Metal Dogs is an Early Access top-down dungeon crawler the place you play as a canine with weapons strapped to their again. We bought the possibility to do a full preview of the sport forward of its full launch.
There is one thing extremely particular about Metal Dogs. It’s one thing that might solely be discovered within the early PlayStation 3 period of video games, the place Japanese builders have been turning their wildest concepts into titles for the console.
Games like Tokyo Jungle and SHORT PEACE: Ranko Tsukigime’s Longest Day particularly come to thoughts when enjoying one thing like Metal Dogs.
The thought of strapping weapons to a canine and letting them free on a mechanical wasteland can solely be achieved by unbiased titles, and fortunately this one commits very exhausting to its insane premise.
The recreation even has a easy picture mode, the place you possibly can pose your canine with stickers and a cool background, which reveals that the developer wholeheartedly embraces how ridiculous the idea may be.
Metal Dogs takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, the place a virus has turned natural materials into twisted mechanical amalgamations, not solely giving them a lift in dimension but in addition in artillery.
The recreation’s early enemies nonetheless retain a few of their animal elements, however finally you begin coping with straight up tanks and warships.
The recreation’s protagonist canine, named Pochi, is revived via an electrical shock by a scientist. Their dynamic begins with the scientist being chilly and uncaring, afraid that he’ll witness one more dying, however he finally warms as much as Pochi.
The scientist is our foremost supply of exposition, and since Pochi can’t speak, he largely speaks on the participant and offers us extra perception into this world and what ended it.
What is most shocking is that the sport doesn’t carry itself on the premise alone. Metal Dogs is definitely a very competent dungeon crawler roguelike, even that includes some Diablo itemization.
The participant can loot numerous wood crates across the map, in addition to killing bigger enemies to search out extra highly effective weapons, which have their very own rarity indicated by coloration.
Finding a stronger weapon is instantly noticeable via gameplay, and helps with making the participant really feel like they’re slowly getting stronger.
The recreation begins off pretty straightforward, however ramps up quick with massive boss fights in opposition to mutated crops and animals fused with artillery. The first few missions let the participant familiarize themselves with the controls earlier than the problem will increase.
Eventually, as fights get extra hectic, the sport begins to really feel like a bullet hell, with big blasts coming from all instructions when you attempt to hop round and combat again. You can watch me play a number of missions beneath:
As an Early Access recreation, Metal Dogs is trying extraordinarily stable. Performance in Metal Dogs is flawless, no bugs in sight, a good gameplay loop and attention-grabbing lore and worldbuilding.
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Metal Dogs is accessible on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows (via Steam).
