ACA NEOGEO METAL SLUG X

Welcome to my walkthrough for ACA NEOGEO METAL SLUG X, which as you will have probably already guessed, is another easy 1000 Gamerscore. If you've played ACA NEOGEO METAL SLUG 2, you'll be in for an even easier ride as Metal Slug X is very similar to the Metal Slug 2. MSX is actually a modified version of MS2 and comes with more difficulty, rearranged enemy placements and different enemies, and a few more changes. However, the increased difficulty won't be an issue and the game plays very smoothly compared to MS2, and ACA NEOGEO METAL SLUG. which both had pretty annoying frame rate issues with both.

As always, there are three different modes available, each with their own set of achievements tied to them - Original Mode, High Score Mode, and Caravan Mode. You'll need to obtain certain scores in each mode to unlock most of the achievements and then upload your score in two of the modes for another couple of achievements.

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In the walkthrough, I will provide plenty of text and a video for each of the game modes. I've listed that the playthroughs required to complete the game is three. However, you don't need to fully complete the game three times over. All you'll need to do is playthrough on three different modes until you obtain enough score in each one.

Take your time, be aware of your surroundings and have a little patience on your way to earning the full gamerscore in ACA NEOGEO METAL SLUG X. The Original mode will take the longest to earn the five related achievements from it, as you will need to earn 2,000,000 points which you should be able to do in about 25-35 minutes either by Mission 3 or Mission 5. It doesn't matter so much if you're constantly dying as you have unlimited lives and continues so long as you keep adding credits to the game (pressing cn_LB). However, dying will cause you to lose any POW's (Prisoners of War) you've saved and therefore you won't earn as many bonus points, meaning it will take longer to reach the points goal.

High score mode and Caravan mode both see you start with three lives and no continues. There's not as much pressure in High score mode as you're not against the clock but Caravan mode gives you five minutes to earn as much score as you can before the game is over.

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A flawless run of Missions 1 and 2 will net you all of the achievements for High score mode but even with the odd death here and there, you can still amass 1,500,000 points during Mission 3.

As for Caravan mode, you'll need 800,000 points to pop all of the achievements. This can be done again with a flawless run though of Mission 1 and then you should only need a few points from the start of Mission 2. You'll even have just under a minute to spare too.

Let's begin with Original mode. Select this mode and then press cn_A. "Insert a coin" by pressing cn_LB which will give you a credit to play the game. You can add as many credits as you want to and you will need to if you lose all three of your lives. You'll need 2,000,000 points for all of the achievements tied to Original mode and at best, you could do this with a flawless and death-free run by the end of Mission 3. Otherwise, a half-decent run will probably take you to Mission 5. The more you die, the less bonus points you will be awarded at the end of a mission.

Choose any of the four characters, doesn't matter who as the only difference between them is their appearances, and let's start the first mission.

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Sometimes, not everything is the same in different playthroughs of the game. Enemies, their spawns, weapons, etc, will always be the same but less important stuff like NPC characters, the items they may or may not drop can change so you may see different things in your playthrough compared to my video. For example, the business man in the blue suit you will see near the start of Mission 1 in the video may be replaced by another arabian for you. If things are different, it shouldn't have much impact on your playthrough.

Mission One

I'll be providing as much text-detail as possible for each mission but if you'd prefer to just watch each video for the different modes, scroll right down to the bottom of each walkthrough page. Aim to stay alive in the first and second missions so you won't have as many points to earn later on. It's fairly straight-forward to do so long as you take your time and get familiar with the enemies, what they do, where they spawn and so on. It only takes a few quick playthroughs to get familiar.

Once you land in the desert, shoot the sign with the arrow on your left a few times for a hidden item. Proceed to the right and kill three soldiers you will come across one-by-one. The soldiers aren't much of a threat throughout the game unless you leave them alive for too long or they begin spawning in large numbers. You won't have to worry about the latter until the later missions however. You'll come across your first couple of POW's (Prisoners of War), the guys tied up who have long blonde hair and thick and gorgeous beards. To free them, either shoot them or melee them to break the ropes and then run into them. They will salute you and a small figure will appear at the bottom left-corner of the screen showcasing how many POW's you have saved. Should you die at any point, you will lose any amount of POW's you have saved up to that point. Should you make it to the end of the mission without dying, all of the POW's you have saved will be tallied up and you will be awarded extra points. You definitely need to save all NUMBER available in this first mission.

Each POW your free (2/13), will give you a 'H' which is a Heavy Machinegun upgrade and comes with limited ammo (showcased underneath the "ARMS" tab at the top of the screen). It will give you a faster firing rate and you'll also be able to shoot diagonally upwards, and diagonally downwards after jumping. Jump on top of the small building using the food crate and collect the item. There may be a couple of NPC's below you if they've not already run away and the business man in the blue suit should put down his briefcase which you can pick up for a few points.

Press on and kill a couple more soldiers before a small truck rolls up from the right side of the screen containing more soldiers. Take them out and destroy the truck too. Once the truck is destroyed, a small jet will spawn above you and try to take out by dropping bombs on you. They are very easy to dodge and you simply need to shoot directly up at the jet while edging either left or right to avoid the bombs. Collect the letter the jet drops once it is no more and jump over the remains of the truck to proceed on.

