Let's Play Metal Black

[Golem]

Intro

[Golem]

The theme of the first stage is "Born to be Free."

The original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxU1XU6BEOo
Arrangement from Metal Black -The First-: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MgyqfVl4ZA
Performance from Zuntata Live '97: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBTg1chqbvs

Right from the get-go, Metal Black establishes an aesthetic more thoughtful than your typical shooting game (STG). Shooters often begin with a poppy, energetic, driving tune: one that serves as an unmitigated call to arms. "Born to be Free," on the other hand, is slow, and its melody is equal parts wistful and hopeful. The instrumentation also lends a sense of gravity with its choir and bells. The tune reflects the mixed circumstances of Black Fly's pilot: taking off in hopes of saving the Earth, a planet that is already beyond saving.

On a more technical note, the background employs a cylindrical scaling trick you'll find throughout Metal Black. Its effect here is subtle, and I confused it for parallax for a while. This effect allows the sky to stretch far into the background, painting an empty, bleak landscape.



After a few moments setting the scene and catching newalone, enemy fighters spawn in. If you leave them alone, they will fly in a little ways, dive, and eventually fire missiles. But you should have no problem taking them out. They take some time before shooting anything, and they go down in one hit.

I don't shy away from memorization:



Memorizing this guy's position is a cinch, since he's always standing right on the first bit of land in the game. Left alone, he will A) march around and B) fire diagonal shots, but never both at the same time (the old "walk and chew gum" problem). He also gives a generous pause before shooting. He won't fire until he sees the whites of your eyes, but there's no need to return the favor.



Here, you can see he just barely got off a shot before perishing. Diagonal shots in video games are always tricky to dodge because it's hard to line them up with your guy and figure out the spacing. This shot goes one better and makes it a weird 20 degree angle.



At this point, I stopped stretching the screenshots because I don't like how the big ones look on the page.

Anyway, watch out for this nondescript aircraft carrier wreckage. You'll want to be in the top left corner so that you can still shoot down planes...



...while avoiding the lumbering hermit crab (cousin to Yamato of Darius II fame).



This trick is particularly nasty because the widest space on the screen is the one that will kill you. The top right of the screen looks like the safest place to be, but the hermit crab backs up his carrier into that space. He's also invincible at this time.

I think the highest score you can have at this point is 2,700. That means I missed two newalones! One of them is onscreen though.



And just like that, the carrier blows up on him. I kinda feel bad for the guy. Maybe I can find a way to ease his pain.

He emerges from the wreckage obscured by a dust cloud and no worse for wear, except for the fact that he's not invincible.



Metal Black demands you to solve two problems at once. Planes fly in overhead, while the hermit crab fires missiles from below. However, the planes will dive down to the hermit crab's level, meaning they'll get caught in any fire aimed at him. As for the missiles, they lock onto the Black Fly, and your shot's generous vertical reach should take out any missiles headed towards you. I like to back up just to play it safe.



Where's Moses when you need him? Ah well. That must be the submarine that ate Jonah in the background. This is the only time you see frogs in the game. You can take all of them them out with just your regular shot, but I find a different approach more gratifying:



Sometimes the sweetest pleasures in life are the sadistic ones.

In the final verse before our boss, you'll get lone walkers...



...alongside lima bean squids.



This setup has the potential for counterpoint: to shoot down the squids, you have to watch where the walker is firing. And if you don't take out the squids, you'll have less room to dodge the walker's fire. As I said, though, I'm no stranger to memorization, and with the proper positioning you can eliminate any enemy teamups before they form.

While this is a common setup in STGs, I can't help but think of Darius, probably just because this is developed by Taito. Darius games rely heavily on single file enemy waves (such as the squids, lined up so nicely!) with backup from large, dangerous, but solitary enemies (such as the walkers).



Apartheid insists on his own theme music before entering the game.

I guess we have to oblige, so here's Visitor:
The original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWaXawfBaBs
It's on Metal Black -The First-, but not on YouTube.

Well, I can't blame him. The track is terrifying and ominous. It takes its time building tension, and even when the percussion lays a fast beat, the melody remains drenched in fear.

This is your first good chance to see a level 3 shot at work. Done properly, you can skip out on Apartheid's latter phases without firing your beam.



Initially, Apartheid just chomps on newalone. It's hard to tell, but I don't think he has a set amount to eat--I think it's just a timer before he moves onto his next phase. Even if you're perfect at snatching newalone, he'll eventually eat them offscreen where you can't get to them.

By the way, his newalone-grabbing aparatus won't collide with the Black Fly. This same rule holds for the round 3 and 5 bosses. So, feel free to fly over it, since it won't do anything to you.



