Developed by Ivan Valeryevich Suvorov and published by Retroware, Iron Meat is a brand-new run-and-gun arcade shooter that brings the nostalgic era of Contra back to life with its fun gameplay mechanics and satisfying boss fights. If you grew up in the 90s, chances are that you played Metal Slug or Contra on arcade machines or early PCs and consoles. These shooters were simple in execution, but they delivered a solid experience because of their silky-smooth gameplay mechanics, big enemy varieties, and epic boss fights. Iron Meat tends to go along the same lines however while it brings a completely new aesthetic for the franchise, it still is one for your arcade shooter lovers. This is our review of Iron Meat on the PS5 in which we shoot meat-infested soldiers and take down massive vehicles with crab legs.
In Iron Meat, the Iron Meat is an all-consuming interdimensional biomass and humans researching a secret facility built on the Moon manage to get it loose. When this happens, all hell breaks loose as The Meat manages to arrive on Earth and takes over everything that comes its way. The game begins at this point, and it marks the beginning of its campaign where you explore different locations and defeat meat-infused enemies while trying to find a way to get to the Moon and destroy the Iron Meat once and for all. At key points, the showcases retro animated cutscenes, and these serve as the main story of the game. Once you complete a campaign mission, you can jump back into it from the mission selection screen.
Right from the start of the game, you are indulged in the beautiful retro visuals of Iron Meat as it reminds you instantly of Metal Slug and Contra-like titles. Similar to most modern retro-inspired titles, Iron Meat offers accessible gameplay as the Easy difficulty allows you to die more while facing easier enemies. However, you can tone up the difficulty by switching up to Normal or Hard based on your skills. The gameplay is similar to any side-scrolling arcade platforming shooter you may have played in the past. It is silky smooth as you jump and shoot your way through beautifully designed levels.
While there are no health pickups and you die from a single hit, there are plenty of weapons for you to play around with. You can only carry two at a time and if you die, you only lose the weapon that you were carrying when you died. Your ‘stored’ weapon stays with you when you respawn giving you a chance to jump back into action quickly. You acquire these weapons as drops from reinforcement vehicles, soldiers, or destroying flying drones. Later levels reduce the number of weapon drops making dying a not-so-viable option because you are stuck with the default weapon. The gameplay combines shooting and platforming at the same time similar to the likes of Contra and Metal Slug but apart from your main weapons, you do not have anything else to fight the enemies with like grenades or any sort of special powers. Your only means of survival are the weapons that you pick or the default ones.
While the overall level design is pretty cool, the levels do have an issue and that is they tend to become shorter and shorter as you progress in the game. The later levels in the game feature deadlier enemies and bosses along with more obstacles but their overall length drops down massively. We remember spending around 10 minutes in one of the early levels, but one later level only took around 4 minutes to complete even with tougher enemies and obstacles to cross. We would have loved it if the later levels were at least as long as the initial levels because Iron Meat offers such great gameplay mechanics but there are not enough levels to experience them in. We would love to see more of the action in additional levels perhaps added in future updates or DLC. The base story might be complete, but you can always get some more levels in a future DLC.
Our favorite aspect in the gameplay of Iron Meat is its meaty bosses and I mean that literally. Each boss in the game has been corrupted by the meat and you will love their designs. Imagine seeing a huge train possessed by meat complete with human-like moving lips and moving legs and arms. The bosses look awesome, and you will also like the fights. Normal enemies do not pose much threat even on hard, but these bosses test your patience and skills. Some of the bosses come with different phases as well. You will need good platforming skills, the ability to dodge bullets at the last moment, and fluid shooting skills to ace the hard difficulty. Apart from the enemies, normal enemies look great as well after they are infested by the meat. You will come across normal soldiers, corrupted machinery including turrets, flying cars, and even choppers all infested with meat.
While the main campaign of the game may not be longer than 45 minutes, you can extend your gameplay by aiming for a multitude of locked skins. These locked skins can be unlocked by leveling up and the game offers over 30 locked skins that you can unlock and customize your character. These skins are visual only and they provide no combat bonuses. As you complete a level, you earn XP based on your performance and selected difficulty and after reaching a certain milestone, you level up and when you do, you unlock a new skin for your character. Once unlocked, these can be used in the main campaign for solo or co-op gameplay. This may appear a little grindy because you will need to play the same levels again and again in order to gain enough XP to level up enough to unlock all skins. Another cool aspect is that these skins do not really fit into the whole aesthetic of the game as well. For example, one skin is a fish in an aquarium on its head. These are fun to use and show that the developers wanted a humorous tone with them rather than a serious one.
Iron Mode also brings co-op couch gameplay right from the start as another friend can jump into the game with you at any time. There is no jump-in co-op play but with the ability of quitting and resuming from the same level instantly in co-op, it is pretty accessible. The game buffs up the difficulty when another player jumps into the game to make it fair. Both players can select custom skins at the start of the mission as well. Once a mission concludes, the game displays different stats for both players such as who killed the most enemies, but the XP is collected in a single form which means that the second player does not need another profile to jump into the campaign and they can enjoy whatever skins the main player has unlocked so far in the game. The weapon or XP drops are still the same so both players need to decide about who gets to pick up the drop.
Apart from grinding for skins, you can also try out the Hard mode to defeat these campaign levels. Once you play through the campaign, you can replay any level directly without any problems and you can even retry these levels on any difficulty level no matter how many times you die. The Easy difficulty level is excellent for starting players because it offers a lot more lives and the enemies are buffed down as well. However, once you get comfortable with the gameplay mechanics and understand the enemies, you can jump into Normal or Hard mode where the game tests your mettle. Despite the short length of the game completing the game on Hard mode tests your skills, especially boss fights. The fluid gameplay mechanics make playing it so much better as well.
Final Verdict:
Iron Meat is a satisfying love letter to the early arcade shooters like Contra and Meta Slug. It features beautifully designed levels, fluid gameplay mechanics, and bosses that are both epic to look at and evenly satisfying to fight. On top of that, it is also accessible for modern players as it tones down the difficulty if you decide to lower it to allow newcomers to enjoy the game as much as hardcore veterans who love to tear it down on the hardest difficulty. If you love playing run-and-gun arcade shooters and want something to test your shooting skills after all these years of playing Metal Slug or Contra, you will love jumping into Iron Meat. Highly recommended for fans of arcade shooters.
Final Score: 9.0/10
