Metal Slug is a Run and Gun series created by SNK. It is considered as one of the best looking 2d games of its generation, and a major arcades franchise during the mid and late nineties. Despite depicting a dark and grim topic, which is war thanks to its cartoony look and extremely funny and detailed sprite animation the series is pretty fun and lighthearted. While Metal Slug does not belong to the fighting genre, which is the main focus of this channel it has a surprisingly deep and rich lore that it would be criminal of me to continue ignoring. And being an SNK series, it has some connections with the company's other franchise, the King of Fighters. These connections can go from simple cameos to interchangeable characters. But it is crucial to note that MS and KOF do not share the same universe. After all Metal Slug's events take place in the future. While I don't aim to dive into each character's backstory in these videos, I will provide answers to many questions you may had have in the past. Like what's the deal with this man? Why are these aliens helping the bad guys? and what's their true objective? Who is this girl and why we keep bumping into her? Who's this Hado-ken shooting prisoner? Where these zombies came from? and many other interesting details that I was happy to learn and I'll be even be happier to share with you. Last thing I wanted to mention is that this two parts series will cover the mainline games exclusively. Spin offs and mobile games such as Metal Slug Advance and Attack will not be included. I'll probably make a video specifically for these titles in the future. Also Metal Slug 2 and 7 both had remakes titles X and XX respectively. I'll be playing these remake versions as I consider them to be superior overall. That shouldn't pose any problem because story wise, they are the same as their original counterparts. So without further ado here's the Metal Slug story explained, part 1. The year is 2028. The first modern war is at its peak. The whole world is caught in a global devastating conflict that was never seen before. Major cities were either captured or completely annihilated. Behind it all was a mad man known as Colonel Donald Morden. But to understand how things came to this dreadful outcome, a jump back in time is necessary. The world government was to be the strongest entity in the world. Although it lacked diplomatic authority, it had no problem resolving conflicts around the world thanks to its military branch, the Regular Army. Morden was a Vice Admiral within its corp. The Canadian officer was deeply respected and highly regarded by his subordinates and superiors alike. In addition of being a loving husband and a caring father as well. But that changed in the year 2023. His wife and son were killed during a terrorist attack. An unfortunate incident that could have been easily avoided if the higher ups in the Regular Army didn't ignore the warnings from the Intel division. It was at that time when Morden realized how corrupt and incompetent his superiors were. His anger and frustration brought him near the brink of madness. Finally he decided to defect from the Regular army with the company of many other soldiers and officers who were more loyal to his person than to the military. Among them was his second in command and most trustworthy man, Allen O'Neil. A veteran soldier with enough experience that he could easily be promoted to a higher rank but chose to remain a sergeant, as that would allow him to continue fighting in the front line something O'Neil loves above everything else. Morden's objective was straightforward perform a coup d'état against the world government tear down their Regular Army and establish his own rule over the world. He believed that only he could bring peace. However, the route he took to achieve that wasn't the most peaceful to say the least. During the next few years, he began forming his Rebel Army composed of former Regular soldiers, different factions of mercenaries, and even terrorists. Many scientists, researchers and engineers joined his cause giving the war machine of the newly born army a sharp technological advantage. Meanwhile, the Regulars learned about Morden's new army and tried to undermine his plans. Several skirmishes between the two armies broke out. But being more numerous and better equipped, the rebels always came out victorious from these small scale battles. It was clear that the Regulars were in a tight spot and had to do something about. Realizing that, they started producing a new type of tanks the Super Vehicle 001, nicknamed the Metal Slugs. Unfortunately for them, Morden's Intelligence division was on point. Thanks to them, he learned the location of the factories where these new tanks were made and without wasting any time, reduced them to ruble bringing the production of the Metal Slugs to a sudden halt. And as if that was not enough, he also managed to seize the finished tanks and sent them to his many strongholds, scattered all around the world. Confident of his superiority, Morden felt it was time to get serious. He launched a global attack against the Regular army starting