 Sssssss that's drunk. When it comes to the super Nintendo library, there's different tiers of games. You've got your Nintendo-developed stuff that's almost always high-quality, you've got third-party developers like Capcom, Konami, and Squaresoft making outstanding games, then you've got lesser-known developers like Natsume, Quintet, Haul Laboratory, and the like, who might have a misstep here and there, but usually put out good stuff. Underneath that are even lesser-known games made by developers nobody had ever heard of, games like Run Saber or Sky Blazer, for example. And underneath that, you've got games that you can't even say were forgotten because they weren't remembered in the first place. Stuff you never saw for sale, or for rent, or even advertised in any gaming magazines. I've covered a few of those games here and there and it's always fun to find them. Stuff like Time Slip or Gun Force or Zardian, Young Merlin, She-End's Revenge, I could go on and on. This time around it's Metal Morph, developed by Origin Systems. Hey, at least I've played something they had a hand in. They handled the Super Nintendo port of Wing Commander, which is surprisingly pretty good. Metal Morph on the other hand, eh, not so much, but it wasn't for a lack of trying because believe it or not, this game is actually pretty dang ambitious. It starts out as an action platformer with an emphasis on exploration, with your character's gimmick being that he can morph into a metal blob by pressing R, and you run through pipes or warp points that are very conveniently placed throughout each area. When you're in blob form, you can't be hurt, but you can't attack either. After you complete that, you switch to a rail shooter section that sees you traveling to your next location, making stuff go boom along the way, before eventually arriving at the planet's surface and making more stuff go boom. I gotta say, I think that's actually a pretty cool way to structure a game with a sci-fi theme like this. You have five lives or continues as the game calls them to get through eight levels and in most areas you're trying to locate morph balls, which increase your character's capabilities. There's also the typical weapon power-ups here, like homing missiles and smart bombs when you're flying the ship. However, unfortunately, when it comes to the gameplay here, Metal Morph is incredibly cheap, and I mean that both, about how cheap the enemies are and how cheaply this game feels to play. First of all, there's classic one-hit-death stuff here, but as an added bonus, enemies can shoot you from off-screen, oh that's just lovely. To be fair though, you can hit enemies off-screen too, so I guess it goes both ways. Not that that helps anything. And to say this game lacks refinement is putting it very kindly. Like how there aren't any frames for when you transition from jumping to standing when jumping on these platforms, or how both your character and each enemy makes the same scream when they're killed. Or how when you fire your weapon while jumping, you'll fire in any random direction you may or may not be facing in mid-air, it's just sloppy as hell. I mean look at this, if you just tap left or right on the D-pad, it'll look like you're just kinda hovering. And the thing is, you'll want to do this because the second enemies appear on screen, they are shooting directly at you, so you gotta both dodge and shoot them as quickly as you can. The rail shooter stages also feel like they were thrown together in like 30 minutes. The controls are incredibly loose and you get the same enemies over and over with your destination awkwardly appearing in the background like a wart on your big toe. The thing is though, this game does just barely enough to make it just barely an okay playthrough. And by barely okay, I mean it's on that same tier I talked about earlier with other run and gun games like Time Slip. Which is pretty much just a category of, yeah, don't go out of your way to play this or anything, but it's not gonna occupy a spot on the 30 worst Super Nintendo games or anything. I mean for one thing, the music here is really cool. Okay, they're obviously blatantly ripping off Vangelis and the Blade Runner soundtrack, but I still really like it. And hey, check it out, they even emulated the THX sound thing. Some of the settings are really cool looking too, like this underground level here, and some of the alien bases also look sharp. The Mode 7 planet surface levels usually look nice, especially this one here. And of course, what 90s sci-fi action game is complete without a wacky story? The year is 2214 and you've been chosen as an ambassador to the galaxy known as Other Side? Yeah, I'm sure that's right next to Galaxy somewhere over there and Galaxy some other place, I guess. Yeah, the font they're using here makes my useless graphic design associates degree scream and agony. Anyway, your unique shape-shifting abilities are what enable you to travel through a portal that takes you to this particular galaxy and you meet your alien ambassadors and they ambush you and oh gosh, who could have possibly seen that coming? But yeah, I mean, just look at this title screen here. Yeah, that's some quality 90s right there. So yeah, if I could be totally honest here, Metal Morph falls firmly in the category of guilty pleasure. Now I would never recommend this game to anyone. Certain gameplay basics like firing when jumping or getting killed by an enemy off-screen are definitely deal breakers, but I just like the music. I like the look. I like the gameplay variety and I guess I'm just a sucker for games that swing for the fences like this even if they fail. This seems like the kind of game I would have rented as a kid and while it would have been frustrating to play, I still would have found a way to like it somehow. Maybe I just have a soft spot for this kind of stuff from this era. But yeah, don't listen to me. I may enjoy its campiness and its ambition, but chances are that you will not. All right, I want to thank you for watching and I hope you have a great rest of your day.