Next, he fires shots that look like yours. You can block them using your own shots, even if you're at level 1. However, I like to stake out the position above: both of my shots hit Apartheid without being blocked by his shots.

We're told in the intro that the Black Fly is powered by the same stuff that powers the invaders from Nemesis, and here's our proof: the boss' shots look like the Black Fly's, and they cancel out on impact with one another.



When you see this, get ready...



...because this is about to happen.

You get a significant tell (even with a characteristic charge-up noise) before he fires the beam, and the beam itself takes some moments to stretch across the screen. Even then, you can delay it with your own shots or low-level beam, and if you use a higher-level beam, you can initiate a beam duel. Just be careful, since the beam duel doesn't start immediately.

I prefer to nuzzle up against the bottom of his beam and fire away. Apartheid's weak spot is his head, so you might want to move closer to him so you can fly higher up and land more hits. In the screenshot above, my top shot is barely hitting him, and my bottom shot is doing nothing. Be careful if you decide to move in close, since his next attack is aimed right at you.



Not that I would know, though, since he's dead before he can get to it. That's just what I heard about his next phase.

This cuts out a phase where he shoots bullets aimed directly at the Black Fly and a phase where he crouches down and fires missiles. After that, the fight loops.

[Golem]

After that, it's time to blast off into space. Metal Black maintains the narrative of a journey through its locations--the setting of each level comes after the last.

In round 1, the Black Fly had its rocket attached (called the "booster unit" in ). Here, the Black Fly uses it to escape the Earth's atmosphere, and you won't see it for the rest of the game.

There are two bonus stages in the game. Here's our first, with the theme "Dancing Horming."

The original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yuu3BW6_y-4
"Homing" is also misspelled as "horming" in Mega Man X. I don't know why!

Bonus stages take place in first person view. You gotta take that reticle...


...drag it over a guy...


...and press the shot button to launch some horming missiles.


I don't know why you're blowing them up! Not like they're trying to hurt you.


These missiles take a while to hit their target.


Once you see this yellow guy, you're almost out.


If you kill everyone, you get a time bonus!

[Golem]

Fresh from bonus stage 1, the Black Fly sets off into space. The Earth looks grim from up here--isn't it supposed to be blue?

I don't know what fascination this game has with the Moon. There are two Moons that appear in the game's attract sequence and during the final round. And, from the start of this round to its close, one of them sits in the center of the screen.

To start, shuttles approach from behind. These guys have a pretty bad cold; each one will shed its nose as it sneezes out a 5-way spread shot.

They make a great introduction to the round. In round 1, enemies were polite and approached from the right, meaning you could safely hang out at the back of the screen. However, in round 2, the very first enemy attacks you from the back of the screen. Enemies will approach from all sides.

Accompanying us on our space safari will be "Dual Moon."

The original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j6BvgG7o-w
It's on Metal Black -The First-, but not on YouTube.
And there's a version in Space Invaders Anniversary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4q9zGzshY8

Among Metal Black's soundtrack, "Dual Moon" is unique for its pep and its driving beat. It matches round 2, which itself is unique among Metal Black levels for having no environmental hazards. The Black Fly travels through open space for the entirety of the round. This means that every challenge in the level comes from a moving bogey or bullet, resulting in a fast and chaotic level. The round takes full advantage of its open borders to mix and match enemies from different directions, and it will feature some of the most reflex-heavy challenges of the game. The music strikes a complement against this, matching its beat to the level's hectic pace.

Round 2 doesn't delay to deliver, either. Soon after the round begins, it puts squads of tiny greenies next to hulking shuttles, leading to homing shots that criss-cross the shuttle's spread shots.


The green guys lead to drills, which split from one into three...


...and the drills lead into blue bug guys...


...which split into two as they fire homing shots.


The intro concludes with the round's first (!) miniboss, the mecha-sunfish. This guy's flashing trails and thick fire make him difficult to follow. Luckily, his shots are destructible, so all you need to do is mash the shot button and you'll be fine.

Destructible shots are certainly a cool idea, but they make little difference here. It's a test of your firing rate and little else.

Here's some blue wheelies, but they don't really matter either. You could skip this paragraph if you hadn't just read all of it.


Instead, check this out: tons of stars drift in from the top and bottom of the screen.

They move upward or downward at a constant pace and drift left and right as if on a sine wave. Their ebb and flow makes them hard to follow while they accelerate and decelerate, and they litter the screen, layering tons of stuff moving every which way.

