wouldn’t be in.

Speaking of combat, Persona 3 Reload has an interface that tries to blend in Persona 3’s themes and Persona 5’s aesthetic. This has resulted in an interface that looks gorgeous, but I can’t help but think some of the original game’s feel is lost here because of that. It isn’t a dealbreaker, but some of it feels a bit inconsistent in what it is trying to do. Outside combat, everything feels and looks great when it comes to navigation and menus.

Persona 3 Reload has quite a bit of DLC in the form of cosmetics, Personas, and music. During the review period, I had access to none of the DLC so can’t comment on any of it, but I am going to try and cover it like I did the Persona 5 Tactica DLC post-launch. I’ll also discuss some of the story moments when I cover the DLC, but will avoid doing it too close to launch for spoiler reasons.

As has been the case with recent Persona PC ports, Persona 3 Reload lets you select button prompt options from PS4, PS5, Xbox, and Switch controllers. You can also have it auto-detect based on your input method. It also supports keyboard and mouse button prompts. You can adjust mouse and gamepad stick sensitivity as well from the game system settings menu here. You can also adjust and rebind controls for normal gameplay, event/movie, field/dungeon, and battle across keyboard, mouse, and gamepad.

The Persona 3 Reload PC graphics settings let you adjust graphics quality presets (low, middle, high, and custom), rendering scale (50%-200%), shadow quality (low, middle, high), background brightness, frame rate limit (30, 60, 120), and toggle reflections on or off. The options are a bit bare-bones given this is an Unreal Engine PC port, but it is what it is.

On the display side, Persona 3 Reload does not support 16:10 gameplay. The Persona 3 Reload display settings let you toggle v-sync, adjust screen mode (fullscreen, borderless, windowed), resolution, and monitor selection. The resolution options are interesting because it lets you use 800×450 or 800p by default. If you force a higher resolution on Steam Deck, you can go from 320×200 to 4K and even 3840×2400. A recent Steam Deck update has made it so the performance HUD isn’t visible in screenshots, and I haven’t figured out a way to get it to display yet. That’s why the screenshots are without any performance metrics here.

When I began testing, I decided to leave Persona 3 Reload on its default settings because it has been Steam Deck Verified for months now. I noticed the game held 60fps very well at native resolution and the default preset in the opening hour outside the protagonist’s room. It was around 40fps here. Then, it started to drop a bit more in parts of Tartarus like near the teleporter where there are a lot of effects.

At this point I started turning things down to see what it would take for a locked 60fps in Tartarus. I turned shadows to low and render scale to 75%, and it could do 50-60, but it wasn’t a locked 60. 50% render scale was enough to get a locked 60fps even in the parts I had it drop into the high 30s. The teleporter still saw the frame rate drop lower though in addition to some interactions in the Velvet Room.

It is worth noting that so far, there are no major performance issues during battles. This is all during exploration in Tartarus which is massive compared to how it felt in the PS2 and PSP versions of Persona 3. I’d recommend aiming for 75% render scale and 40hz right now unless you’re ok with drops from 60. Also it is worth noting that playing at higher frame rates than 60fps has a menu bug in the current build I have where the menus are capped at 30fps with it sticking to that 30fps even for a few seconds of gameplay when you exit out of the menu. It then shoots back up to 60fps.

I also had access to the current console versions of Persona 3 Reload. Both the PS5 and Xbox Series X target 60fps and look fantastic on my 1440p display. In its current state, I didn’t see PS5 Activity Card support, but the game’s listing mentions PS+ Game Help is supported. The DualSense features aren’t anything to write home about. On Xbox Series X, Persona 3 Reload supports Quick Resume. Despite the higher frame rate, I ended up liking Persona 3 Reload the most on Steam Deck because of how good it looks and feels on Deck even with the lesser performance.

I’d love for future patches to address some of the performance issues in Tartarus on Steam Deck so it can run at a locked 60fps, but barring that I’d love to see The Answer as actual paid DLC in the future. Barring that, I don’t really have any complaints for things that could be patched.

While I’ve praised a lot about Persona 3 Reload, the few things I dislike have to do with the changes to the English cast and the music. The music is mostly all incredible thanks to Lotus Juice, but some songs don’t hit as hard as the original soundtrack. Instead of giving us DLC for songs from the Persona 4 and Persona 5 games, I’d have preferred an original Persona 3 soundtrack option like we see in the Resident Evil remakes. The English voice cast is mostly incredible with some characters sounding better than the original cast, but some also don’t hit as hard based on the prior cast that I’ve loved for so long.

I’m obviously not going to pretend like this remake’s new visuals, content, and gameplay enhancements make up for the lack of the Persona 3 Portable’s female protagonist option and FES’ The Answer, but Atlus has done a fantastic job with most aspects of this remake bringing out a new gorgeous and modern take on Persona 3 for the current generation. Even if you played Persona 3 FES and Persona 3 Portable like I did, Persona 3 Reload has enough to justify a replay. It also feels almost perfect on Steam Deck, my favorite way to play it now.

Persona 3 Reload Steam Deck Review Score: 4.5/5

As usual, you can read all our past and future Steam Deck coverage here. If you have any feedback for this feature or what else you’d like to see us do around the Steam Deck, let us know in the comments below. I hope you all have a great day, and thanks for reading.

When Coffee Stain Publishing and Coffee Stain Malmo announced Goat Simulator 3 ($12.99) for mobile, I was excited to finally play it on a portable platform. Despite the name, Goat Simulator 3 is a sequel to the original Goat Simulator, but I think the developers added so much that they just called it Goat Simulator 3 as a joke. It launched last month on mobile as a premium release, and is one of the rare current-generation only console games to come to mobile platforms. Since around launch, I’ve been playing Goat Simulator 3 on my iPhone 15 Pro, iPad Pro (2020), and also on Xbox Series X recently to see how the game compares across mobile and console right now. I also waited for a few updates to see if there would be any fixes for the issues I ran into.

Right off the bat, Goat Simulator 3 is a lot of fun as a fan of the earlier games. If you’ve never played a game in the series before, the sandbox and hilarity in Goat Simulator 3 make it a much nicer experience than prior games. You can still do whatever you want in the game, but there’s now some structure for those who prefer direction. What stood out right from the start is how Goat Simulator 3 feels like a massive bump in ambition compared to the first game and those spin-offs. I will go so far as to say that Goat Simulator 3 feels like it already has a few Goat Simulator games worth of content included here.

