Test & Unused Areas

 

After the excitement of Metal Slug X, Metal Slug 3 returns to being very plain. There are two unused areas and a few warps, but otherwise it's just a basic level select.

Amusingly, if you warp straight to an area where a player is kidnapped, without having done the kidnapping scene just yet, Marco is automatically chosen, even if you're already Marco. Even more strange, the zombie clones are replaced with Eri, and Eri pilots the UFO while fighting Rootmarks.

NUMBER

AREA / COMMENTS

1: 1 1-1

The beach area of Mission 1.

1: 2 2-1

The Slug Mariner path.

1: 3 1-1

The end of the water path, starting at the boss fight with alternate Slugnoid. Fat allowed.

1: 4 3-1

Path from the teleportation thing. Fat allowed.

1: 5 1-1

Start of the boss fight, running in. Fat allowed.

1: 6 1-1

Warp. Starting before the giant bugs, parachuting in.

1: 7 2-1

Warp. Starting in the underwater path, near the bottom of the area.

2: 1 1-1

Beginning of Mission 2.

2: 2 2-1

Unused area. First area of Mission 3 from Metal Slug 1, with zombies and unused lift!

2: 3 1-1

Unused area. Start at the slope leading to the tanks and caravans.

2: 4: 3-1

Ice cave path.

2: 5: 1-1

End of the ice cave path, starting a little bit before the boss.

2: 6

Warp. Start at the Elephant Slug in the ice cave.

2: 7

Warp. Start before the first human soldiers.

2: 8

Warp. Start before the boss, parachuting in.

3: 1 1-1

Beginning of Mission 3, movie scene of getting the swimming gear.

3: 2 1-2

Real beginning of Mission 3, in the ocean.

3: 3 1-3

Entrance to warehouse.

3: 4 1-4

Boss.

3: 5 2-1

Cave leading to Slug Mariner path.

3: 6 2-2

Slug Mariner path.

3: 7 3-1

The one with the soldiers and missiles and stuff.

4: 1 1-1

Beginning of Mission 4.

4: 2 1-2

Upper path, with seeds and soldier corpses. Fat allowed.

4: 3 1-3

Boss. Fat allowed.

4: 4 2-1

Bottom path, with fleeing soldiers. Fat allowed.

4: 5 2-2

Barrel room, with man-eating-plants. Fat allowed.

4: 6 2-3

Entrance to samurai lair. Fat allowed.

4: 7 2-4

Samurai lair. Fat allowed.

4: 8 3-1

Mutated bug lair.

4: 9 3-1

Warp. Halfway through mutated bug lair, with odd colour problem.

4: A 3-1

Warp. Further through the bug lair, entering by falling through the ceiling.

4: B 4-1

Generator room. You know, the place where you gather batteries. Fat allowed.

4: C 4-2

Entrance to mummy sector. Fat allowed.

4: D 4-3

Mummy area with item trap. Fat allowed.

4: E 4-4

Area with sliding sand.

4: F 4-5

Lowering ceiling sector. Fat allowed.

4: 10 4-6

Stone lift. Fat allowed.

4: 11 1-3

Boss, entering by stairs. Fat allowed.

4: 12 4-7

Elevator to generator room. Fat allowed.

5: 1 1-1

Beginning of Mission 5.

5: 2 1-1

Real beginning of Mission 5: The plane/helicopter segment.

5: 3 1-2

After aerial segment, leading to first boss of the stage.

5: 4 1-3

Cinema scene of the rockets blasting off.

5: 5 1-4

Beginning of vertical shooter segment.

5: 6 1-5

Second vertical shooter segment.

5: 7 1-6

Beginning of alien mothership.

5: 8 1-7

Rescuing General Morden.

5: 9 1-8

Soldiers vs. aliens segment.

5: A 1-9

Second boss, fake Rootmarks.

5: B 1-A

First appearance of the clones. Fat allowed.

5: C 1-B

Rescuing your kidnapped partner.

5: D 1-C

Final leg of the trek.

5: E 1-D

Cinema scene of escaping the ship.

5: F 1-E

Final boss, Rootmarks.

6: 1 0

Mission all over!

6: 2 1

Ending part 1 – Metal Slug crashing into the sea.

6: 3 2

Ending part 2 – Your characters floating on the stranded tank.

6: 4 3

Ending part 3 – The gun floating through the ocean.

6: 5 4

Highscore screen.

7: 1

Demo 1, at the ship full of crabs in Mission 1.

7: 2

Demo 2, of the Slug Mariner path.

7: 3

Highscore screen.

8: 1

Demo 3, real beginning of Mission 5 in helicopter.

8: 2

Demo 4, near the president in Mission 2.

8: 3

Highscore screen.

 

 Metal Slug 3 lacks interesting test levels. And has a whopping two unused areas.

 

Andy the Wizard is an empty Mission 2, with only a Type-R Metal Slug at the beginning. There’s no music either, and the level ends somewhere around the area with the Girida-Os.

 

FOR 2 is the area in Mission 1 with the barrels of flying piranhas, but there’s no scrolling and the only object there is a Rebel Armour. Again, there’s no music and you parachute in, strangely.

 

 

FOR 3 is the same area as FOR 2, but instead of a Rebel Armour, there’s two giant crabs there. After killing them, you can scroll right and find two more, and once they’re vanquished, there’s nothing left to do there.

 

 

FOR 4 is the area where you rescue General Morden from the aliens, but it stops scrolling where the machine he’s trapped in would be, and the only objects are those sinking tanks you find in Mission 3. Odd.

 

FOR 5 is the same area as FOR 2 and 3, but there’s no objects anywhere at all, you can scroll all the way to the end, and the boss music plays, making it sound like there’d be something of interest here.

 

MEE HER appears to be the same as the area you see in FOR 5 and more, but it has the objects you find when you go there in the actual game. There are some minor differences, like finding an ordinary prisoner instead of Uka, getting access to a Mobile Satellite, and finding that same woman from the ending of Metal Slug 1, Satiko Suzuki, near the prisoner. You can’t interact with her, though.

 

FOR 7 is the same as the warehouse area in Mission 3, except there seem to be more prisoners there.

 

FOR 8 is simply an empty Mission 2. Boring.

 

FOR 9 is Mission 2 again, but now has a Slug Flyer, a Metal Slug, and a Type-R Metal Slug to choose from at the beginning. Otherwise, it’s empty up until the area where you find the Girida-Os, where a number of them come to attack you and you can scroll no more.

 

FOR 10 is the area in Mission 5 where you first find the clones, but the ending music plays.

There's only one "true" unused stage in Metal Slug 3, the rest are just those pointless "start halfway through the level" ones. I'm skipping the latter.

 

2: 2 2-1

The only true unused stage, this is similar, if not exactly like the first part of Mission 3 in Metal Slug 1. There are only one type of zombie here, and no items or anything, other than the lifts (which aren't seen anywhere else in the game) and the teleportation pod at the top.

 

2: 3 1-1

And this is where said pod leads to, near the Girida-Os.