a world war, that would soon become to be known as the first Modern great war. The regular Army suffered a humiliating defeat and countless losses. Millions of lives were lost, and major cities fell into Morden's grasp. But it's not like the rebels were invincible. In reality, the main cause of the Regular Army's collapse was its incompetent higher ups who decided to flee and save their own skin abandoning their soldiers in the heat of the battle. However, many survivors of the Regular Army refused to surrender and decided to continue the fight. From the scattered soldiers, they reform their ranks and created a resistance group. Rather than confronting the rebel heads on, they chose to form small commando teams and launch secret missions in the heart of enemy territories. Enter our two main Heroes. 1st Lieutenant Marco Rossi and his partner and best friend, 2nd Lieutenant Tarma Roving from the Peregrine Falcons, a special strike force of the Regular Army were selected as a counteroffensive. Marco wasn't just any soldier. Originally a computer programmer genius, he was the leader of the resistant group and the one who actually gathered the surviving regular army soldiers. He and his partner formed a small commando team with the mission of retrieving the Metal Slugs from the Rebels and bringing them back to the resistants, or at the very least destroy them. Their path led them to the thick jungle of Villeneuve Mt. System and the Ronbertburg City where in addition of securing the Metal Slugs, they also had to rescue many imprisoned comrades and destroy the Rebels monstrous war machines. They encountered Morden in person sooner than they thought during their second mission. The Rebels commander was aboard an air ship which our heroes successfully destroyed but not without difficulties. Unfortunately, before they had the time to capture him, Morden was saved at the last moment by one of his soldiers. Marco and Tarma's next objective was the destruction of an extremely important warehouse belonging to the Rebels and located in the snowy valley of Kärtehirt. After climbing a perilous and heavily guarded mountain, they found themselves face to face against O'Neil, who was very adamant of stopping their progress. Once they dealt with him, they reached the famous warehouse and successfully reduced it to ruble. But before they could be extracted, they were ambushed by a Giant Self-propelled Artillery. Thankfully they came out victorious from that deadly encounter as well. After securing the Metal Slug in the deadly valley of Ridge 256, their fifth mission let them to the heart of the Rebel Army Territory, the fortified city of Gerhardt. The city was known to be the only road leading to the Straits of Traven the headquarters of the Morden's rebellion. And as such, it was heavily guarded by different classes of foot soldiers, artillery and one mean Multi-role Combat Vehicle blocking the road to their HQ. Successfully traversing the streets of Gerhardt city, Marco and Tarma reached Straits of Traven where the hideout of the supreme leader of the Rebel Army was located. With the help of their comrades in the resistance, they launched their ultimate assault. But their enemies had no intention in giving up either. The moment the resistants set foot on their territory, they welcomed them by an insane number of Rebel soldiers who were ready give up their lives defending their last bastion. After making their way through countless ambushes, they traversed a hellish bridge and found Morden waiting for them at its end. Without hesitation, he blow up the bridge, sending both Marco and Tarma to the bottom of the sea seemingly killing them. Miraculously, they were saved by a boat belonging to the Regular army. Our heroes continue their fight through the sea, destroying many enemy air crafts thanks to the fixed machine gun on the boat. They reached land after an unspeakable struggle, and came face to face against Morden at last. knowing that he had nowhere else to run, Morden decided to stand his ground and fight in his helicopter. With a lot of skill and luck, they ended up destroying the Helicopter causing Morden to be ejected from it, heavily wounded. they managed to capture the war criminal alive putting an end to his bloody war and megalomaniac dreams. Marco and Tarma were welcomed as heroes and promoted to Major and Captain respectively. The war was over and the world enjoyed an everlasting peace that lasted for like 2 days. Even after Morden was apprehended, multiple uprisings caused by those who were sympathetic to his cause continue to pop up in different parts of the world. Seeing that, the Regular army sent Marco and Tarma again to help out dealing with the remaining rebels denying their plan of resigning from the army as the two soldiers originally intended. Learning from the mistakes of the past, the Regular army had created a new Intel division named Sparrows to monitor these small scale revolutions, and prevent a crisis like the previous one. Soon enough, the Intel division started to notice that these conflicts became more and more organized arriving to a conclusion that a