I find it best to stick to the left, since that increases the chances each star will approach the Black Fly from the right. If one wraps around behind you, watch out--it's liable to hit your ship right in the butt. Then, I sweep up and down the screen, trying to keep it clear so I can deal with two enemies that fly alongside the stars:

1) blue wheelies, which shoot homing bullets as they pass through, and


2) some kind of crustacean maybe? These baddies halt before firing diagonally. If you let them fire, they'll cover a huge part of the screen, making it more difficult to adapt to the crazy stars. On the other hand, their entrance is slow, so you should be able to take them out.


But that's not all! You've got two walls of enemies left before you're done with the stars. These guys drop balls, all aimed to your position. You can push the balls back with your own shots, but you can't destroy them, so they effectively block your fire.


I've elected to shove them all back using the Black Fly's newalone bomb.


The splitting bugs form a second wall of enemies.

Both walls of enemies aim their shots at your position, so with some careful herding, you can get through without using a bomb. It's a tight fit, though, and I find there's no reason to run the risk. I mean, you're still dealing with the stars! Just blow everyone up and forget about it.

Metal Black will throw crazy enemy combinations at you every once in a while, layering multiple enemies of three or more types, and they only get more frequent from here on out.

This manta ray miniboss marks the close of the round's middle segment. Its pattern is simple: drift up and down, firing steady streams of bullets at a regular and predictable pace. He would be unremarkable if not for his backup: several squads of formula 1 spacecars that shoot homing shots! They appear above and below the miniboss, meaning you'll have to cross his streams of fire in order to get at them. If you can't spot an opening, you'll have to suck it up and dodge their fire in whatever space you have.

On the other hand, if you just focus on the miniboss, you'll need some good peripheral vision to catch homing shots fired from the sides.

As a palate cleanser before the round's finale, you have some easy peasy blue wheelies. You can see here that I don't permit them to enter the screen.


Next, a fleet of shuttles.


Normal shuttles wouldn't be much of an issue, but these ones drift vertically. The shuttles at the start of the stage feel orderly because they follow a straight line, but these appear sloppy because of their sideways flight path. They move along paths that their noses don't point down.

That bottom one in particular lines up with the last squad of blue wheelies. If you know what's coming, you can scrape the shuttle's nose off before it sneezes. Show it how to cut its nose off to spite its face!

As Oak put it, round 2 loves spamming enemies. Right before the boss, you'll get a flood of robo-catfish. Each one appears in vertical squads of three, and they have an interesting way of homing their shots.

They can only shoot diagonally. So, each individual will swim into the screen until it's diagonally aligned with your ship, then fire away. This gets real messy real fast, as each group will eventually shoot six shots. While you weave through their fire, you'll trigger subsequent catfish to lock onto you, spawning a mish mash of missiles.

What's worse, a fully charged bomb won't get you through the entire platoon. I usually wait until the background Moon yellows--that's when things get their most intense, and bombing then can carry you through to the boss.

Before I bomb, I take care to scrape catfish as they swim past, since at least their swim is entirely horizontal.

Oh yeah. There's also two Moons!



That Moon in the background of the whole stage was actually really close and not at all Moon-sized. Meanwhile, the real Moon has something freaky built into its surface.

And the fake one was a snake egg.

"Yueez" is the theme for the snake inside the egg.

The original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE0qtKp6jqQ

The music's pace slows here, matching a boss that slithers across the screen.

But it doesn't match the huge wall of destructible shots forming Feeder's first attack. Much like the sunfish miniboss, this looks cool but is trivial.

Make sure to get outta there as soon as he stops firing, though! The Black Fly is slower than Feeder, so you won't have much time to dodge his flight path. I like to stick all the way to the left so that I have more time to get out.

And his next phase is trickier. He slides smoothly towards newalone, making gradual turns from one piece to the next. Because his movement is based on the position of newalone, it's hard to predict his exact flight path.

This is cool! I can't tell where newalone itself will go, so Feeder's newalone chase gives a dynamic challenge to work around.

He also drops teeny tiny moons off of his tail during this phase, leading into his next phase.

Lots going on here!

Feeder spawns a little brother snake to eat newalone. Leave him alone too long, and he'll fire on you.
Feeder's tail shoots a laser that bounces off of the mini-moons towards your ship. Because the laser goes through so many steps before locking onto the Black Fly, I find it easy to lose track of. The fewer moons, the better, because the laser will make fewer bounces.

And finally, Feeder hocks up homing missiles. Always be careful around homing missiles in Metal Black, because their turn radius is intense. Do not take scraping them lightly.


After that, it's time for another newalone gobble. What happened to the background? Is that still the Moon? We're deep into trippy territory here, aren't we? Round 2 leads into round 3, which is a hyperspace transition into enemy turf.


Finally! I was starting to worry that Feeder didn't have a boss beam. This is trivial--just stick to the top left and you're good.

He turns a nice shade of red when he's about to blow up.