Soldiers will be in front of you and on the building too here so spray a few rounds from your weapon which will also cut free the two POW's (4/13). They will give you items like diamonds or food that come with a small amount of points. Moving to the right a touch more will spawn a tall tank that you can take out before it even gets a shot off. It's weapon is very slow any way as it fires a cannonball that drops directly in front of the tank and rolls very slowly towards you. Take out the tank first and then clean up the rest of the soldiers still alive afterwards including the one tip-toeing above you. The tank will drop "BOMB" ammo which will give you ten Grenades to use. Save them for now though unless you somehow get overwhelmed at any point during the mission.

Jump over the remains of the tank and kill the four soldiers in front of you. Take out the one next to the POW and then jump up to the platform the prisoner is on to free him (5/13) and he will give you more BOMBS. Be aware of the soldiers spawning here as one or two will keep coming from the right side of the screen until you proceed forward. They may chuck a cheeky grenade that could catch you off guard with its arc that reaches the platform you're on. Clear out the soldiers as you move right after freeing the POW and get ready for a sub-boss.

As you prepare for the building behind you to change, kill the soldier and free the POW. If you have any Heavy Machinegun ammo left, use this first before you pick up the "C" which is an Enemy Chaser. The POW (6/13) will probably have dropped the "C" underneath the middle enemy rocket launcher so shoot directly up st the enemy above you on the right and then pick up the Chaser once you've run out of ammo. The Chaser pretty much does all of the aiming for you as the rockets fire at rapid rate and close in on nearby targets. Take out the remaining enemy rocket placements and the odd soldier that will spawn from either side of the screen. Wait for the building to blow up and collapse and then position yourself in the middle of the building and shoot up at the small black hole for a bunch of hidden items (either coins or food).

Move forward and shoot at the camel in front of you for some more food. Kill the soldier talking to the Arabian and then jump on the Camel with the "IN" above it. This Camel is technically a "vehicle" in the game and comes with a Vulcan Cannon equipped. Your character can still be hit while riding the Camel so when the opposing Camel rider to you right tries to shoot you, be sure to duck down below his shots. Quickly obliterate him and then destroy the structure behind him. The wall will blow up and reveal a stash of hidden food in the window above you. Collect the food and then start shooting at the Arabian filled truck that has now spawned to your right. Once destroyed, a baby and a female supply sergeant by the name of Rumi Aikawa will spawn. The baby does nothing but Rumi can be saved (7/13) like the regular POW's and with the stray bullets that will have come her way, her bag will have been hit and will drop a couple of items (usually gems).

Ditch the Camel at this point (cn_A to jump off or cn_X & cn_Y to Suicide Charge) and use the Tank instead, also known as the SV-001 "Metal Slug". The tank is much safer to use as it actually keeps your character out of harms way unlike the Camel. Your tank comes with a Vulcan Cannon which can shoot in any direction, armour that can take three hits, the ability to lower the cannon (ducking down if you will), jump, and also a cannon attack that can only shoot forward. From where the Tank spawned, shoot the third caged window to your right above you for some hidden items then proceed to the right. Edge forward and begin spraying and praying in front of you and diagonally ahead of you too killing the incoming Arabians and the freeing the POW (8/13) above you. Once the rocket launching tank spawns to your right, aim all of your firepower at the the enemy destroying it before it gets a shot off then go back to spraying and praying. You wont get that far to the right before another POW (9/13) and another enemy tank spawn. Take out the tank again and before you push forward, you may notice an item on the platform above. Jump out of your tank to reach the item which could either be a gem worth 30,000 points, or, like in my video, an apple worth 100 points.

Move forward killing a couple more Arabians and then get ready for a chain of helicopters that will spawn above you and to your right. The helicopters will spawn and be lead by a red helicopter. Focus solely on the red one and once it is destroyed, you'll be awarded with several tens of thousands of points as each following helicopter will go down too. The red helicopter should only be able to get off a few shots but try to destroy it as soon as you can as the projectiles can be tricky to dodge while driving the tank.

Move forward while still firing and quickly save the POW (10/13) in front of the boss. Edge backward slowly and hold cn_downleft while using cn_Y to throw Grenades out of the top of the tank. Once you hit the left side of the screen, edge forward to the right again while still firing at the boss. Your movement here should allow you to safely and slowly dodge the multi-coloured projectiles coming at you from the boss. If it's looking like you are going to take a hit, use the invincibility trick by exiting the tank just before a projectile hits you. When your character jumps out, they will be invincible for a second or two. Move to the left or right while your jumping out to make sure you're not hit after you land and then hop back in the tank.

As soon as the boss raises its body from the ground, shoot solely at the blue-fire toting cannon underneath for roughly about five seconds and then move underneath the tank so that you will free the three POWs (13/13) that drop from the boss' cannon. Two will move back and forth but the other one will hop off to the right and off sceen if you're not quick enough. From here, stay underneath the boss and continue to fire your Vulcan Cannon, Heavy Cannon and Grenades at the boss which wont take long to go down. While underneath the boss however, make sure you keep an eye on its homing rockets that will fire from the top of the boss and work their way around and down to get to you underneath. Simply shoot your Vulcan cannon to the left or right to stop them hitting you.