mastermind was behind it all. Their doubts were confirmed when they discovered that Morden had inexplicably escaped the prison, and his whereabouts was unknown. Taking the initiative, the Peregrine Falcon Squad charged Marco and Tarma to locate and capture Morden, before he could launch a second coup d'état and this time they weren't alone. Eri and Fio, members of the Sparrows intelligence division, were charged to assist them in their mission. They were ordered to operate with the utmost secrecy and keep the truth about the escape of Morden hidden, as to not cause a worldwide panic. To give them an edge on the battlefield, the higher ups made sure to maintain their front soldiers well supplied. For that purpose they tasked a young sergeant named Rumi with that role. Unfortunately for our heroes, they could not rely on the young woman. Rumi had the tendency to get lost in the battlefield very easily and all the time due to her awful sense of direction. Still, it was a miracle that she could survive amidst all the chaos that surrounded her which ultimately led her to bump into our heroes frequently at the end, even if it was out of pure luck. Meanwhile, Morden had found 3 new allies. The first faction were the rebels with the Japanese Army. They were tasked by Morden to attack the Regular army base in Central America. But due to their old fashioned weapons and obsolete equipment they lost miserably, and all contact with them was severed. Morden's second allies were the Arabian rebels and the command of a dictator called Abu Alabbas. which were the first target of the Peregrine Falcons. They attacked his fortified city located in the middle of the desert, and found that the local rebels weren't alone. Morden's soldiers were also present there to help their allies. But when our heroes destroyed the Arabians mightiest war machine, their leader surrendered. Next, they were ordered to find and tear down a Rebel weapon, hidden deep inside an Egyptian tomb. It was during that mission where the Peregrines and Sparrows encountered their first super natural enemies, the resurrected mummies who infested the said tomb and had the abilities to turn others into mummies as well. Nevertheless, our heroes ended up finding the Rebel's gigantic excavating machine, and got rid of it. Though they couldn't find an explanation of that peculiar super natural phenomenon they faced. Aiming to slow down the preparations for the Rebel army's next uprising, the Regular commando decided to cut their supply lines by attacking the trains used for that purpose. The said trains were heavily guarded by all sorts of artillery, foot soldiers and most notably a fearsome monstrosity designed to be used specifically on railroads. Once mission accomplished, their next stop was a Chinese city that was previously taken over by the Rebel army and used a stronghold for their operations. While they were saving war prisoners in their way, they met an unusual hostage. It was none other than the legendary warrior named Ichimongi. Once saved, he decided to help our heroes using his impressive faculty of throwing Ki projectiles that looked like Hadoh-kens. While fighting to liberate the city, the Peregrines were attacked by the most unexpected foes. UFOs came out of nowhere and started shooting at our heroes with laser beams. They were in fact the 3rd and most fearsome allies of Morden. After surviving that alien encounter, they were greeted by another outlandish Rebel war machine a large amphibious battleship designed for traveling on water and land and equipped by a ridiculous number of artillery. However, its deadliest trump card was a hidden huge canon that the Rebels started using once the smaller ones were destroyed. Leaving this Asian adventure behind, Our heroes were sent to a Northern American city to deal with the possible presence of Rebels there. According to the Intel, the residents were complaining about an unusually terrible stench coming out from the sewers. While it is not that suspicious for sewers to smell bad, the commando was sent to investigate anyway. And sure thing, they found a huge number of Rebel soldiers in the city. That encouraged them to keep advancing toward the sewers as their mission ordered them to. Once there, they made a horrible discovery. That area was used some time ago as an experiment facility, with the objective of creating Rebel super soldiers. However, the experiment failed terribly resulting in the mutation of the test subjects into deformed and brainless creatures who then proceeded in killing all the scientists. The rebels had no choice but to shut down the entire area. Our heroes thought they've seen it all at this point but it was just getting better and better. They were suddenly attacked by an Rebel Sub marine tasked to guard the sewers. What's more, it appeared more advanced compared to the previous war machines the Regulars had to deal with, implying that the aliens had something to do with its construction. Not too long after these events, the Regular's Intel division had finally managed to locate Morden's new base. He was hidden in the frozen lands of Siberia.. Without