 Okay, first things first, Metal Warriors is not a sequel to Cybernator. On the surface, Metal Warriors looks and sounds an awful lot like Cybernator, which I reviewed a few weeks ago. It's certainly similar, since it's about humans operating battle-functional mechrobots and all, but Metal Warriors and Cybernator are not related. Yes, they are both published by Konami in the United States, but they both had two different developers, Cybernator was NCS and Metal Warriors was LucasArts. I certainly wouldn't blame you for thinking Metal Warriors was a sequel, however, because the game looks and plays like Cybernator on steroids. The combat elements are very similar. You fly around, you get different weapons, you get a shield, but three distinct things about Metal Warriors stick out. One is the fact that you can command five different robots. They even expanded this element to its own two-player fighting option, which is pretty frickin' nice and a lot of fun. The second distinction is a rather ingenious life bar mechanic. Your character starts out as a bright red, but it turns more gray the more damage you take until you're in ash color, and you even lose your weapon eventually and you're rendered a helpless pile of crap. But the game still gives you a chance to find health at the very last second. I think that's a very cool idea that was implemented very well. The third difference is that you can actually get out of your mobile suit and wander around yourself, which is pretty cool. Another difference from Cybernator is the way the story is told. Most of the story-heavy chunks of the game are brought to you in some quality-looking cutscenes before and after each level, with some good pixel art here. The game still does interrupt your gameplay to run some dialogue, just like Cybernator annoyingly does, but at least Metal Warriors doesn't do it in the middle of combat, and it waits for a little bit of a lull in the action. Now, where I'd give Cybernator the advantage here is in the overall gameplay graphics and the sound. While Metal Warriors has really nice-looking cutscenes, I give a very slight edge to Cybernator and how the projectiles, explosions, and backgrounds look, and Cybernator wins in a runaway with the overall sound, too. I just don't like how the weapons sound in Metal Warriors. It just sounds puny. What is this, a pea shooter? But that's a nitpicking. Metal Warriors is frickin' great. Now you could be thinking, hey, sweet, this game looks pretty cool, I'm gonna pick it up on eBay. And to that I say, good freaking luck. Metal Warriors goes for an average, an average of $135. Yes, that's right, sadly this game has fallen victim to the retro pricing bubble, where perfectly okay games like this, and Harvest Moon, and Wild Guns, are all going for completely insane prices. Look, if you have the expendable income and you want to spend that money, okay, good for you, you're just inflating the bubble. If I had a choice between paying my electric bill, my phone bill, and my internet combined over a game cartridge, yeah, I'm just gonna go ahead and do that. Sorry, I'm just bitter about these prices. Anyway, Metal Warriors is a damned awesome game. There's some innovative ideas for Super Nintendo anyway. There's a multiplayer fighting option. There's mech robots, and a bunch of cool looking robots to choose from. There's huge levels to fly around in and stuff. This game kicks ass, plain and simple. But it's just too frickin' expensive to buy on a cartridge, especially when Cybernator is right there and it's that much cheaper. So yeah, while I can't condone spending it and seeing an amount of money on it, Metal Warriors is still a hell of a game.