MetaGal – PS4 | Review

By John Hay
| 5th April 2019
| PS4, Review
| 0

When easy platinum’s take it too far.

MetaGal is a cracking looking little title that can only be described as a mega man clone. The games art style really reminded me of the early Mega Man X games that were on the Super Nintendo. The pixel art quality is not quite on par with Capcom’s works but its pretty damn close. The colour pallet also really took me back to the Snes era.

When I say Mega Man clone I don’t mean its a reskin or anything like that. It just takes all the staples you would expect in one of those titles like being able to select what boss you want to take on first and when you beat them you can use their power. You have tricky platforming sections with easy instant death. There are mid-bosses and end bosses. It’s all very mega man. The one big difference I noted was the lack of a charge shot, the game is so like Mega Man I found myself often trying for the standard blaster charge shot that’s just not there. The game does, however, offer a special shot that’s mapped to a different button than your standard shot so it’s not too different really.

While it does copy lots of the Mega Man formula and does a really good job of it, it doesn’t quite nail it perfectly. A few times I found a few platforming sections that just felt a bit too easy to mess up with and sent to crashing to instant death spikes or simply into a pit that kills you. It may have just been me but every other part I was fine and the game felt it was controlled well, but on these sections, it just felt off.

As you would likely expect with the retro look of this game it also has a retro soundtrack. The soundtrack is really good tbh and it makes me sad that most people won’t bother to experience it. Another thing that most won’t experience is the fact the game has unlockable characters adding some replay value to an already cheap title. The reason I say most won’t bother to experience it is the Trophy list.

Now Ratalaika Games are well known in the trophy hunting community as all its games have platinum trophies, not only do they have them they are often the easiest trophies to get on the system and they stack with other regions meaning you can platinum the same game multiple times (and you also get cross-buy). Now for some reason that I really don’t understand this game gives you the platinum by the time you have finished the tutorial and level 1……. What is the point in that? Look I kinda understand the point in doing that if its a crap game but when its a good title like this then use the list to add value to your title, add challenges do anything. This likely means most of the trophy hunters that buy this platinum, sorry I mean, trophy hunters that buy this game are simply going to stop playing after playing for about 15 mins. I’m sure the people that made the game will be happy if it’s selling but I’m also sure they would rather people played through and got to experience the effort they put into making the title.

Final Impressions

MetaGal is a really good game that’s lots of fun to play. It’s also a game that has made me think that Sony really needs to reform the trophy system. It used to be about playing games to challenge yourself and if you were good or dedicated you got your reward (the platinum). It’s now becoming more about buying as many games as you can like this that toss trophies at you for simply buying the game.

*Code kindly provided by the publisher for review*

Developer: Retro Revolution / Publisher: Ratalaika Games
Release date: 27/03/2019
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Platform Reviewed: PS4 Pro