wasting any time, the Peregrines and Sparrows were dispatched to arrest him and foil his plans. Our Heroes were met by an fierce resistance from his soldiers who did everything they could to stop their advance. Allen O'Neil, who survived their last encounter, had also made a comeback, determined to get his revenge. This time he wasn't alone as he was helped by other soldiers. But he lost again and fell to the sea, where he was eaten by a killer whale. This time he was dead for sure... probably. When the commando reached the base where submarines all different kinds of vehicles were constructed, the Aliens known as Mars people, started fighting as well along the rest of the Rebel soldiers. It was clear that they were the cause of the super natural phenomena witnessed before. After traversing the hellish base, they found themselves in an open area where Morden greeted them with his maniacal laugh confident of his victory thanks to his new space tank that the Mars people offered him. But his allies turned out to be not as trustworthy as he thought when they decided to betray and kidnap him, taking charge themselves. The battle started against an alien aircraft that not only could fire strange projectiles, it also summoned many small UFOs to help. But Marco and his friends defeated it, forcing their mother ship, the Rugname to come to the rescue. While the previous encounters of the Peregrines Falcons against the Rebels war machines were pretty unfair, this battle in particular was on a whole different level of unfairness. The alien ship was ridiculously gigantic and had the size of a city. But in an unexpected turn of events, our heroes were not on their own this time. Realizing that they were betrayed, the Rebel army decided to temporarily ally with Regulars against this common enemy. They fought bravely as well and provided all sorts of ammo and assistance to our heroes, including their favorite tanks, the Metal Slugs. The epic battle came to a close when one brave pilot, coming straight from the movie Independence day, sacrificed himself by crushing his plane into the space ship. Although it was not totally destroyed, the Rugname took enough damage that it was forced to draw back leaving the captured Morden behind, whose soldiers were more happy for his return. And Amidst all the confusion, they wasted no time for fleeing. Unsurprisingly, the Rebel army resumed their preparations for the upcoming coup d'état staging revolts and uprisings all around the world. With these very expected turn of events, Marco and Tarma's resignations were denied again and the two men were forced to carry out new missions aimed to compromise the rebels effort for world domination. Meanwhile, Eri and Fio from the Sparrows division were sent to investigate super natural occurrences. They received multiple reports about giant mutated insects, zombies, man eating plants, and other monstrosities, showing up in multiple regions. Their path inevitably let them to Dr Moureau's island, where they met the Peregrine Squad. Once there, they learned that the island was used as a nuclear testing site, causing radioactive fallout that led to the mutation of the island wildlife. They also Rebel soldiers there, who came to the island to salvage any nuclear weaponry they could get , and, additionally, weaponise the mutated creatures for the sake of empowering their army. And they were pretty successful in their task until the Peregrines came and destroyed their huge hermit tank. Our heroes had not time to relax though, as they received reports about a mysterious UFO that crashed somewhere in Russia. Upon arriving to the site, they found that the UFO caused a civilian plane to crush, but most passengers survived the deadly accident. Unfortunately for them, the UFO emanated a mysterious energy that turned the survivors, the researchers who came to study it, and the rebel soldiers who were present there, into mindless zombies. The commando had to traverse a dark forest filled with undead enemies that seemed to have come straight out from a horror movie. Avoiding the zombies attacks proved to be much more difficult than anticipated and some of our heroes were indeed transformed into zombies themselves but thanks to their sheer will power, they continue their mission, despite their undead status. Being a zombie had its advantage though, they were immune to bullets and had an extremely powerful attack in the form of a blood vomit that took care of many foes simultaneously. Luckily, they were able to find a cure that turned them back to normal humans again and finally reached the source of this evil. Once they arrived at the bacon, a group of aliens, named the Monoeyes, a sub specie of the Mars people, and charged to protect the UFO. But nevertheless, our heroes emerged victorious from that otherworldly battle and it became clear that the Martians threat was far from over. Once this super natural encounter has been dealt with, our heroes shifted their focus to the Rebel army again. Their new objective was to infiltrate their sub marine secret factory and destroy their latest war machine. They managed to reach