Mercenary Kings: Reloaded Edition

As a big fan of old school run 'n gun action games, I, of course, love Metal Slug. But for as much as I dig the cartoony graphics, the vehicles and the great sense of humor, I've always been a little disappointed that the franchise didn't grow and evolve like other games. I hate to say it, but it feels like they had an opportunity to expand the series in creative ways and instead chose to churn out predictable sequels. In a lot of ways, Mercenary Kings is what SNK should have done with Metal Slug a long time ago. It's a fresh take on the shoot 'em up formula and yet another great addition to the Nintendo Switch.

First released back in 2014, Mercenary Kings has spent the last few years bouncing from one console to the next. Now, in honor of it coming to the Switch, Tribute Games has decided to pack the game with brand new characters, additional weapons and a bunch of extra tweaks and fixes. Best of all, this Reloaded Edition will be free to everybody who already bought the game on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

You play one of a few mercenaries who are brought in to take down a violent organization known as C.L.A.W. While this setup may not sound very original, the way Mercenary Kings plays out certainly is. Instead of simply running from left to right through a series of linear levels, this game offers up a number of large, interconnected stages that you'll need to get to know if you want to complete the dozens upon dozens of missions.

Like I said, this is no ordinary run 'n gun shoot 'em up, and one of the main reasons for this is because the story is broken up into a series of missions you need to complete. A lot of these tasks will involve rescuing hostages, finding missing parts and even abducting enemy soldiers. These missions get the most out the 2D stages, often forcing you to explore sections you might have otherwise ignored.

The game I hear Mercenary Kings compared to all the time is Monster Hunter, and I can see why. Beyond simply going in and completing the missions, you'll spend a lot of your time picking up and collecting materials that you will later use to craft new gear. This is one of the game's biggest hooks, and you can spend a lot of time trying to track down all the materials you need to create the perfect gun. The good news is that this brand new Reloaded Edition makes the hunting and gathering a little easier, thanks to the ability to purchase materials at the store. This should save you hours of repetitive grinding.

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On that note, it's probably worth mentioning that there is a lot of content in Mercenary Kings. This is not one of those shoot 'em ups that you beat in a single sitting, because I still had missions to complete after twenty hours of killing soldiers and jumping on platforms. And because of the way the missions are structured, I found that this was a perfect fit in handheld mode.

Although this brand new Reloaded Edition goes a long way to add new content, it still suffers from a lot of the same problems that plagued the original 2014 release. From a design perspective, I really like the stages in Mercenary Kings. I like how large and detailed they are, giving you buildings to explore, underground sewers to raid and jungles to navigate. What I don't like is how the levels start to blend together after a while. Even when we're given a completely different stage, it still uses a lot of the same visuals we saw in the last level. And with so many missions tied to these locations, there's a general repetition that I found off-putting.

It's not just the backgrounds that repeat too much, but also the mission types. While there are certainly a few tasks that stand out, most of the missions repeat a familiar pattern. You'll also see a lot of the same bosses and enemies recycled over and over, something that only compounds the other problems. Had each of these stages added a new and interesting element to the story, I likely would have overlooked some of the repetition, but without a gripping narrative, it just comes across as a lot of filler.

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From a gameplay level, Mercenary Kings shares a little too much with Metal Slug. This is yet another run 'n gun action game that don't let you shoot diagonally. I don't like it in SNK's long-running franchise and I don't like it here. The good news is that you can craft weapons that largely negate this issue, but this Reloaded Edition would be a lot better if they just gave us eight-way aiming. It also would have been a lot better if they added a few more defensive moves, but that's probably asking too much.

While it's a tad repetitive and in desperate need of a wider variety of stages, Mercenary Kings is a fun evolution of the run 'n gun formula. It's a great looking action game with a cool crafting system and a staggering amount of content. Best of all, this brand new Reloaded Edition adds more content and makes some much-needed tweaks. If you're a Switch owner who has somehow missed out on Mercenary Kings, this is a great time to deploy to action.