Anyone that knows me knows that I absolutely love the Mega Man games, especially the X spin off games, and yes, X is a spin off. It’s a shame that it’s a series that lays dormant, in limbo, for who knows how long. And it’s not only Mega Man X, but also many other games that were part of my childhood lay dormant waiting for the owners to realize that we want them to return. In any case, indie developers have taken it upon themselves to bring these experiences back, bringing back games that resemble those games that made an impact in the gaming world. Now we have here a game called MetaGal, it’s an indie equivalent to Mega Man X. Let me tell you; I had my doubts about it, but I can gladly say that MetaGal scratched that Mega Man X itch and did not disappoint.
MetaGal story is about the struggle of Dr. Ray to keep away his android daughters from evil villain, Creeper. His efforts are for naught since Creeper finds were he’s hiding, Creeper then transforms Ray’s daughters into fighting robots, and it’s up to Meta to save her sisters and Dr. Ray from Creeper. That’s the story in a nutshell.
This game plays like Mega Man in terms of run and gun action and platforming. Our heroine, MetaGal, can dash, jump, and shoot her way across several stages with a showdown against a “Gal” like her. After defeating the Gal master of each stage, Meta can obtain that Gal’s special weapon so it’s basically just like Mega Man. There are some odd design choices in the game though, since for example your normal attack is with square, and is a small shot that can be fired repeatedly, or if you want a more powerful shot you need to press the circle button, which fires a powerful shot but you cannot use it all the time. The power shot uses weapon energy so after shooting you need to wait for the gauge to be filled again, it automatically charges up again, this changes the formula previously known since the power shot needs to be treated like another special weapon. This change is not game breaking but increases the difficulty a little. Another thing is that Meta can’t wall jump (why?), so you are limited to the normal jump, to reach the hard to reach places you need to use a special weapon that places a mine in the floor, if you walk on it the explosion can throw you into the air making it possible to reach high places.
I like how the game looks; it’s like a homage to Mega Man. The music and the different boss fights are fun as well. However, there are some things that needed a little more polish; for example, I encountered several bugs in the stage of Gal.02 Dash. Right after getting to the check point you destroy a big robot, it only jumps on top of you to damage you, right after destroying it, when you move forward the game freezes for a couple of seconds like it’s loading the rest of the area. This happens all the time when you die, and you will die a lot, it freezes on the same spot, so it’s frustrating that something like this happens, it doesn’t crash the game, it just hangs there for a couple of seconds before you can continue. Another issue that I had is that sometimes the game doesn’t recognize the jump if you do a dash then a jump to get further, so sometimes I was seeing Meta fall into oblivion. One last thing that I didn’t like is just how easy is to get a platinum on this game, I hadn’t even finished the first stage and I got it. For trophy hunters this would rock, but the average gamer could lose interest fast in the game because of that.
Bottom Line, MetaGal is a fun attempt into the Mega Man world, I liked it and the challenge it posed. There are some issues to iron out and I honestly hope the game does well so we can see a sequel. At this time, I can only recommend it to fans of run and gun games, most of all because the difficulty spike is sometimes high.
A Review Code was provided for this review.