METAL DOGS Review Summary

Engaging and Fun Gameplay: Players generally find the game enjoyable, citing its fun combat, satisfying progression, and overall engaging gameplay loop. Many appreciate its simple yet refreshing design, making it a good choice for casual play and stress relief.

Charming Dog Protagonists: A major highlight is the charming and cute dog protagonist, Pochi, and other playable dogs. Players enjoy customizing these characters and the unique concept of cute dogs wielding heavy weaponry, which creates a satisfying and visually appealing combat experience.

Faithful Metal Max Adaptation: The game successfully integrates elements from the Metal Max series, including familiar weapons, monsters, and the wasteland setting. Fans appreciate the effort to expand the franchise into a new genre while maintaining its core identity, making it enjoyable for both series veterans and newcomers.

Excellent Controller Support: Controller support is excellent, with gamepad controls feeling intuitive and comfortable. Players appreciate the seamless experience when using a controller, including specific support for Xbox controllers, making the action enjoyable.

Solid Top-Down ARPG Mechanics: The game offers an interesting take on the top-down ARPG genre, blending hack-and-slash and treasure hunting elements. Players find the gameplay style reminiscent of classic action RPGs like Diablo 2, which suits their preferences well.

Shallow, Repetitive Core Gameplay: Players find the game's core experience to be shallow and repetitive, with limited content, monotonous level design, and a lack of variety in enemies and environments. This leads to quick boredom and a feeling of the game being incomplete or a 'paid demo'.

Poor Difficulty and Combat Balance: The game suffers from significant balance issues, particularly with enemy toughness and weapon effectiveness. Normal mode is often too easy, while Hard mode is excessively difficult and punitive, leading to a frustrating experience for many players.

Inadequate PC Controls and UI: PC players report a poor control experience, citing a lack of mouse support, no key remapping options, and controller-centric UI prompts. This makes the game difficult and unintuitive to play with a keyboard and mouse.

Weak and Unbalanced Weaponry: Machine guns are widely considered underpowered, inaccurate, and lack variety, making them an ineffective weapon category. Other weapon types, particularly cannons, also suffer from poor balance, uninteresting mechanics, and repetitive designs.

Unrewarding Item Drop System: The drop rates for desirable equipment are too low, and unique boss drops are often inferior to shop-bought items. This, combined with a lack of diverse enemy drops and a missing drop list, reduces motivation for grinding and exploration.

Distinct Weapon Types: The game features three main weapon types: Machine Guns (low damage, high fire rate, short range, fast reload), Cannons (high damage, low fire rate, long reload), and S-E (curved shots, area damage, can bypass obstacles, generally low power). There are variations within these types, like multi-shot cannons or burst cannons.

Roguelite Action RPG Gameplay: The game is primarily described as a roguelite action RPG with hack-and-slash elements, featuring top-down combat, dungeon crawling, and boss battles. There's some debate on whether it's a true roguelike or more of a hub-based action RPG.

Playable Dog Characters: Players control Pochi, a combat dog from the Metal Max series, or one of two other playable dogs. All three dogs are functionally identical, differing only in appearance, and lack unique skills or customization options.

Equipment-Based Progression: Character progression is largely tied to equipment, as leveling up only increases maximum HP. The game lacks traditional skill trees, stats, or complex modification systems, with equipment rarity and random abilities determining player power.

Unstable Lock-On System: The game features an automatic aiming system with a lock-on function. However, the lock-on system is often unstable, randomly switching targets or disengaging when a target is lost, leading to frustration.

High framerate support: Players appreciate the game's ability to run at high framerates, contributing to a smooth and enjoyable visual experience. This indicates good optimization and performance.

Minor bugs present: A small number of players have reported encountering one or two bugs. While not widespread, these minor issues could impact the player experience for those affected.

Wait for sale or full release: Many players recommend waiting for a sale or the full release, suggesting the current price point for Early Access is too high for the content offered. Some view purchasing the game as a 'donation' to support the franchise rather than a full-value purchase.

Improve gameplay and content: Players are looking for significant improvements and additions to gameplay mechanics, balance, and content. Specific suggestions include new weapon types, improved enemy variety, better difficulty scaling, more engaging end-game content, and clearer UI elements. There's a strong desire for the game to evolve beyond its current state.

For Metal Max fans only: The game is primarily recommended for existing fans of the Metal Max series, often driven by nostalgia or a desire to support the franchise's continuation. Newcomers are generally advised against purchasing it, as the game's appeal heavily relies on familiarity with the IP.

Casual time-killer experience: The game is seen as a casual, non-committal experience suitable for killing time or stress relief, especially for those who enjoy top-down shooters with dogs and guns. However, some warn against it if players expect a deep roguelike or grindy experience.

Add key configuration and mouse support: A critical quality-of-life improvement requested by PC players is the ability to customize keybindings and implement mouse operation. This is a fundamental expectation for PC games.

Strong Metal Max fan sentiment: Many players are long-time fans of the Metal Max series, expressing strong nostalgia and a desire for new, legitimate Metal Max titles, especially 'Metal Max 5' on Steam. They often purchased this game primarily to support the IP, viewing it as a derivative rather than a true sequel.

Limited Early Access content: Players noted that the Early Access content is quite short, with many clearing it within 4-7 hours. There's a desire for more content and expanded features, with some concern about the significance of planned changes given the announced EA duration.

Desire for more weapon variety: Players expressed a desire for more diverse and impactful weapon designs, especially for a hack-and-slash game. Additionally, more options for button settings would improve the player experience.

Developer team composition noted: There's an acknowledgment of the developer, 24Frame, with hopes for optimization and further development. Some players noted the team's composition, specifically the lack of staff from previous Metal Max titles and a perceived imbalance between programmers and planners.

Appreciation for dog companions: Players were drawn to the game by the dogs and appreciate the companion dog system. There's a specific suggestion for a 'dog viewing mode' to further engage with the canine companions.