The game seems to not support iCloud progress sync, so I played it very differently across my iPhone and iPad purposely. I wanted to see how it felt if you just try and do what the game wants with its quests while also checking out how much fun there was to be had if you ignore everything and just treat it as a relaxing way to destroy as much as possible. It turns out Goat Simulator 3 is very good on both fronts. Right from the start you can do things like head-butting dynamite into a person, catching fire and setting fire to the environment, dragging a house with a tow truck, playing mini-games, looking for secret collectibles, exploring a very big area, grinding on power cables, and more. As you start trying to explore and do more in Goat Simulator 3, the tutorials start popping up ensuring you know what to keep doing. I found the tutorials quite good here.

While I love a lot of the freedom you get in Goat Simulator 3 and in how it still has some nudges to players to explore and do more in the game world, I was pleasantly surprised by how well it referenced other games and franchises. You see this right from the intro when you finally wake up. I won’t say more on that front, but the team did a really amazing job at bringing other game elements or even parts of levels into the world of Goat Simulator 3.

In addition to the ragdoll physics gameplay, you also have quite a few cosmetic options with gear to equip on different parts of the goat as you explore the huge sandbox location in San Angora as Pilgor once again. All of this with Ubisoft-style towers is even funnier together.

Goat Simulator 3 has touch controls and controller support. Both of them aren’t perfect because of camera sensitivity issues. When playing on the touchscreen, movement is too fast while it is too slow on my Xbox controller over bluetooth. I also used my 8BitDo controller on my iPad to test. I ran into a similar issue on both controllers where some actions were not possible with a controller. These range from some menus to some during gameplay. It feels like the controller support isn’t fully implemented because it does work well in parts, but falls short in others. I don’t have a Backbone One right right now to check how it feels with it on my iPhone though.

Goat Simulator 3 supports multiplayer on iOS but it is limited to up to two players in total. It does work online, and I tested it over cellular as well as wifi. It had no connection issues at all. I’m glad that the multiplayer at least works well. It is worth noting that the console versions support more players.

Speaking of the console versions, I played Goat Simulator 3 on mobile for a good amount of time before properly checking it out and comparing it with the Xbox Series X version. Goat Simulator 3 on Xbox Series X has a performance and quality mode. I used the former but also tested out the latter. It plays better than the iPhone 15 Pro version, but it isn’t perfect even on Xbox Series X with the draw distance and performance issues in parts. The iOS version has no graphics options on my devices. The load times on mobile are very good though.

When comparing the visuals, the foliage and draw distance are better on Xbox Series X by quite a bit. It also can target 60fps while the iPhone 15 Pro and iPad Pro (2020) versions don’t have higher frame rate options right now. The Xbox Series X is the most powerful console available today so it will no doubt run and look better there compared to iPhone 15 Pro, but it is worth seeing how developers scale down games for iOS. Check out the comparison image below for Xbox Series X (performance mode) versus the iPhone 15 Pro version:

The team has been responding to people saying it is looking into adding graphics options and quality of life features into Goat Simulator 3, and I hope those arrive in the coming months because this has the potential to be one of the better console to mobile conversions. I already like the game a lot, but wish the iOS version was better. Barring those things the team said it might look into, the controller support needs to be improved as well. There is no way to adjust camera sensitivity which is too high on touch controls and too low on a controller right now. In fact, I even ran into some issues with controllers (not counting the virtual controls being visible at all times), that required me to use touch controls for some actions. These need to be addressed.

On consoles, Goat Simulator 3 is priced at $29.99 usually. On mobile, it is $12.99 which is a very reasonable price given the game content, but it is a premium price for a mobile port that we usually see from the likes of Feral Interactive usually. The difference is a Feral Interactive mobile release doesn’t ship with so many issues. Once the control and visual issues potentially are addressed, it will be a lot easier to recommend Goat Simulator 3 even at full price.

The mobile version is the full game, but the visual issues even on iPhone 15 Pro are disappointing alongside the control issues. I was hoping some of this would be fixed soon after launch, but here we are. If you have access to an Xbox Series X, I’d recommend playing Goat Simulator 3 there with Xbox Game Pass or buying it on PC or PS5 over playing it mobile right now. I’m looking forward to playing it on Steam Deck when the game releases on Steam in a few weeks.

If you’ve never played Goat Simulator 3 but did enjoy the first main game and spin-offs in the series on mobile, this one is an easy recommendation with a few caveats. While it isn’t perfect even on Xbox Series X, it plays a lot nicer there compared to iOS. I hope we get updates to address the visual and control issues because Goat Simulator 3 feels right at home on a portable and suits the pick up and play nature of the platform while delivering the full game experience from the start.

Funselektor’s Art of Rally ($7.99) is a gorgeous racing game that managed to live up to the hype when I finally played it on Steam. It features superb stylish visuals, great audio design, and has a surprising amount of content in its career and other modes. Before getting access to the iOS version, I had been dipping into it on Switch and Steam Deck to get into it on portables, and I ended up enjoying it a lot on Steam Deck specifically. I had known the Switch version wasn’t amazing, but both of them made me excited to finally check out the racer on my iPhone 15 Pro and iPad Pro. With Noodlecake behind the iOS version, I had high expectations, but the game in its current state sadly isn’t as good as it should’ve been on mobile.

If you’ve not played Art of Rally before, not only does it play great with a ton of content available from the get go, but it also is beautiful across the gameplay and menus. We often see great looking and elegant gameplay but a mediocre interface. Art of Rally makes sure to cover all bases, and also deliver an amazing soundtrack. It is basically a home run of a racing game that I hope more people play, but I wish it was delayed a bit more on iOS to be a better port.

We know that the Art of Rally Australia DLC is coming alongside the Android version, but even in its base game, it is content packed and over delivers in value for its low asking price on iOS. Right off the bat, you can jump into the lengthy career, go for a time attack with various customization options for that race, create and play a custom rally with various settings, take part in the online daily and weekly events with leaderboards, and go driving in the free roam mode. Despite being a rally racer with a lot of work put into the handling, feel, sounds, and more, Art of Rally has a lot of accessibility options to make it approachable by newcomers to racing games. These include difficulty settings for the stability, anti lock braking, transmission, counter-steer factor settings, and more.