Once the boss goes down you will have finished Mission One with all of your lives intact, all 13 POWs saved, and your Tank still in one piece. The scores will tally up an you will earn 10,000 points for each POW saved, 30,000 for saving Rumi, and a whopping 300,000 points for still having the Tank. Then, as if that weren't enough, you'll receive an extra 100,000 points just for being "GREAT!". All together, you should be sitting pretty at anywhere between 750,000-800,000 points. During the scoring period, you will also pop the following achievement before heading into Mission Two:

Mission Two

Free the first POW (1/13) and then shoot the left eye (not your left) of the Egyptian structure behind you for a hidden item. Pick up the "L" from the POW which is a Laser. The Laser fires continuously and does great damage, however, it can't be fired diagonally and it burns through ammo pretty quickly. Run into the water and jump over the broken block facing diagonally out of the water. At the same time as you jump, press cn_X once to fire a burst of Laser at the Arabian you will see standing on top of the explosive barrel marked "DANGER". Quickly position yourself to the left of the barrel and shoot up, killing the Arabians before they can drop down to the water. Pick up the item on top of the barrel and another that should've dropped from the last enemy. Now, stand on the left edge of the barrel, jump up and then throw a grenade to your right. Do this three times to free three POWs (4/13) hidden in the top-right corner of the screen. Collect each of their items once they drop down and then blow up the barrel to move into the next area.

Once you make your way down the stairs, kill the two bats above you. Once you come into contact with the first miner here, he will dig up an item for you. While he's doing that, jump and shoot directly down at where he is digging to spawn another item. Move forward and kill the bat above you and then jump and fire at the small swarm that will come flying through the gate. The miner here will also dig up an item for you. Make sure you shoot at the ground again for another extra item. Run forward until you see a bunch of Miners running from more bats. Kill the bats and then take out the Mummy slowly walking towards the struggling miner.

The mummies take several shots to take down or a few melee strikes. Power weapons can make shorter work of the mummies. These enemies are slow moving and have a single attack which is a purple cloud of smoke that will turn you into a mummy should it hit you. You wont lose a life for being hit but your movement will be slowed down, you're only weapon will be a pistol which will now fire much slower than normal, and you'll experience a delay when trying to throw grenades. All you need to do against mummies is keep out of melee-range. Should you be stuck next to one, just duck down using cn_down and their attack won't touch you. Should you become mummified, look for red and blue flashing vials to pick up which can be found from dead enemies or saved POWs to turn you back to normal.

Shoot the mummy and then shoot the one that spawns to your left. Shoot another two which spawn either side and then once the screen moves to the right, shoot in the doorway the miners and mummy originally came out of to free a POW. Walk into the doorway to add him to your count of saved POW's (5/13). Jump up to the block on your left then jump right to the pathway above the door and free another POW (6/13).

Continue on to discover a MUMMY spawn point, with a POW (7/13) in front of it, that needs destroying. Shoot at it as quick as you can but keep an eye out for mummies spawning on your left as well. Once destroyed, you'll probably need the "I" weapon at this point. This is an Iron Lizard which fires a remote-controlled unmanned vehicle that will speed along the ground until it hits a target. It's effective for this area as you'll now be introduced to mummy-dogs. These have the same attack as mummies with better range but take longer to fire as they seem to need to cough the purple smoke up first. They move slowly but can also jump, enabling the dogs to reach higher platforms where applicable. Fire one Iron Lizard for each mummy-dog you see as you move forward and then hit the next MUMMY spawn point with a barrage of your weapon once you come to it. Destroy it as quickly as you can and even throw a few grenades for good measure too so you can pick up the "F" before it disappears. The 'F' is the Flamethrower which lacks range and fire rate but can do strong damage over time.

Keep killing dogs and free the three POWs you'll see tied up to the roof (10/13). One of them will give you another "F" to top up your ammo. The last POW will also give you "FIRE BOMB" which is pretty much a Molotov Cocktail. These can be thrown at the same distance as regular grenades but unleash a small path of fire once they hit the ground. Their direct damage isn't much to talk about though. Take out the last MUMMY spawn point and then grab the "S" for a Shotgun. The Shotgun's similar to the Flamethrower but fires a touch quicker, has slightly better range, and most-certainly hits harder. Once you pick it up, three mummies will spawn out of the ground in front of you. If you wait just a split second for them to finish spawning, you can take them all out with a single shot. Free the POW at the top of the stairs (11/13) and then give the next trio of mummies the same treatment. As soon as they die, a full row of mummies will start descending down from the top of the screen. You already know what to do. The last surprise here is a row of four dogs that spawn on the opposite side of the screen to which you are. Make sure to jump/move away and blast them with the Shotty. Don't try to melee them as you won't be able to kill them in time and you'll increase the risk of becoming mummified. Once clear, head right into the next section.

As soon as you enter this section, keep running to your right so that you can shoot The Wonderer's backpack once to drop an item and also make contact with her before she runs off. This will count towards your POW count (12/13). If you're too slow, she will still salute you but it won't technically count as a save. As you're running forward, shoot the gas-carrying bats above you but keep moving to make sure you don't get hit. Kill the mummies waiting on the slope in to your right but don't their mouth-spawning bugs get near you. They can also be put be down with a single blast of your weapon. Once clear, head up the ramp. Drop down to where the dead explorer is and shoot her once to reveal a purple diamond. Collect it for a nice 50,000 points and then jump out of this area asap before she blows up.

Jump up a couple of platforms and take out the three mummies to your left. Proceed left, jump up, then jump to the right. Shoot the mummy ahead you, drop down to collect the item, jump back up, and then kill the next mummy. Jump up to your right and open the chest for a Flamethrower and then quickly jump up to the next platform on your left. Make quick work of the four dogs and the mummy and then start working on the next set of dogs further left. You'll see an explorer looking at the structure in front of him. He won't drop any items or anything like that but he may be turned into a mummy by the dogs. If he does, be sure to take him out as well.

