I completed Missions 1-5 right now (there is another Mission, but I don't know how to unlock it ), and it's pretty long for a Metal Slug game...but also not as good as the NeoGeo ones
it looks SO much better on a GBA than in the videos, which surprised me, but some of the animations where pretty weird, for example most of the explosions which were way to fast
but when playing it, I didn't even noticed big visual differences between this game and the "big" ones, even the backgrounds looked just as good...I think the game isn't a disappointment at all, it's very good (I like it better than Metal Slug 5, but Metal Slug 3 kicks Metal Slug Advance's ass), especially for a handheld game...after seeing the videos I feared the day when I would first play the game, but it actually plays like a real Metal Slug, not like some crappy conversion like the NeoGeo Pocket ones
the big ones are much better, since they have many more different enemies (Metal Slug Advance has some different kinds normal soldiers, those asian soldiers seen in Metal Slug 3 and bushmen soldiers like in the first mission of Metal Slug 5...and then there are helicopters, normal tanks, and those high tanks which drop those exploding balls...in the last mission, there are some airplanes, too, and there are some meal worms in mission 3 or so...that's it...no crabs, no aliens, no zombies, no mummies) and the level design is a bit boring in MSA, but it still is a great game and won't disappoint the Metal Slug fans (like me
)
the bosses are better than I thought also, but aren't as fun as the ones of Metal Slug 3, and
after beating the missions, there are 100 cards and 100 prisoners to find...which can get f*cking hard, since the bosses are pretty hard...
I think SNK wanted to put the game on a 64mbit card very hardly, since the romsize is exactly 64mbit (stripped), and obviously some things have been stripped because of the lack of space
another thing which makes this game more of a "lite" version of Metal Slug, is the fact that there aren't as many items and projectiles at once than in other Metal Slugs
but after all, the game is very good, and can compete with Metal Slug 1, while Metal Slug 2-4 are much better (Metal Slug 5 still sucks, is just unfair...and that new sliding move sucks, which you fortunately can't do in MSA)
@Aziere: hey, Metal Slug X rules
it's my second favorite Metal Slug