The custom modes let you adjust the AI difficulty and even disable performance damage completely while you choose your own location and stages for your rally. These settings are also present in the campaign that begins in 1967 in group 2 covering how rally racing grew in popularity. As a game, Art of Rally is constantly a delight to experience across its visuals, gameplay, and sound design. I just wish its mobile debut was better. I really wonder what state it was in last month when it was supposed to release before it got delayed because of how it feels unoptimized even on iPhone 15 Pro given the visuals and performance.

When it comes to the controls, Art of Rally has controller support and touchscreen support, but neither are perfect. On the controller side, the game sometimes just doesn’t register inputs in a specific menu. As an example, going into options and then graphics with a controller works fine. Going into advanced settings will result in the d-pad or analog stick not working so you either need to use touch or press the back button. This happens in photo mode as well sometimes, and I even had the game display keyboard prompts like E and F12 for some reason in one photo mode menu on my iPad. I’d recommend checking out the camera settings and trying out different views and disabling the screen shake if you get motion sickness like I do with it enabled in some games.

On the touch side of things, the controls are acceptable but I didn’t see any way to adjust the size or position of any controls on either iPhone or iPad. The controls work well assuming you get used to the size and positions, but you can’t do anything else right now. This is as of the latest build on the App Store on January 24th. I also had some menus not respond when I tapped the continue button using touch controls. I had to back out a few times to get it to work. I hope this can be improved at least because I just assumed the touch controls at least would be fine.

On iOS, Art of Rally lets you adjust the frame rate target between 30 and 60 (120 might be coming later I’ve been told), overall quality setting (low, medium, high), vegetation cutout (when your car is obscured), and individually adjust advanced settings. These include bloom, blur, film grain, shadow resolution, shadow distance, draw distance for vegetation, and particle quality. You can also enable a dark mode for the menus which is very nice, like in the PC and console versions. Check out a comparison below of the game on iPhone 15 Pro (left) and Nintendo Switch (right):

On iPhone 15 Pro, the only way I could get the 60fps mode to run well is setting it to the low graphics preset. Anything above caused frame pacing and stutter at points. Playing at 30fps and high settings is more or less fine, but both modes have a lot of visual popin for foliage and other things in the environment. Adjusting this manually in the settings is still not enough as I constantly see trees popping into view close to the car on either side of the road. If this is how it runs and looks on iPhone 15 Pro, I can’t imagine how it is on older phones.

On iPad Pro (2020), it doesn’t feel like it is coming close to 60fps at either high or low settings. I feel like this is a bug or it isn’t optimized for my iPad at all. I know it is an old iPad now, but this is worth noting if you have a similar one. I assume it runs a lot better on the M1 and later iPads.

In terms of iOS features, it has Game Center achievement support, but I couldn’t get the iCloud syncing (if included) to work. I always want to put a disclaimer on the iCloud aspect because of how unreliable it can be in the first place. If it does have iCloud syncing, it has not worked for me across two devices (and two others I tested at home on another account).

When comparing Art of Rally on iOS (on my devices) to Switch and Steam Deck, the iOS version is a lot better than Switch even when playing that docked. I’m surprised at how poor the Switch port looks and runs. The Steam Deck Version is superb though, and my favorite version of the game by far. If you have access to a Steam Deck or play on PC, I definitely recommend getting Art of Rally there. While the iOS version is priced very reasonably, I don’t think it is worth buying unless you are ok with the visual and performance compromises needed even on the newest iPhone to get it running well, and it still has some control issues. I’ll be revisiting this when it gets updates, but I am disappointed in the technical aspects of Art of Rally on iOS right now.

In its current state, Art of Rally on iOS is sadly not a great port. This should have been the definitive portable version of a superb racer, but it is just in between the bad Switch version and the great Steam Deck version. Performance and visual issues aside, it doesn’t even have good touch controls. I got used to them, but I’d recommend this with a controller for now. Noodlecake is usually great, so this is a rare misstep from the team. I hope it does get fixed because Art of Rally is worth owning and playing at full price, but I can’t recommend on iOS without some caveats unfortunately despite the low asking price on mobile. Hopefully by the time the Android version and DLC release, it will be in a better state.

When Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth was revealed, I was actually a bit disappointed. I adore the series, but I was hoping the team would build on Ichiban’s story to take the franchise forward rather than bringing back Kazuma Kiryu after he had a great finale in Yakuza 6. If you’re new to the games, we basically had a soft reboot in ways with Yakuza: Like a Dragon (titled Yakuza 7 in Japan) that not only brought in a new protagonist, but also was a turn-based RPG rather than a brawler like prior entries. I love Kiryu’s games and consider Yakuza 0 as one of my favorite games of all time, but Yakuza: Like a Dragon felt like the breath of fresh air the series needed.

Since then, the team released Like a Dragon Gaiden (link to review), which I ended up loving as well despite its one annoying issue. At that point, I was more or less sold on Kiryu being back, but was cautiously optimistic for where the story in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (titled Like a Dragon 8 in Japan) would go. I’ve been playing it for a few weeks now, and after putting in nearly 105 hours into the game across PS5 and Steam Deck, I consider Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth to be a masterpiece of an RPG, and one of my favorite games in a very long time. Note that the screenshots in this review are my own from both Steam Deck and PS5.

When I began the main story, it felt like a great opening, but I wasn’t ready for what was coming next. With each chapter I played, mini-game I discovered, side story I found, and more, I genuinely couldn’t believe what Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and Sega pulled off here. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is one of Sega’s best games ever, but what surprised me is how it also felt like two complete Yakuza games put together and then some. If you played Yakuza 0, you experienced a dual protagonist system there. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is a monstrous experience through its main story and all the optional content. Even after over a hundred hours into the game, I haven’t done remotely everything I wanted to in the game world.

Before getting into what I love about Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, I want to go over what I wanted fixed from Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Yakuza: Like a Dragon was the team’s first turn-based RPG, and one that felt like a brilliant first attempt from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. It did have some teething issues in its gameplay, and one massive surprise difficulty spike in the later half of the game. The team has addressed all of these issues in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth with huge combat improvements and enhancements, and the team even took care of the difficulty spike by actually giving you recommended gear and levels for specific story points throughout the story. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is basically the culmination of not only the newer games in the series, but also as chock full of quality content as Yakuza 0 was, while respecting the series’ legacy as a whole throughout. This is Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s magnum opus.