Jump up to the platform the arrow sign is on but watch out for the hanging mummy that will drop down. Crouch and take it out. Jump across and keep running to collect the item before the boulder crashes into the platform and collapses it. At the same time, shoot up at the bat as you move underneath it and then kill the mummy to your right. Moe close to the edge of the platform and kill another hanging mummy. Your Flamethrower should be able to reach the green mummy on the opposite platform so long as you are close to the edge.

Jump across the gap and then jump up the step shooting a round of flames at the same time which will kill the mummy above you. The next mummy isn't close enough to the edge to be killed by your flames the same way the first mummy was so kill it's flying bug first and then jump up and shoot it. Jump to the top right corner and then jump across the gap to your left. Free the POW (13/13) but then quickly move back to the right side of this platform so that you're not sandwiched in by the two hanging mummies. You'll need to melee the one to your right as it will probably be hanging right above your head and then fire some flames at the one on the left before collecting the weapon from the freed prisoner. Collect the Shotgun and then as you run left, just before you jump, shoot up at the structure in the background. This will make some coins appear in your path in the air as you jump.

Before you make your way through the purple clouds of smoke ahead of you, lob a grenade at the dog on the left side. Once the cloud fires, quickly drop down and collect the chest. Jump out to the left side and deal with the dog on the far left of the screen. Now, you don't need to do this next part if you don't want to but if you'd like a few extra points then why not give it a go. I didn't do it correctly in the video hence why you'll only see me randomly firing in the sky at this point but what you need to do is time it right to jump down onto the cloud-firing platform on top of the middle pipe (if you will). Before you land, shoot down at this pipe and a decent number of diamonds will begin spawning from the pipes. Be aware that the left and right pipes fire at the same time. These fire twice before the middle pipe fires once. If you get hit, then you will become mummified but you won't lose a life.

Jump left and then jump up a couple of platforms. Again, we have another gamble situation here which you don't need to attempt if you don't want to. The risk of death is higher here as the jumps can be a pain to nail correctly sometimes. From the second-to-last platform, run and jump all the way to the right. There will be three chests to open with either items or bats in them. The bats take a few seconds to kill you giving you time to kill them first. At the edge of the platform, jump across to the head on your right. Blast the chest open to your right which will cause coins to appear but also a hanging mummy on either side of you to spawn too. Take out the left one first and then the right. The lamp on the other head will be puffing smoke which it will have already puffed one lot of smoke by this point. Wait for another three puffs and then jump across to the head. At the time of the jump, a genie will have spawned which will instantly turn into a body of coins. The timing of the jump is very important though because if you're too quick, you'll end up just getting ten points for collecting the lamp. If you're too slow, the coins will drop to the bottom of the screen.

From the right head, shoot up but jump instantly after the shot. This will spawn either a lamp or a harmful pot of mummy poison. Either way, you'll be out of harm's way anyway thanks to the jump. If it's a lamp, do the same thing again and grab the coins. If it's poison, shoot and jump from the left dog and then collect the coins from the genie in this direction. Once you're sorted here, be very careful jumping back across to the left. It's a pretty big jump and the head isn't as large as it looks. It's very easy to end up not jumping at all and just falling right off the head. In the video, I have my character's right foot well within the ear before moving left a fraction more before jumping. Don't forget that should you die at this point, you'll be kissing all of those saved POWs goodbye so unless you're feeling confident or you don't mind quickly restarting, don't worry about this section too much.

Head back to the main path and head up the slope on your right. You'll be greeted by a dog here. Kill it and then open the chest for a Flame Shot. Kill the green mummy at the top of the slope and then take care of the two hanging ones that will slowly descend down on either side of you. Collect the item one of the mummies will drop and then jump across the gap to the next platform. Collect the items and kill the mummy that will spawn to your right.

Jump up to your left and quickly collect the Shotgun from the chest. Blast away at the dogs as quickly as you can and don't be shy with your ammo. Once clear, move left and just before you jump up on the block to you left, shoot up at the arrow pointing right, above you. Jump left, jump right and drop off the higher column. This movement should allow you to grab all of the coins before they disappear maximising the points you will get for collecting them consecutively. Drop back down and bust open the chest for the item. Jump back up to the higher platform and then across to your right.

Shoot or melee the three chests as you jump up the platforms. Hop into the Slugnoid and continue jumping up opening more chests as you go. Jumping to the platform after the last chest will trigger the boss to kick in. If you used my walkthrough for ACA NEOGEO METAL SLUG 2, you may have used the boss-freezing trick where the mechanical monster gets stuck right at the start of the battle. Sadly, this doesn't work in this version of the game so you'll have to fight the boss in a fair battle. Thankfully, it's very easy to do.

Span your Cannon attack by pressing cn_Y causing your weapon to drop shells directly down at the boss. Be aware that you'll only get ten of these to fire so you can either spam them straight away like I like to do, or save them for if you lose both of your Slugs Vulcan Cannons. If you get hit once, you'll lose one Vulcan. If you're hit for a second time, you'll lose the other. From this point you'll be weaponless if you've no ammo left in your special weapon. The boss itself continuously fire electric balls of plasma at you that will move at a medium speed and from left to right. Sometimes, and less often from my experience, the boss will fire slow-moving and homing rockets. Again, these are easy to dodge but can also be destroyed too. Another more deadly attack is its almost-screen clearing laser/plasma attack that can only be dodged if you move right to the left or right side of the screen. Lastly, the boss will also try to "eat" the tower n which you'll need to jump to keep away from its jaws from doom.

