Probably the most well-balanced and most unique horizontal scrolling space Shmup ever.
Metal Black is a horizontal scrolling space shooter with the typical guessable Raiden-esque plot: aliens have invaded the Earth using a special type of plasmatic/laser weapon which mankind applies the weapon to half a dozen space fighters to combat the aliens and it's up to You to get the job done. While these are all in effect for the story to Metal Black, it's all presented in a very clever and surprisingly dark fashion. While the ship destined to win back the Earth - in this case, the Black Fly - does use the invader's technology, the ship is held from combat due to Earth's diplomatic surrender to the aliens. Said aliens are also very unique and creepy as they actually have bizarre, esoteric reasons for invading the Earth unlike most Shmup aliens who invade Earth because they've apparently got nothing else better to do.
The game has a very distinct feel to it in that feels like something wholly different for the common space shooter. There's no evidence of charm or delight, no checkpoint systems, no laugh it up joke endings and no bizarrely kinky music (which are all evident in the common Toaplan shooter); Metal Black is about as serious as early 1990's shooters get. It's almost like playing a friendlier version of Gradius while listening to the Silent Hill 3 soundtrack.
The game play is undoubtedly the best aspect about the game despite its surprising lack of variety: your ship is armed with twin-shot plasma/lasers that you can power up by collecting the alien's weapon molecules known as Newalone. The more Newalone you collect, the stronger and bigger your shots get and you can upgrade them to a total of five levels.
The innovation in this weapon is the Bomb weapon which in Metal Black is a humongous plasma beam or lightning attack that destroys every enemy in sight once fired. Unleashing this beam however depletes your Newalone energy back down to Level 1. You'll find that many levels are chock-full of the molecules and replenishing the beam is easy as pie, but it prompts a unique battle-strategy: knowing when to use your beam.
Another innovation connected to the beam weapon lies with the bosses at the end of each level: Every boss is armed with their own destructive beam weapon and firing your beam weapon while they fire theirs causes your beams to collide into a huge energy ball that will either kill you or the boss depending on who has the most Newalone.
Unlike most Shmups, the difficulty of Metal Black lies entirely with the enemies rather than some invisible wall that pushes you back every time you die. Metal Black features a wide variety of different ships and creatures with unique and occasionally cheap attacks and flight patterns. I can't help but respect this because it's something I've always longed for in a game where your only object is to kill everything that is destined to kill you back ten-fold and having to continually get pushed back out of the action has always felt like an unfair and weak idea of a challenge.
The graphics are hard to comment on: for a Saturn game, it handles transparencies quite well and the transition between levels and events are smoother than ever with no Slow-Down or Sprite Break-Up. The audio transfer from Arcade to Saturn is actually very impressive too, but graphically speaking Metal Black doesn't do too much. There are some lovely effects like the inexplicable squiggly backgrounds during boss fights or Taito's favorite rotating desolate space colony background, but the sprites are only fairly well detailed with the only impressive 2D effects going to the bosses and the player's killer little space fighter.
Audio-wise, the game is utterly fantastic: the sound effects fit most of the events seen from explosions to laser wars. The soundtrack is a highly unique blend of electronic rock and dark, moody jazz tones all thanks to the game's in-house band Zuntata.
As I said, the game is unique in its dark flavor and the game is able to put you in the setting with ease. The first level starts you off in a ruined Tokyo (yes, it's obviously Tokyo) where entire city blocks and the ocean itself have dried up into heaping piles of sand-dunes and there's one level where you enter the insides of an asteroid only to find it's insides alive and pulsating like it came out of H.R. Geiger's sketchbook. The music uses a variety of different styles, but each one dedicated to giving the game a melange of different feelings specific to each level and encounter ranging from adrenaline, fear, adventure and mystique.
Some of the bosses have remarkably memorable introductions like the fabled 2nd level boss hatching from an egg shaped like The Moon and the 3rd level boss taking the form of a giant dung beetle that tosses scrapped chunks of human space colonies at you. The final boss fight is quite possibly one of the most inspiring final bosses I've ever seen even after fighting giant brains connected to space stations or dueling with huge skulls in the Lunar core. I literally can't say anything else for fear of spoiling it for you, it's that cool!
The game is a little short and considering that it has the 2 player cheat familiar to most Darius games and In the Hunt, it may take less than a day to finish, but considering the game's effect it's a considerably decent length.
If you're an adventurous importer, lover of horizontal scrolling shooters or want another importable Saturn shooter, get Metal Black as soon as you can because its fun factor and presentation value make for one of the best old-school gaming experiences you could have.