Having avoided watching most story-related trailers, I came into Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth relatively blind barring what I experienced in the demo included in Like a Dragon Gaiden last year. I was curious about how both protagonists would be handled, and I think the team did a fantastic job. After a strong opening few chapters, you start to see not only different perspectives of the story, but also some superb interactions between the new parties here. I wasn’t worried about how Ichiban’s side would be handled with the new characters introduced, but I was curious about how I’d find characters from Yakuza: Like a Dragon like Seonhee, Nanba, and Saeko in Kiryu’s party. In the last few years, there have been some strong JRPG main casts like Xenoblade 3 having one of the best, but Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth has surpassed that quite a bit. This might be one of my favorite casts in gaming now.

In addition to the banter during exploration and combat, the characters are further fleshed out not only during the story, but also for their own backstories through the Drink Links system. After you’ve raised your bond level enough through interactions, gifting them something, eating with them, or fighting alongside them, you can experience a Drink Link at the bar. This lets you learn more about a party member and even help them out with their problems. Some of these may even involve actual in-game battles. I ended up completing Drink Links for every character but one in my first playthrough, and they were all worth it.

Without getting into any spoilers or even mentioning what I saw in some of the trailers, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth’s narrative and the payoff are consistently fantastic. I’m curious about how not only longtime fans, but also newer players react to some moments from the mid to late game. Out of the new playable and non playable characters, Chitose and Eric are well-written, while the new interactions we see between the likes of Seonhee and Nanba with Kiryu and Kiryu’s interactions with Ichiban give this the feel of two legendary experiences coming together for a grand conclusion.

Speaking of the conclusion, there’s a big build up to how I expected things to go in the story, but I realized I was only halfway into the game. It constantly surprised me, and even baited me into thinking how specific characters would act only to do the opposite. All of this is elevated by great cut-scene direction with a mix of in-engine and pre-rendered scenes. There is also quite a bit of voiced dialogue throughout which is a huge deal for a game as long as this one.

I can’t believe I’ve not even mentioned so far that Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is set in Hawaii, the first time a game in the series focuses on a locale like this. Hawaii isn’t just some location added for a substory, but a huge, colorful, and dense location full of secrets, specialty coffee shops (a huge win in my book), powerful foes, and a ton of mini-games and NPCs. In fact some of the locations are so dense, I even noticed the frame rate drop in the PS5 version there. After knowing prior locations like the back of my hand, it felt great having a new location in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth to discover and also look for secrets and collectibles across the hidden locales.

Outside the main story, there is a wealth (I couldn’t resist) of side content through different kinds of substories, mini-games, and a few that could be fleshed out into their own game. The Dondoko Island mini-game could be its own budget priced standalone release. It has that much effort put into it, and it almost pushes the game engine too much in its scope. Then there’s Sujimon which has its own raids, battles, training, boss fights, and even a very cool thing you unlock after completing it. Barring these two, Sicko Snap and the delivery mini-games were highlights. There are the usual arcade games and more that the Yakuza games include, but I ended up spending too much time on karaoke as usual.

Speaking of substories in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Kiryu has his own set of substories and memoirs essentially that you can collect. I won’t specifically spoil what these include, but longtime fans of the series and fans of Kiryu over the years will find a lot to love here. Some of the moments here surprised even me (in a good way) with how the developers tackled certain characters. I’ll leave it at that.

A lot of elements in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth’s story, gameplay, and optional content had me thinking whether it would end up being a “too much of a good thing” situation, but the team proved me wrong. I only thought maybe one or two hours out of the over hundred hours I put into Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth were not fun, and that’s because I tried pushing my luck in a dungeon or story moment where I went in without gearing up.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is structured a bit differently because of the two protagonists. There are some story chapters where you play mostly with only one party, and don’t see much of the other, but most end up letting you do a bit with both Ichiban and Kiryu. The story starts unfolding perfectly the more you play, and everything slowly makes sense with character motivations, and also with Ichiban’s character coming into its own. Kiryu’s character was always going to be amazing, but the real star of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is definitely Ichiban.

When I unlocked the job (combat class) system, or the ability to change jobs in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth I was almost spoiled for choice immediately. You start out with a few jobs unlocked, but can unlock more by visiting specific locations or completing certain mini-games. I didn’t spend too much time experimenting during my first playthrough because I was very happy with my party setup for both protagonists, but I’ve been having a blast with the new jobs in the post-game.

One worry I had was how the game would be balanced around multiple jobs with the robust job system, encounters, difficulty, and also equipment. Barring having to remember to equip your best gear when you are playing the other character, I had no real issues with how anything was handled difficulty wise. I even tried pushing things by going into a story scene multiple levels below the recommendation with lower quality gear. It was doable, but definitely a wake up call. I would take those game level recommendations seriously if I were you.

When it comes to the gear or equipment in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, the game features crafting, equipment per job, character-exclusive equipment you can unlock later, and also an upgrade system to enhance your gear. The materials you use to craft or upgrade are found all over the game, but some will be much easier to obtain through mini-games, especially if you’re after the ultimate weapons for each character. Ichiban’s ultimate weapon helped me out a ton during the final area of the game as an example.

At this point, you’re probably wondering if these level recommendation messages are just a warning for difficulty spikes, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. If you keep running from enemies and skip battles, you will be lower level for sure, but the game has a few ways of letting you get up to speed or even grind to be overpowered if you’d like. This is where the dungeons come into the picture. Barring a few story locations that are smaller dungeon-style areas, you have access to two main dungeons in the game. These are optional (outside of a story moment that takes you into the early areas) locations where you can get amazing crafting materials, weapons, and a lot of experience. There are checkpoints that let you save as well, so it isn’t something you need to complete in one go. I usually used to stock up on healing and stamina restoring items before doing a dungeon run as a break from the story or a mini-game.

One new feature in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth that makes dungeons much less boring than the sewer in Yakuza: Like a Dragon, is the music player. You can play a few songs from the start, but unlock a plethora of Sega and Atlus songs through exploration and mini-games. I don’t want to spoil the surprise songs they’ve included but I didn’t expect Sega to even remember two of the games featured here. I’d also like to note that some dungeons also feature traps and hazards with the usual hidden collectibles, mimic chests, and special enemies that reward more experience. A lot of the additions and improvements in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth make it feel more like a JRPG while still maintaining everything I love about the Yakuza series.

