In the nineties the Neo Geo was the most expensive way to have an arcade at home — and Metal Slug 2, released in 1998, is one of the reasons some people considered that worthwhile. SNK expanded on the first game's formula: a side-scrolling run-and-gun with hand-drawn animation of a kind no other platform of the period could show.

The core is straightforward. You advance, shoot, throw grenades and collect weapons with limited ammunition. Freeing prisoners yields bonuses, and vehicles — the tracked tank among them — shift the balance while remaining destructible. Two players can play simultaneously, which is the best way to approach it, because the difficulty is arcade-calibrated and a solo player dies frequently.

The second game added character transformations: being hit by certain attacks temporarily changes the hero, affecting movement and capability. The series' humour is equally central — enemies have ridiculous animations, explosions are wildly exaggerated, and the whole military framing is played as caricature rather than war drama.

Metal Slug 2 carries one famous defect: with many objects on screen the game slows noticeably. It was pronounced enough that SNK released an optimised version the same year. Some players call it a bug, others consider it part of the character.

Visually the title ranks among the high points of two-dimensional animation in games; every pixel was drawn by hand, and the frame counts per character were extreme for the time.

The OldGame.cz profile carries release details and screenshots.