Once you've pummelled the boss with enough ammo, you won't be able to move your character while the boss dies but it will try to launch itself at you one last time. Don't worry about it though as it can't harm you at this point. Once it drops to its death, the scores will tally up. You'll receive 10,000 points for each POW, 30,000 for The Wonderer, 300,000 for keepin your Slugnoid intact, and a bonus 100,000 for being GREAT!

You will have unlocked the following achievement earlier on in the mission as you should be sat pretty at around 1.5-1.8 million points now:

Mission Three

Once you've landed collect the item to your left and bust open the crates for a couple more items too. Shoot the soldier to your right, collect the items, shoot the crate and free the POW. Jump and shoot down at the soldiers below you and then kill the one to your right. You'll see a train signal in the background with a red and blue light. Shoot at this a few times to reveal a hidden POW. Shoot the soldier chilling in his chair and then shoot him again repeatedly to make him drop an item. Proceed right and kill another soldier. Another will appear on your left on the lower ground, jump and shoot him. Now you will be introduced to soldiers who carry shields. The shields take a lot of firepower to destroy but as soon as the enemy exposes himself to fire his weapon, a single shot will still them. Continue shooting until the soldier is dead and simply duck down if he manages to fire his pistol.

Push forward and two more shield soldiers will spawn. Kill them and then free the POW. There will be three to free here. The second one will give you food (usually bananas) which will turn you "big". In this form, you'll move slightly slower but your weapon, and any other power-weapons, will deal more damage and have a better radius. Your grenades will also be bigger and deal more damage. The third POW will give you a Shotgun. Shoot a single shot at the metal container with the cover over it in front of you as sometimes items can spawn from these. Try not to hang around to much while moving over the containers. Jumping between them, trying to kill enemies and dodging grenades at the same time can be a bit tricky. If you do start to struggle to progress due to enemy grenades, just try to push forward straight after a thrown-grenade.

Once clear of the containers, you'll be greeted by an enemy tank. Thankfully, it can be destroyed in one or two shotgun blasts. Once it's out of action, wait for the driver to pop out of the hatch and hit him with a single shot. The tank will then blow up and drop an item. Move forward to the right slightly and two trucks, one from either side will spawn carrying soldiers. Don't be shy with your grenades here and take everything out as quickly as possible, otherwise you'll be sandwiched in by grenade-throwing soldiers and the two trucks. As soon as the screen is clear, four RPG-soldiers will begin descending down from the top of the screen. Only one of them will try to fire at you if given the chance and the projectile will be easy to dodge but don't give them the chance and take them out as quickly as you can.

Move to the right and you'll see a train cart. Shoot a bullet at the lever in front of you to open the hatch enabling you to climb up. If you're having difficulties getting a shot on the soldiers on top of the cart, jump and hurl some grenades at them. Use the same tactic for the two soldiers further back as well. Don't worry too much about the soldiers climbing up the side of the cart, these guys are only a very small threat once they actually get onto the cart. Another POW needs saving in between the two carts. Be quick to take out the shield soldier as soon as he comes on screen. Free the POW and then jump and throw a grenade at the two soldiers on the right-side cart. As you approach the edge of the cart, be sure to kill the soldier on top of the blue cart to your right as you drop.

Bust open the door and walk through collecting the animals for points as you go. Quickly bust open the door to the next cart, get inside, duck down, and then take out the soldier in here. Shoot up at the roof to break the metal and hit the soldier on top of the cart. The POW you'll save here will give you a "Diet". This will transform you back to your regular size with regular style weapons. Moving forward, you'll see two more POWs tied up. Free them and grab the weapon from the left POW as soon as you can. It should be an Enemy Chaser or Heavy Machinegun with the Chaser being the better weapon for this situation. The enemy planes will have already spawned at this point but even though they are easy to take out, they can catch you off guard if you take too long to grab the power-weapon.

Coming into contact with the planes themselves wont kill you but they will randomly fire their rockets which will obviously kill you. Sometimes, you may be in line with the plane and its rocket right when they fire it, hence why you need to get set up and take them out as quickly as you can. Straight after the planes go down, hovercraft/boats will spawn below you in the water firing the exact same style of rockets up at you. Even when you kill the driver of a boat, the boat will still continue to operate and fire rockets. It doesn't help that they are fairly strong as well. If you've got the Chaser, you can shoot and let the weapon do most of the work for you without having to jump. With a Heavy Machinegun or Pistol, you'll have a lot a lot of jumping and shooting to do. Just make sure you make the rockets your first priority. After the first boat, two more will spawn. Once clear, move to the right and take out a few more soldiers on your way.

You'll come to the front end of the train now and you'll see the coal-carrying part of the engine. Once clear of the few enemies here, throw a grenade at the coal to reveal the "Stone". The Stone can travel further than other grenades as it's heavier and doesn't explode on impact. Spam these against the tank that will descend from the top of the screen. After the tank's destroyed, shoot inside the train for a hidden item. Jump over the cabin and free the POW's on the other side. After throwing a Stone at the soldier to the right of the prisoners. One POW will give you a Heavy Machinegun, which you'l desperately need at this point and the other will give you normal grenades. It's up to you if you want to take the frags or continue using the Stones.