Dungeons, exploration, bosses, and more all revolve around Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth’s combat system. This time, you can move around in a fixed radius to plan your attacks with the interface highlighting when you’re near an object you can pick up, given a proximity bonus, and even see the direction an enemy will be knocked into letting you strategize on the go. The game is still turn-based, but this level of movement and the interface prompts give you quite a bit of freedom to strategize in your directional attacks, area of effect skills (with their own highlights), and also in environmental interactions. Selecting skills usually has short quick time events like mashing Y/Square or perfectly timing your X/Triangle button press to get a damage increase. Guarding against attacks by timing a press of A/O lets you lessen the impact of attacks.

This movable area for the character you’re controlling now removes the randomness of the prior main entry. You also don’t need to worry about enemies blocking your path while you try and do a basic attack against an enemy further away. My only complaint with the combat system is in how the camera sometimes does not reposition quickly enough on an enemy attacking. This means you don’t get a chance to try and do a perfect guard in time. I’m not sure if this will be fixed for launch, but I hope it is addressed at some point.

One aspect that really elevates the whole combat experience is the new party members and also the party structure across the game. Having Seonhee playable is amazing, and I’m glad it happened, but finding your own synergies with the job system and parties to eventually get to a point where you wipe out high level enemies in a few turns before they can even act never gets old. I enjoyed Seonhee’s whip attack that uses a powerline to do area of effect damage, and followed that up with another area of effect attack doing fire damage basically melting enemy health bars.

The demo gave the impression that Kiryu can just use brawler style combat as his ultimate ability at any time, but keep in mind that you don’t just get access to it immediately, and you can’t just spam it and play with Kiryu as a brawler. This is a turn-based experience through and through, but Kiryu can get into brawler mode after a specific point in the game, only once his special bar fills up. The way you unlock it is also one of the best surprises in the game.

While you can fast travel to taxi points across the map once you’ve unlocked them by walking by, the real joy of the experience is running around and discovering a random powerful item in a briefcase just lying in the curb or picking up a useful item from the bin. You can of course use the new segway-like device to speed around town. I love that you can even customize the color and particle effects for this and it requires its own charges and upgrades. By about the middle of the game, I worried how I’d even keep track of all of this with the many upgrade and crafting systems included, but it all comes together really well. You just need to remember to upgrade your gear and buy healing items often.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth’s combat also features poundmates which are this game’s summons, and they are even more over the top than the prior game. I ended up unlocking so many optional ones through substories and mini-games that I forgot to use many of them by the end, and only remembered this during the final area of the game where I let loose and just enjoyed the spectacle of the poundmate animations for some encounters.

I mentioned Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth’s Dondoko Island mini-game already being very in-depth, but I was surprised at how much time I was willing to put into it. For mini-games like Sicko Snap, I stopped playing after doing it enough times to unlock the gear I wanted, but here I was just using Dondoko Island like I do karaoke in Yakuza games, as a way to take a break from the main story. It helps that Dondoko Island was great to earn money and something special at the end as well.

If you played Like a Dragon Gaiden, you’d know that Sega added VTuber Kson to the game as a hostess in the mini-game, and I was glad to see that. In Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, she’s a bartender, but the VTuber presence doesn’t stop there, and I found it very interesting how the developers and writers handled that aspect in the story. Who knew adding VTubers and more coffee shops would help this much? But jokes aside, I definitely enjoyed that aspect of the game.

Despite playing the game a lot daily for a while now, I still didn’t end up seeing everything it had to offer, and will be dipping into it slowly aiming for 100% completion over the coming weeks. It really is a monster of a game in just about every way, and I was surprised at how it never felt like it had padding. You even get a wealth of save points and items in the late game locations that throw enemies at you constantly.

Visually, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth looks mostly gorgeous. There are some elements that feel a bit unpolished, but it is a nice step above past games in its scope and visuals in Hawaii. The dynamic weather system is also very well done. Character models are fantastic, and the team definitely stepped up with the production for story scenes. Performance will vary in parts depending on what you’re playing on though.

I played Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth on both PS5 and Steam Deck for this review, but will focus on the Steam Deck portion for the technical details. On PS5, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth targets 60fps and I only noticed the frame rate drop considerably in one in-game location with a ton of NPCs and also in two late-game boss fights during attack cut-scene animations or during attack animations only.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is Steam Deck Verified already which is always a good sign, but Valve sometimes marks games that don’t run well as Verified. Thankfully, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is actually really good on Steam Deck, and you will likely already know what to expect if you played the demo or played Yakuza: Like a Dragon on the handheld. On Steam Deck, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth lets you adjust display mode (borderless, fullscreen, windowed), resolution (with 16:10 and 800p support), refresh rate, toggle v-sync, use graphics presets, adjust FOV, frame rate target (30, 60, 120, unlimited), and adjust advanced settings.

The Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth advanced graphics settings on Steam Deck let you adjust texture filtering mode, shadow quality (which I set to low as usual), geometry quality (Medium for me), realtime reflections, motion blur, SSAO, render scale, depth of field, reflection quality, and a few upscaling techniques. This includes AMD FSR 1.0, FSR 2, FSR 3, Intel XeSS, and also the game’s default anti-aliasing. I ended up using either FSR 2 or FSR 3 during my time with it on Steam Deck. While I obviously couldn’t test this on Steam Deck, if you were wondering about DLSS, Nvidia announced that it will be supporting it.

After testing the final game’s most recent build as of this writing, a locked 60fps isn’t really doable on Steam Deck without the game looking a bit too blurry for my liking. I’d recommend aiming for 40hz or 30fps if you’re ok with that with much better visuals. Turning shadows to low, leaving geometry on medium, and using motion blur if you like it, while playing around with render scale and FSR 3 are your best bet for a smooth experience right now. You could get much better performance by lowering the render scale below 100 to say 80, but I’m not a fan of how it looks. I’d rather stick to a 40hz target with some compromises given this is a turn-based game after all, or 30fps with better visuals. Keep in mind that while the opening of the game might seem to run at 60fps for you, Hawaii is more demanding in many parts with how dense the locations are with many NPCs walking around. Also be warned that one more crowded mall area and two boss fights seem to be quite a bit heavier than the rest of the game.