their base and discovered a new type of weaponry using a pretty advanced technology, including a new type of bipedal vehicle named the LV Armor which the Peregrines didn't hesitate to use themselves in their attack. Clearly, the Rebels learned a lot of stuff during their time with the Martians. Our soldiers reached their objective, which turned out to be a giant robot that, despite its childish and silly design, was actually a fearsome weapon capable of launching homing missiles, laser beams, and producing a giant rocket from its belly. Leaving the submarine factory behind, Peregrines and Sparrows were ordered to infiltrate a Rebel's base located near ancient ruins in central America. After a short fight with the Rebel soldiers, they discovered their enemies were already in a tight spot as the base was invaded by all sorts of creatures. first there was insect like abominations like giant grabs, acid spitting snails, and the most resistant maggots in history, which all came from underground. Then there was the Man eating plants that wreaked havoc among the Rebels and started attacking the Peregrine squad next. Our heroes also found survivors of the Japanese army, former allies of Morden who were hiding in the desert ruin where they waited for reinforcements. As they ran out of gas, they adapted their vehicles to operate without it. The inside of the ruins proved to be even more challenging as it was filled with mummies and deadly traps. The conflict between our heroes and the Rebel army in the ruin awaken the ancient deity that was protecting the site, who then proceeded to eliminate all intruders indiscriminately. A short time after this crazy adventure, Morden's whereabouts were located. Immediately, the Regular soldiers launched an ultimate assault from the skies. The attack took the Rebel army by surprise while they were gathering their forces. They had to deal once again with O'Neil, who by this point, let's just assume he's immortal. After reaching the missile launching site where they found Morden, a combat, that was very reminiscent of their encounter during the first modern war, followed. And that included its outcome as well. But before the Regulars could celebrate their victory, they were confronted by a shocking truth the Morden that they were looking for all this time was actually a Martian in disguise. The real Morden was actually kidnapped by the aliens in order to take control and manipulate the Rebel army themselves. Once the disguise dropped, the Martian took advantage of the element of surprise and Kidnapped Marco. force once again, the Regular and the Rebel armies decided to attack the alien mother ship in space and save their respective men. They launched their missiles filled with their soldiers, toward the Martian mother ship. The unlikely alliance fought their way through the countless Martian UFOs and the fallen meteors. They suffered many casualties but ultimately, the aliens could not stop the earthlings from reaching their mother ship. Once inside, our heroes were welcomed by an army of alien sentinels, different types of robots, Mechas, and of course the Mars people themselves. After a feverish fight, they found Morden, in a middle of a torture session and when they freed him, he told them the location where Marco was held captive. With the help of the rebel soldiers, they managed to reach the leader and mother brain of the Mars people, Rootmars. Vanquishing the evil master mind of the Aliens triggered the slow destruction of the mother ship. Racing against time, they had to find Marco and escape the fallen alien ship before its complete annihilation. They thought they found him, but quickly realized he was hostile. The Martians created countless clones from Marco's DNA. Overwhelmed by the their outrageous number, our heroes were surrounded from every direction when Allan O'Neil came to the rescue, landing a much appreciated help for once. Finally the squad found the real Marco and freed him but that led some clones to deteriorate and transform into zombies. Struggling to reach the exit, our heroes barely managed to run from the zombies while avoiding their deadly blood vomit. They escaped the destruction of the mother ship in the nick of time but unfortunately, they were caught by Rootmars who survived their last battle. In his last ditch effort to take our heroes down with him, a long battle while falling though the atmosphere followed. Miraculously, not only our heroes came out victorious against that persistent and stubborn foe, they also survived the fall and landed on the ocean. The leader of the Rebels, Morden, had also survived with a handful of his soldiers, and ran away. With their mission accomplished, Marco and his friends threw their guns into the sea as they felt that this was their last battle before quitting the army for good. They had no idea how wrong they were. Stay tuned for the next part of the Metal Slug story explained. Special thanks to my patrons for their generous support. I hope you enjoyed this video, give it a thumbs up if you did and why not consider subscribing to the channel. Stay safe and thanks for watching.
