Collection essentials #222: Metal Combat: Falcon’s Revenge (SNES)

This is the sequel to Battle Clash, a game I talked about a while back. Like Battle Clash, this game requires the Super Scope peripheral, so it’s basically a light gun game. And it’s one of the best games of its kind out there.

This is an example of what a video game sequel should be. It takes a game in Battle Clash that was already good, and improves and adds to everything to make a game that’s clearly better. Metal Combat just has that extra layer of polish that pushes a game from good to great. The graphics are better, there’s more content, more modes, more variety in gameplay, and this time the game has a battery backup to store saved games for record-keeping.

Like Battle Clash, the gameplay of Metal Combat consists of a series of what are basically boss battles against a series of giant robots. Gameplay in light gun games tends to be fairly simplistic and amounts to “see things, shoot things”, but Metal Combat is a little deeper than that. There is enough variety in your abilities that you have to be a little strategic in your approach, playing defensively at times and waiting for the right time to strike an enemy weak point. The game also features a story that directly follows the events of the previous game, and there are even two endings to get this time.

It’s a shame that Metal Combat is made so inaccessible compared to most games due to requiring a unique peripheral on an old console, an accessory that only works on CRT televisions. For that reason it hasn’t been ported or remade to anything, so not many have experienced the game as intended. But everyone who has recognizes what a good game it is. To me, it is a privilege to have the ideal setup to play it, and it is a very deserving collection essential.