Kraut Buster - Metal Slug inspired shooter coming to Neo-Geo

I said to myself today it's time to give the retro homebrew a break and focus more on the Indie, but when retrotaku gave us the (exclusive) heads up of a Metal Slug inspired shooter coming to Neo-Geo we just had to see for ourselves. Well here it is, 'Kraut Buster' a comical action Run'n'Gun shooting game made for the 16 bit system NEO·GEO and developed by NGD Team with a release date of Winter 2015!

Screenshot taken from an Egret II CRT with an iPhone 4 - Early Build

For anyone thinking that this is going to be a straight up clone of Metal Slug will be oh so wrong, as this game is certainly going to be feature packed and very graphically appealing. Most noticeable will be a Mask feature which will change your characters abilities, your weapons, your surroundings and enemy behaviours. Furthermore, Kraut Buster has beautiful handcrafted 16-bit pixel art, large panoramic backgrounds with up to 9000px length with a lot of parallax elements, big fully animated bosses, lots of enemies to kill and tons of extra animation, little details and pixel love.

More Game Features (exact details are subject to change):

- 5-6 end bosses and several sub bosses
- 2 player simultaneous mode CO-OP: players can interact with each other.
- 8-way: Allows to shoot in 8 directions
- Swaying: Some weapons allow 16-direction by swaying with the joystick
- Switch weapons: quick tap 'D' to switch between weapon I and II
- Grenade hold: Hold joystick in direction to throw grenades more far
- Ledge drop: Use the terrain and obstacles to your advantage
- Position lock: Hold your position while aiming
- Chain based scoring system to provide a long term challenge
- multiple heights/ways platforming for more ways to play the game
- 3 "routes" / difficulties
- Arcade perfect playtime of approx. 35 minutes per run (normal route)
- Bloodpumping FM based arcade soundtrack
- 60fps

It all sounds so incredibly impressive, and as a huge Metal Slug fan, this would be one game I'd gladly go out and buy a Neo-Geo just to play! So lets hope the developers make further versions and it ends up on Steam. Kraut Buster is available to Pre-Order on this Website with further specification and details on the main home page