On the audio side, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth has amazing music throughout its upbeat battle themes, catchy themes played during mini-games, excellent new and old karaoke songs, and memorable boss themes. Two of the later boss themes are amazing, and I can’t wait to see the reaction to them when my friends play Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth also happens to use a nice arrangement of some older songs from the series, but I won’t say where that happens. I know some previews have shown this, but look forward to some nice surprises in the game’s soundtrack.

While I expected Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth to have excellent Japanese voice acting, I want to highlight Kazuhiro Nakaya, the Japanese voice of Ichiban Kasuga for his performance here. It is probably my favorite protagonist performance in any RPG alongside Ben Starr’s Clive in Final Fantasy XVI and Harry McEntire’s Noah in Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Kazuhiro Nakaya delivered something beyond special here. Not to say the other cast members didn’t do a great job, but his delivery really stuck with me throughout even days after I hit certain story beats.

If you, like me, were considering getting Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth on PS5 or wondering what that version offers over the Steam Deck barring the visual and performance upgrades, the DualSense features are very nice. The developers added proper haptic feedback for many small things like ukulele strum attacks or for the segway while exploring. I expected some basic adaptive trigger support, but I’m very happy with the DualSense implementation here. It is a shame that this seemingly isn’t available on the PC version.

Barring some performance improvements in parts I had issues in, the only thing I’d like to see improved is the camera in some encounters. The game shouldn’t have enemies attack while the camera hasn’t adjusted yet. I also would like Sega to add an option to the PC port to force the display of specific controller button prompts rather than have it auto detect. The Persona ports let you select or force Nintendo and PlayStation prompts regardless of your input method. This is a minor issue, but since the PC port is so good in just about every other way, it would be a nice addition.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio at its peak. It feels fresh while still bringing together the best aspects of my favorite games from the studio. Not only does it manage to deliver a compelling story with twists and turns throughout the massively long main story run time, but the sheer quality of its optional content and mini-games puts some of the best entries in the series to shame. We finally have a modern Yakuza game that matches not only the quality, but also the quantity of Yakuza 0’s awesomeness. It gets my highest possible recommendation. I can’t wait to see what the studio does for the next game.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth Steam Deck Review Score: 5/5

You can read all our past and future Steam Deck coverage here on our main page for all things Steam Deck. If you have any feedback for this or what else you’d like to see us do around the Steam Deck, let us know in the comments below. Thanks for reading.

As someone who grew up with the first three Tekken games on PS1, I didn’t enjoy Tekken 7 much at launch on PS4. It was quite a disappointment in many ways despite having competent gameplay, but I was hopeful for Tekken 8 when it was announced. I won’t lie, I was skeptical about it, but the demo got me excited enough to want to cover the full game. With Tekken 8, the team has delivered an excellent and gorgeous fighting game packed with great features right from day one. Now that I’ve had enough time to properly test it online across a few network conditions with friends and randoms over the last few days on all platforms, I’m glad to see the team actually deliver in a great netcode experience here as well. I’m going to focus on Tekken 8 on Steam Deck, but will also be adding thoughts on the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions since I’ve been playing it there as well both online and offline.

If you haven’t played Tekken in a while, Tekken 8 feels like a proper generational leap in its production and in the quality of the modes offered in the launch package. I’ll cover the visuals in a bit, but Tekken 8 has a lovely main story mode titled The Dark Awakenings, character-specific episodes that play out separately from the main story over five battles, a new Arcade Quest mode that serves as a fun single player mode and also an interactive tutorial in many ways, a normal arcade mode, versus mode, practice mode, and Tekken Ball (I was glad to see this return) when it comes to the offline modes included. This is a lot more than I expected, though I hope we see more added in updates and seasons.

Without getting into spoilers for the story mode, I liked almost all of it through the cut-scenes and battles. I was surprised at how varied some of the situations were in the story as well, but mostly impressed by how good it looked throughout. While playing this main story mode, you can quit and resume from any chapter as well. It does a good job of making you play as quite a few characters from the roster, but does focus on Jin and Kazuya as expected. As for the end of the story, I like that it managed to surprise me despite where I thought things were going. It is full of great voice acting, some amazing QTE moments, and superb music. I’ve now played the story mode on Steam Deck, PS5, and Xbox Series X. Barring replaying one part in the middle, I continue to love it. I can’t believe a Tekken game delivered in a big production cinematic story mode more than every other fighting game I’ve played in years.

If you do finish the story and I highly recommend playing it through till the end, make sure to check the character episode menu for something later. It definitely feels like the team put a lot of work into the offline and story modes here. I also like how the story battles aren’t just all 1v1 with some interesting changes and additions of cinematic QTEs in specific story moments. I won’t spoil the later moments but I couldn’t believe how well the team nailed the final fight in the story mode. I haven’t tried out all the individual character episodes, but loved the ones I did end up playing with Azucena being my favorite.

Out of the offline modes, I spent a lot of time in the practice mode which I found quite good. It includes various display options like damage info, startup frames, status, frame advantage, and more. You can also do combo challenges, view sample combos, punishment training (which was very good), and adjust the usual settings. One thing you will notice from the start in Tekken 8 is the ability to enable Special Style by pressing L1 or LB. This is the game’s equivalent of Street Fighter 6’s Modern controls which is a more accessible control option for newer players. It makes things quite a bit easier, but I need to spend more time with it compared to the regular controls to see how I feel about it with new characters. You can disable this as well if you don’t want to use it. It displays whether you’re using this control option online so your opponent is aware.

I haven’t played Tekken 4, 5, and 6 yet, so I can’t comment on how things have changed compared to those games, but I can say that Tekken 8 feels fresh yet familiar with its aggressive focus in gameplay. I never found myself annoyed with how the game felt or any technical aspects like I was in Tekken 7. I can see myself playing Tekken 8 quite a bit over the coming months, and I’m glad I waited to do a new feature covering the best fighting games on Steam Deck to see how Tekken 8 and Under Night 2 play. Getting comfortable with the stage interactions and the Heat System have been interesting to see as I’ve been slowly trying to learn better combos with Reina, Azucena, and King.

Over the 45 or so hours I’ve spent with Tekken 8 on Steam Deck (handheld and docked) pre-release (default Proton) and now (Proton Hotfix picked by Valve to fix the online), I’ve been playing against the CPU in arcade mode, trying different graphics options, playing the entire story mode, multiple character episodes, and many hours of online play, the only issue I’ve run into is the keyboard needs to be manually invoked for text entry. Barring that, it even supports 16:10 aspect ratio during gameplay with black bars for cut-scenes but fullscreen support most other places.