The next part can be a bit tricky. You'll see the train cart in front of you moving left and right which you need to time it right to jump across. However, if you've pushed to far to the right edge of the train you're still stood on, this will spawn the enemy jet earlier than you'd like and you may be forced to try and fight it from the black train. There's still room to move but it will be very tight and hard to defend yourself. Once you're over to the right, the Jet will definitely spawn if it hasn't already. Sadly, I died at this point in the video as I was a bit too jumpy (literally). Rather than landing on the carriage and moving all the way to the right, I stopped, the Jet then stared dropping rockets and I left my self completely open as I couldn't move to the right.

It also doesn't help that soldiers will spawn one-by-one on the right side of the screen. Make them a priority when you can so then they don't stab you but be as quick as you can to kill them then switch back to shooting the jet. Do your best to keep your movements steady and slow when fighting the jet. If you move to quickly to the left or right, you'll end up getting boxed by the rockets. After this section, it's time to take on the Mission's sub-boss which is actually the main boss from the first Mission in ACA NEOGEO Metal Slug 2.

Give the boss everything you've got here including your grenades which you'll have to jump and throw at the same time. The plane's thrusters on either side of you won't hurt you when smoke is coming out of them but they will do damage when fire streams from them. Tanks will occasionally fire projectiles at you but the tanks themselves will also drop down and try and crush you. You've basically got to dodge everything while staying in between the thrusters fire. Don't be tempted to try and go all the way to the left or right of the screen as you'll be trapped and killed. Sadly, I let the team down again at this point as I went too far to the right when trying to dodge a tank projectile. Once the plane starts to blow up, move to the left side of the screen and as soon as the plane does go up in a cloud of smoke, it will turn into coins that will fly up into the air and drop down to the ground. From your position, run to the right and try to pick up as many as you can before they disappear.

Now you'll need to traverse over more train carriages again. Before you do that however, there will be a crate ahead of you with a 'D' in it. This is the Drop Shot a weapon that fires bouncing landmines. This can be useful against the enemies hiding behind cover but otherwise it's not a great weapon. You can only fire three or four at a time and the bouncing can be inconsistent and easily affected by your terrain. Plus, the mines don't travel that far and explode when hitting a wall or anything vertically in the way. Use the weapon anyway or hurl some grenades to clear the soldiers on the first carriage. Drop down in between the first and the second carriage and free the POW for a Heavy Machinegun. Use grenades or good timing combined with accuracy to get back up and onto the second carriage. Clear the top of the carriage and jump across to the third. Be sure to use the cover to your advantage as well when necessary and press on. Once you're about to drop from the third carriage make sure you do so quickly before the soldier hiding behind the shield-carrying soldier fires his rocket. Kill them and the other soldier here and then choose which vehicle you want to use leading up the Mission's main boss.

Originally, I would've said to take the Slug Flyer over the SV-001 but after giving the tank a shot, I actually found it a bit easier to keep this vehicle. The Flyer obviously offers more movement freedom but I didn't use the invincibility trick while piloting the Flyer. When using the tank, it was a little tougher to dodge enemy projectiles but the invincibility trick worked wonders against the boss. Whichever vehicle you choose, the approach will be the same leading up to the boss: destroy anyone and everything in your path as quickly as you can!

Once you've cleared nine blue enemy planes which spawn in three groups of three, the boss will slowly appear from the right. As you lay down your ammo against the boss, there will be plenty of projectiles to dodge. The boss has a chain gun which fires projectiles all over the screen and only gives a very small and awkward gap to fly through. The same gun will also fire wider projectiles in threes. Even though these come at a slower rate, they are slightly easier to time and dodge. Above the bosses cannon, there's also a flamethrower which launches balls of flames down to the ground. The boss can also lower is whole body which will kill you if you are caught underneath. The boss also packs flying fire bombs, and a flamethrower from the lower part of the boss that covers roughly three quarters of the screen.

If you're using the plane, it's super difficult to dodge everything despite being able to move more freely. What I didn't know how originally however was that this particular tank is a better version than the one seen in the first mission. The gold version of the SV-001 moves quicker, jumps higher and has less recoil when hit. Sure it cant fly but using cn_down and cn_A to jump out of the tank at the right time makes easy work of dodging the projectiles.

If you managed to nail the entire mission without dying then well done! You'll rack up points for every saved POW, the Wonderer who spawns during the boss battle, extra points for whichever vehicle you kept in one piece, and points for being GREAT! Sadly I died in this mission and also lost my vehicle meaning that I lost out on a decent bonus and finished at just under 2,000,000 points. If all went well for you, you should be at around 2,400,000-2,700,000 points. This will bag you the last point-related achievement for Original mode:

If that was the last achievement you needed then you can intentionally die at this point until the Continue screen comes up. Let the timer count down or hit cn_A to make it count down quicker. When the screen comes up asking about online rankings, hit cn_A for Yes. At this point you'll pop the following achievements:

If you're not quiet at the score required, then let's continue in Mission Four.

Mission Four

Don't expect to make your way through this mission without losing a decent number of lives. Even the most experienced players will struggle at this point as there's a lot going on, plenty of enemies to deal with and projectiles to try and dodge. After you land, move right and shoot the vehicle and soldier in front of you. A POW will spawn from the fridge in the back of the vehicle. Push forward, collect the item the POW drops and watch out for the enemy on the motorcycle that will come from the right. These guys will try and drive towards you and kamikaze there bike into you if they are left alive too long. Free the POW above you who will give you a weapon which should be a Heavy Machinegun.

