METAL SLUG 3 || STAGES & BOSSES (2025)

After the crabs are dealth with, weave through the maze of volcanic rocks from the crevasses. Weapon supplies lie in the rocks' line of fire and inside a shipwreck. Proceed upward and an army of floating bombers arrive. Take them down before they collide with you. Further above, you must fight a fleet of mini-subs. A steady stream of bullets will tear each one apart. Soon the gray U25U arrive, and keep an eye on their homing fireballs. A direct hit of the Mariner's torpedo is enough to destroy a U25U. A brown armored U25U serves as a mid-boss, requiring 3 torpedoes to sink. Free the last hostage and proceed to the first boss battle.

The stone mound projects six alien monoeyes as the stage's mini-boss fight. These aliens revolve in a formation around the mound, shooting plasma bolts from their eyes toward your direction. A rapid-fire weapon or grenades will quickly damage as many of them. As they diminish in number, their spinning speed increases. Once there are only two left, it will be much harder to land hits; and the last monoeye will be merciless in firing a barrage of shots. Each defeated monoeye is absorbed back into the mound, which then a glowing obelisk bursts from the ground.

On your way back, you'll find corpses of yetis: The undead have breached the cave! With the Elephant Slug, you can get a Chili or Battery power-up, allowing it to breath fire or lightning respectively. While you have a height advantage from the ground zombies, your main problem wlll be the zombies on the upper ledge. Your elevation makes you susceptible to the wide arc of the zombies' projectile shots, which zombifies you and disables you to use the Elephant. Blast the ground zombies with your Chili or Battery while your vulcans work against the upper ledge zombies full time. Slowly inch forward to avoid incoming projectiles from above before moving forward accordingly. Once the Elephant sinks back to another ice prison, you leave the ice cavern and enter the forest with the civilian and rebel undead.

For the next area, you have to avoid several falling Bull-Chan tanks. Skillfully swim between the gaps of the falling tanks to avoid getting crushed. The second missile wall is more challenging now that you have to fend off missiles and weave through falling tanks. The second detour tunnel takes some time to descend from above the missile wall. More tanks drop upon the missile wall's demise, so be prepared to dodge.

If you passed by both detours and moved forward, you first have to fight a small army of mini-subs, followed by 5 U25U subs. Try to take on the bigger subs one by one, instead of taking them all at once and end up overwhelmed by their homing projectiles. After all of them are crushed, proceed to the wide tunnel where you have to fight more mini-subs and a brown armored U25U. Afterwards, you swim ashore to the Rebel Armor Factory.

The summit of the ruins is guarded by giant locusts and requires tricky jumps to cross the narrow platforms. After facing off against more maneaters, you may opt to crank the lever to open the nearby trapdoor and enter the lair of the undead mummies. Choosing to move onward is a shortcut to the boss battle, leading to a short fight against more maneaters followed by jumping to the open pipe at the end of the area.

As you reach the middle area, the corridor's hue becomes yellowish-brown. Jump into the Drill Slug which is there for a reason: fighting off the advent of the Giant Mutant Slugs. These gargantuan larvae are capable of extending their pustulated tongue and releasing acid sacs as projectiles. Fortunately, your vehicle's massive drill destroys them within seconds on a well-placed jab to their mouth. Remember that the Drill Slug can't jump, but instead raise your cabin upward to avoid ground threats. Continue on destroying maggots with your vulcans and giant larvae with your drill.

The last area has a blood-red hue, signaling the lair of the mutant snails and the poison moths. These whelks move slowly, but their acidic projectile vomit has a long reach, especially when they crawl from the ceiling. The snails could resist some shots, but one drill attack destroys them instantly. Destroy any shellhouse you encounter for they release swarms of poison moths that kill on contact. After purging this area from insectoids, it's off against the boss battle.

The last area is interesting: your exit is a shutter gate powered by battery cells. These power cells are dropped by the maneating plants inhabiting the room; and the ventilators above are releasing a steady swarm of killer spores. Your goal: collect 10 power cells by killing these maneaters to open the shutter and escape. Approach the machine to load a power cell: your character pauses for awhile to do so. While you could load the machine one-by-one, it would be wiser to kill as many maneaters and gather these power cells before approaching the machine and feeding it with all 10 cells in one rapid-fire swoop. Watch out for any incoming plant or spore and get the heck out of there!

It's now a high-altitude battle to search the remnants of Morden's forces. Unfortunately, rebel troops have caught up. Taking down the paratroopers is simple enough, but the fleet of Eaca-B planes and their homing missiles will be the tricky part. The Slug Copter can rotate its cannons 360° to fend off the missiles, but the Slug Flyer will have a hard time weaving around from back attacks. Try to shoot down the fighter planes from above or from below before they deploy their missiles. After the skies have been cleared, it's a sharp dive toward the ground as you pursue the convoy.

The convoy is defended with various Girida-O tanks mounted on Landseeker trucks and infantry and grenadiers hidden in wagon trucks. Midway through, you'll be assailed by Masknell copters and an R-Shobu. Fortunately, you can take another Slug Copter in a truck. At the end of the formation, the Hairbuster Riberts arrives. Like the one from the first game, it deploys bouncing bombs, homing mortar, and a bazooka grunt. After you have destroyed half of it, Allen O'Neal pops up from its rear cabin instead, and uses his machine gun and grenade throwing tactics from previous encounters. Avoid his attacks while firing a steady offensive and Allen and the Riberts will fall once again. Equip his dropped machine gun and proceed to the next area.

Once Morden drops from the Hi-Do once again, rebels check up on him and realize Morden is a Martain imposter in disguise! Your character is surrounded by plasma rings and dragged helplessly as a Dai-Manji pulls up the real Morden and your character via a tractor beam. Your character's partner replaces him/her for the rest of the game (Marco is replaced by Fio, Tarma is replaced by Eri, vice-versa). The rebels form an alliance with the Regular Army once again, taking you to their rocketships as you pursue the Mars People into the depths of outerspace!

Midway through the area, gray asteroids will fly downward. Shoot down the red asteroids for items. These asteroids fly faster as you proceed onward. You'll also encounter floating rock debris. Blast them open quickly before they damage your Astro Slug or crush your character. Items will also pop out of these broken rock. Eye formations will follow suit. Much like the Masknell copters, shoot the red leaders to destroy the entire formation for items and bonus points.

The last segment is against a squad of Martian-manned UFOs that fire purple bolts. Eliminate them for possible weapon reloads. After enough UFOs are taken down, two Dai-Manjis arrive. These ones are less resistant to damage than the battle in the previous game. After those are gone, a last Dai-Manji comes in. Once it its subdued, another Rugname descends to latch in the Dai-Manji. This mothership will rely more on its central lightning rod and deploying more mini-UFOs. Keep on the offensive and the central Dai-Manji gets blown up as the heroes breach into the Rugname.

Next you reach a narrow tunnel to the torture chamber with Morden. Simply kill the white Mars People guarding the console, but pay attention to its fast blue shots. Once it's done for, shoot the console until it's destroyed to free Morden. After doing so, continue forward, but don't miss a hidden POW just by one of the pillars before exiting the tunnel.

Soon the incubator bursts open, releasing your comrade free, who leads you to a possible escape route. Unfortunately, some imperfect clones that survived had mutated into zombies and start a prodding pursuit.