After the recent Proton Hotfix update from Valve, Tekken 8’s online modes work perfectly on Steam Deck. I played docked on the Steam Deck Docking Station with ethernet and also over Wi-Fi to test with friends in different countries. Gone are the disconnects I used to have, and I can safely recommend Tekken 8 even if you exclusively play on Steam Deck. Not only is it a great portable version of the game, but a great version of Tekken 8 in general.

Before the PC demo, I expected poor results from Tekken 8 on Steam Deck given it is an Unreal Engine 5 fighting game and we’ve had some games using the engine not perform well on Steam Deck. As a fighting game, Tekken 8 requires 60fps, and thankfully it is achievable quite easily on Steam Deck. The default preset when you play on Steam Deck is a bit too conservative with how it sets everything to low. The PC port of Tekken 8 lets you adjust screen mode (borderless, windowed, full screen), resolution (1152×720 being the lower bounds), toggle v-sync, toggle variable rate shading, adjust rendering quality preset, adjust render scale (I left this on 65 in the end), upscaling method (XeSS, NIS, FSR 1.0, FSR 2, Catmull-Rom Bicubic, TSR, TAUU), adjust anti-aliasing quality, shadow quality (I set this to low), texture quality, effect quality, post-processing quality, background quality, display the frame rate, and restore default settings.

Tekken 8’s visuals and performance on Steam Deck can vary. I initially didn’t spend too much time with TSR, but thanks to John from Digital Foundry doing a video and posting about how good TSR is, I ended up sticking with that through the end. I also replayed the story mode later chapters too see how it felt. This is marked improvement visually over other upscaling methods. With a mix of medium and low, you can get a great 60fps experience in the actual fights. The character select and some story fights can drop frames though, especially when loading in new locations. The story mode in particular uses a mix of pre-rendered cut-scenes, in-engine scenes, and transitions to actual battles. Some of these transitions don’t run at a smooth 60fps so keep that in mind. I was ok with a few drops in story mode to have everything else look as good as it could be on the handheld screen. It is a shockingly good experience, especially after how middling Mortal Kombat 1 was at launch.

In terms of other features I value on Steam Deck, Tekken 8 supports 16:10 resolutions and has Steam Cloud support. The 16:10 support or 800p needs to be manually selected if you play docked at another resolution and then play handheld at 800p. If you just play handheld, there isn’t an issue here, and it does 16:10 support well through gameplay and menus. Some cut-scenes are 16:9 though like the opening video (which plays perfectly with audio). I also tested playing with a bluetooth controller for the story mode and my Razer Kitsune wired at the same time to swap between them sometimes. The game detects all inputs correctly.

I also installed Tekken 8 on my Steam Deck SD card rather than internal since it is a massive install of nearly 87GB. Some transitions that I expected to be seamless in story mode have a bit of loading, but it isn’t remotely as terrible as things were in Tekken 7 on PS4 back in the day.

If you play docked, it obviously is nowhere near as nice as the game is on console. Having played Tekken 8 on PS5 and Xbox Series X, it is plain gorgeous on my 1440p monitor. I also appreciate how well implemented the DualSense haptic feedback is in Tekken 8. This is felt during supers, story mode cut-scenes, and special battles. The team did a fantastic job with it, and I enjoyed experiencing the story once again here. It even has haptics for raindrops in one particular battle. If you are curious how the game runs on your own console or PC, a free demo is available. It doesn’t have online and isn’t up to date for the PC build, but is worth trying to see how it can run on your platform of choice. On the Xbox Series X side of things, there isn’t anything of note barring Quick Resume. The game runs and plays great and I used my 8BitDo Xbox stick there.

Right now, the online modes let you choose connectivity options, view your opponent’s connection type, disconnection ratio, and more when you find an opponent, and you can also adjust connection quality and toggle cross platform restrictions when you get into matchmaking. The connection information also displays different levels of wired and wi-fi quality, delay frames, rollback frames, and also processing load for PC resources being used to know whether there’s slowdown because of your PC or your opponent’s PC. My one complaint is not being able to add friends on other platforms easily within Tekken 8. I’ve had to go to the same online hub as them to add them manually. For the same platform, you can just add each other through a tab in the menu.

One aspect I didn’t get to spend much time with pre-release was the replays in Tekken 8. Tekken 8 has some features we already saw in Tekken 7, but the implementation of replays with the ability to pause and try things out for 10 seconds is superb. You can use this to already view tips for what would’ve been better by going through each round in a replay, but the ability to take control and try out things is great to see. This coupled with the ability to use save state-like functions to improve combos makes Tekken 8 feel a lot more welcoming not only to newcomers but also veteran players looking to get the best experience with learning long combos. I don’t think any fighting game in the last few years has added the ability to take control during replays like this. The screenshot below is from the PS5 version:

Tekken 8’s soundtrack is superb. That will not be surprising to most given the series’ history, but I am glad to have enjoyed almost every theme I heard in-game with Twilight Party Cruise being my favorite song so far. There are other great tracks like Volcanic Bomb, Hangar Rules, and The Decisive Blow as well. One more notable thing is how the Jukebox feature is not restricted to just one platform in Tekken 8. Tekken 7 had it only on PS4 but Tekken 8 has it on Steam as well as Xbox. You can use this to make custom playlists or replace songs from the series’ library. I’ve not played Tekken Tag Tournament before so being able to hear its great music has been amazing here.

I hope the team adds a larger font size option for the menus in a patch soon. While it isn’t too bad when I play on my monitor on the desk, playing on TV or on the Steam Deck’s screen is painful with the tiny font size. Barring that, I hope the keyboard input on Steam Deck can be sorted because this feels like a fantastic modern fighter on the platform, and it doesn’t struggle like Mortal Kombat 1 did on Steam Deck at launch.

One more oddity is the fact that the game mentions support for DualSense controllers in one of the menus, but only seems to display Xbox button prompts regardless of how I connected the DualSense controller with and without Steam Input enabled. I’d love to have this added because the PS5 demo had good haptic feedback. The screenshot below is from the PS5 version:

Before finishing this review, I want to touch on how detailed the customization options are in Tekken 8. I’ve heard this isn’t as impressive as some earlier entries, but I’ve been blown away by how cool or goofy you can make characters look here. Dress them up in gold and add a bread slice around their faces to annoy your friends like I do. Beyond that, you are also incentivized to unlock more through specific battles and by earning currency through other modes.