Be careful now as you move forward as all of the buildings you'll come across will be destroyable. This makes hitting enemies stood on the higher levels sometimes harder to hit due to the structures of the buildings sometimes shielding them. As you move forward, you'll pick up tons of food, have enemies spawning to your left, right, and above you as well. You'll also not be able to help but become fat too. Gradually move forward and eventually you'll face off against a tank. Take out the tank and collapse the last building so that you can jump on its collapsed roof and then back to the left to save the two POWs.

A bus is now blocking your path. Wait for it to open up and then lay into it with your weapon. Be careful of the occasional soldier spawning to your left and shoot at the bus and motorbikes that will try to drive through it until the bus is no more. Make your way through the bus, freeing the POW on the way. Collect the weapon which will likely be a Dropshot, and get ready for the next pretty tough section.

This part requires patience and careful timing as rockets will be constantly firing from what look like wells. They can be destroyed but won't stop spawning and you'll only have a second or two to jump past them. A single soldier will continue to spawn on the higher level and there will be a few soldiers on the other side of the well too. The soldiers on the same level as you wont respawn so deal with these guys first either with your Dropshot or grenades. Once they die, time it right to jump past the rocket while also not forgetting where and what the soldier above you is doing.

Now you need to do the same thing again but with two rockets firing up at the same time this time. Once past this one, the last well fires three rockets at the same time and the space between each well is tighter. Take care of the grenadier hanging on the wall first before dealing with the other two soldiers to your right. The rocket soldier to the right may require a grenade to be taken out as he ducks down under your pistols shots everytime he's not firing. Move forward taking out a couple more soldiers above you and then take out the tall tank that will spawn to your right. After taking out the tank, rescue the POW for a Laser weapon and then there will be one more well to make your way past. This one however, will spawn Rocket Divers. These guys will launch into the air and then fire off the rockets on their back at you once they are roughly in line with your character. This is a difficult part to pass without dying as the groups of divers spawn quite quickly after each other. Shoot down the first wave and then quickly move past the well. Turn back to your left and shoot down the group again before quickly pushing to your right. I died at this point in the video as I tried to run off to the right too quickly without dealing with the last wave of divers. Instead, I shot one or two and tried to deal with the shield soldier on my right. I should have ignored the shield soldier, shot down more divers, then jumped to the right over the shield soldier to be clear of the divers and then deal with the shield.

Moving on, there will be a barricade of soldiers to take out. Spray and pray at these guys but be mindful of the rifle soldiers in the water who are being protected by the sandbag cover. Once clear, free the POW who turns out to be Hyakutaro Ichimonji. He's one of the rare POWs who will actually help you out in battle. He has a fireball attack and roundhouse kick but will scarper if you die. He's also useful at revealing hidden items. As you'll see in the video, shortly after I save him, he's firing at the ground in which there's a couple of collectable fish hidden.

You don't always need to wait to see what he's firing at however. As you move down the hill, he will constantly try to fire at wooden paths that sort of hang over the hill. You'll meet your first aliens as you make your way down the hill who fire one-hit kill green projectiles from their little spaceships. These are easy to dodge but the aliens themselves can be a pain to hit without using loads of ammo. As you move downhill, more aliens will spawn as well as a soldier. You'll also end up turning fat again due to the food that's revealed from the destroyed buildings. Slowly but surely make your way down the hill taking out the aliens and soldiers that spawn. It's a pretty easy section really. Once you reach the bottom of the hill, you should find an Enemy Chaser just before you hit the bottom. This is super-useful in fat-mode but it will "chase" the buildings and sandbags as well seeing as they are targets that can be hit. The ammo won't last long but it should be enough to see you through until you get to the tank.

Hop in the tank and free the POW in front of you. He will give you an A.P. This is the Armour Piercer which gives your tanks projectiles higher-power which makes easier work of infantry and enemy vehicles. As you move forward, take out the wooden structures in front of you, allowing for Ichi' to actually help with the incoming enemies. Take out the aliens and then a rocket-firing car ahead of you. As you continue to edge forward, a group of four aliens will be flying above you. Take them out but be sure to dodge the one or two shots they will more than likely manage to fire. If it's looking like you won't be able to avoid getting hit, don't forget to jump out of the tank at the right moment to avoid being hit. Proceed forward and take out a bunch of soldiers.

Now, it's boss time. The boss, known as Big Shiee, is like a naval battleship but on wheels. Your first task here will be to destroy the seven dual cannons on its side. These fire red and blue, slow moving projectiles that are pretty easy to dodge. Once the boss is down to three or four cannons, the front end of the ship will open and reveal a huge single-shot cannon. This can be somewhat awkward to dodge while in the tank. As you'll discover, it follows you quiet efficiently but can struggle to hit you when you have a decent space between you and the cannon. Things will get trickier when hills and structures come into play as you'll be pushed closer to the cannon than you'd like to be. I lost the tank during this battle as I'd already been hit once before the fight. Then I was caught out again after being too close to the cannon, and the final hit came when I tried to quickly save the POW that spawned. As you'll see in the video, it was almost as if the cannon placed its shot ahead of where I wanted to move to. Had I waited just a split second before dashing to the right, the cannon would have missed and gone too far left.

Being on foot was much easier and I had a Flamethrower to play with too but obviously I missed out on the extra points for keeping the tank in one piece. If you managed to do better, you'll bag 10,000 for each POW, 30,000 for Ichimonji, 100,000 for the tank and extra points for being GREAT! My half-decent performance with the loss of one life netted me around 300,000 points from the mission.