Having now spent enough time online and offline with Tekken 8 across Steam Deck, PS5, and Xbox Series X, I can safely say that Bandai Namco Studios hit it out of the park with this one. It is a universal improvement over the last game and delivers a superb package right from day one. While it has a few things I’d like to see fixed in updates, Tekken 8 gets my highest possible recommendation right now. I can’t wait to play more. It feels great to not only enjoy playing a new Tekken game, but also have it actually push visuals once again. Tekken 8 has great gameplay, awesome music, superb visuals, a brilliant replay system, and one of the best story modes in a modern fighter.

Tekken 8 Steam Deck Review Score: 5/5

Updated on January 30th: Added review score and updated text after playing online modes over the last week.

You can read all our past and future Steam Deck coverage here on our main page for all things Steam Deck. If you have any feedback for this or what else you’d like to see us do around the Steam Deck, let us know in the comments below. Thanks for reading.

Alright, let’s do this one more time. Not the last time, mind you. We still have Garou left. But the age of my comparison reviews between ACA NEOGEO re-releases and the pre-existing (and still available) Dotemu-developed versions is just about at its end. Metal Slug X ACA NEOGEO ($3.99) is the latest release in Hamster and SNK’s mobile Arcade Archives initiative, and one that I know a lot of folks have been waiting for. I mean, I even told you to wait for it when Metal Slug 2 ACA NEOGEO hit. Took a little longer than I thought, but here we are. Let’s go into the details.

If you’ve read any of previous reviews of ACA NEOGEO releases that ostensibly replace the decade-old Dotemu versions of the same games, a lot of this is going to be familiar. I will go through it anyway, because some of you might be new. Feel free to head on to the next paragraph if you deem it necessary. So, the Dotemu version of Metal Slug X. It was quite good for its time, but its time was when Iron Man 3 was ruling the movie screens and everyone was doing the Harlem Shake. Things have marched on, and despite receiving updates over the years those original mobile versions are in rough shape now. While you can still buy the Dotemu version and save a buck by doing so, you should not. The ACA NEOGEO version is superior in every meaningful way. There, that’s all settled.

Metal Slug X is a strange game in the context of its series. While Metal Slug 2 had been very well-received and was a big success, it was hard to deny its technical issues. It suffered from severe enough slowdown that even a generation of players who had been raised on NES slowdown found it jarring at times. Developer Nazca Corporation had started work immediately on Metal Slug 3 after finishing up the second game, intending to make it the biggest and best run-and-gun action game that SNK’s NEOGEO platform would ever see. Fair beans to Nazca – the developer did more or less pull that off.

Still, those intentions meant that the third numbered installment would take two full years to finish development, which was a very long time for a company that was in dire financial straits and needed every hit it could muster. Egads! SNK’s 1999 fiscal year was ruined! But what if… Nazca Corporation were to make some adjustments to Metal Slug 2, shift it over to the more advanced Metal Slug 3 engine, and disguise it as a new game? Oh ho ho ho ho ho! Delightfully devilish, Shin Nihon Kikaku.

I’m being a little cute here to force the reference, but there’s no getting around the fact that Metal Slug X is a meal slapped together from the leftovers of last night’s Metal Slug 2 dinner. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, of course. This is a safe space and I think we can all admit that hot turkey sandwiches are usually better than the roast turkey the night before. It happens. And that is what happened here, too. I feel bad for people who were buying the extremely pricy AES cartridges, as they basically got Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3‘d here, but they were probably rich anyway. Metal Slug X rules. It’s a better game than Metal Slug 2 in every single way, and it’s just different enough to justify picking up even if you already own the game it’s based on.

It’s better on a technical level, with considerably fewer instances of slowdown and substantially lower severity when it does occur. There are more enemies about, owing to the freedom the Metal Slug 3 engine offered. Aesthetically, while the stages themselves use the same themes and layouts, the time of day has been changed in most of them to make things feel fresher. The music has been arranged and altered in some stages, and the Metal Slug 3 announcer has been added. There are some new sound effects, and an improved credits sequence.

Over on the gameplay side, there are a lot of little changes that add up to a big difference. New bosses, new enemies, new vehicles, more P.O.W.s and power-ups to find, new weapons, improved versions of existing weapons, and new behaviors for various objects and gimmicks. It’s a more difficult game, but not egregiously so. Indeed, I think the difficulty is just right in this game, with the extra heat compared to Metal Slug 2 proving to be most welcome. The pacing is really good too. I love Metal Slug 3, and it’s certainly a towering achievement in its genre. But I can’t argue with anyone who says that the last stage drags out far too long. You won’t have that issue with Metal Slug X. It’s all killer, no filler.

My heart struggles to choose between this game and Metal Slug 3 when I’m asked which is my favorite game in this series. I can’t pick, but the point is that if you’re into this genre at all you might as well own both of them. Four dollars? Yeesh. I threw way more quarters than that into this game back in the day. I think its snappy nature also makes it more well-suited to mobile than Metal Slug 3. Now, this game does suffer from the same issues we’ve seen with all the other Metal Slug ports to mobile. If you’re not using an external controller, you’re stuck with using touch controls in a game that can be quite demanding in terms of precision. But you have unlimited credits, so it doesn’t particularly matter if you die a lot. You know, if you just want to have fun and tour the game. The other issue is that to play multiplayer, you’ll need enough controllers for everyone and a display you feel comfortable enough crowding around.

Otherwise, it’s smooth enough sailing. You get both the Japanese and international versions of the game, tons of options to mess around with, a handy save state feature so you can stop and pick up at any point, and the usual extra modes every Hamster game comes with. The timed Caravan mode is decent here, and the score attack mode is a good challenge. There are online leaderboards to compete on as well, which can add some replay value to the game if you need more. Everything is emulated well, but there’s no surprise there. NEOGEO has been a solved problem for Hamster for a very long time now.

If you have an external controller or don’t mind the idea of playing with touch controls, Metal Slug X is about as good a run-and-gun experience as you’re liable to get on mobile. It’s a tightly-paced, action-packed tour through some wild and wacky stages that will keep you on your toes the whole way through. One of the best games on the NEOGEO, and I’m glad we’ve got a fresh version of the game to enjoy for the next ten years.