Mission Five

This will be the last mission I'll be covering for Original mode as you shouldn't need to go any further than this. Once you land, take out the soldiers already in the area and then jump on top of the taxi to your left. Jump up and shoot down to make the taxi blow up. The taxi will fly up into the air, land back on the ground and explode, then reveal an item underneath it. This should be a Laser upgrade. Blast the two cars in front of you to make them blow up the same way, this will reveal coins from both of them. Push forward and take out a couple of soldiers. When it comes to the soldiers on top of cars, it's best to take the soldiers out first rather than the cars as otherwise they will just fly up into the air on top of the cars and be out of harms way until they land. I got caught out here as I destroyed the car first, which sent the soldiers flying up into the air. I took care of them as well as the soldier on the floating plank but I also shot the van further on to the right. Assuming the soldier on top of the van was dead, I didn't see his projectile coming towards me which took me out and cost me a life.

Jump in the tank after taking out more soldiers. Push forward just a bit for an enemy tank to spawn. Don't be shy with your cannon attack at this point. There's not much space to move around so you need to take them out quick before they get a shot off at you. If they do, I'd recommend jumping out of the tank to avoid taking any damage. The next part can be a little awkward as a tank from either side of the screen spawns from the top of the screen. You can't use your cannon against tanks behind you. I tried to get behind the tank to my right but it just turned its cannon on itself and fired directly up in the air for the shot to drop down on me. I took this tank out and luckily, the one on the left didn't shoot in time.

Proceed forward to deal with more soldiers and a car in your way. Soon after, you will come up against a couple off helicopters as well as soldiers spawning from either side of the screen. That makes for a lot of projectile dodging! The invincibility trick is massively helpful for this part. Proceed forward wiping out more soldiers. You'll come across another set of helicopters. The same strategy applies here if you need it. Move forward once you're clear of the choppers and you'll head down a slope. Once at the bottom, another couple of helicopter will spawn from the tunnel ahead of you. The first will take a few seconds before it fires so lay into it with all you've got. This should leave you with a pretty easy one-on-one situation against the other chopper. Take it down and then repeat the process against another two helicopters that will spawn. After the choppers have been dealt with, a tall tank will spawn but these are super-easy to take out. From here, you'll be forced to leave the tank behind sadly and automatically forced into the next area. You may free a POW on your way in too but you won't be able to pick up whatever he drops.

In the train tunnel, the Wonderer is making her way into the tunnel. Be sure to shoot her backpack quickly and then run up to her and free her. I took too long to save her and for some reason, the screen wouldn't allow me to move forward despite telling me to "GO!". I had to move all the way back to the left first before being able to proceed right. Once I was able to move to the right, a chopper, a few soldiers and a POW were waiting for me. The POW will give you a Laser here which is great against the choppers but not so great against the soldiers. These particular Rebel soldiers will throw rockets at you but the rockets can be quite awkward to dodge. They will fly towards you and randomly and sharply increase their height if you try to shoot at them. Again, I was caught out here when trying to dodge chopper projectiles and the rockets. Take out everything as soon as you can but I'd go as far as making the soldiers a higher priority here. Once clear, shoot at the train traffic light above you for a POW.

In the next section, you'll have a row of helicopters to take on as well three grenadiers. This part is pretty tough to get past without dying as you probably won't be able to take out the chopper quick enough before they start laying down their shots on you. Then you have the grenades to some how dodge too. I died at this point and called it a day. I finished with nearly 2,470,000 points, way more than enough for the related achievements. All-in-all, your main focus will be not to die on the first couple of missions. If you can do that, you won't need to come this far into the story. As it gets much more difficult in the later missions, it becomes less productive to gain points. With that said, this as far as the walkthrough goes in terms of text and video coverage for the Original Mode. Check out the video below for all of the missions up to roughly half way through Mission Five:

For Hi Score mode, you will need to obtain 1,500,000 points all together. This can be done by the end of Mission Two so long as you don't die in the first two missions. You will only get your three lives and no continues. Also, don't pause the game at any point. If you do, you won't be able to resume the game and will be forced to reset and try again. I have been able to unintentionally get away with going back to the Home screen, shutting down the console, and then discovering the game remembered where I was the next time I started it, but this isn't going to work 100% of the time so just aim to nail all of the achievements in one attempt. It won't take you any longer than 15 minutes.

For in-depth details on each mission, refer back to the Original mode page of the walkthrough. If you're feeling comfy with nailing at least the first two missions without dying and don't really need to read all of the details again, then have a quick look at the following video to see how I pulled it off.

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I managed to nail the first two missions, save all the POW's, and keep both missions' vehicles in one piece. For the third mission, I purposely killed myself to end the attempt and pop the last Hi Score mode achievement.

Caravan Mode sees you needing to obtain an overall target of 800,000 points. You still only have three lives to play with but there's also a five minute time limit to worry about too. In five minutes, you should be able to get part-way through Mission Two. If you need any help with specific parts of the first two missions, which will be the only missions you will play through in Caravan mode, please refer to the Original mode part of the walkthrough.

As per usual, the aim of the game here is to save all of the POWs, keep the tank in one piece, and not die at all in the first mission. In the second mission, the mentioned factors don't matter as much as you won't reach the end of the mission. Check out the video below to see how I pulled it off:

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Upon the clock hitting zero, you should have more than enough points and pop the last achievements you need:

Congratulations on your easy completion! Thanks for using my walkthrough and if you enjoyed my content, be sure to hit 'like' on the videos and subscribe to the TrueGaming Network. I also have my own YouTube channel you can check out right here.

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