Awesome / Metal Slug

• The climax of every game qualifies.
  • The original has you fighting your way through Morden's soldiers to the tune of Final Attack, eventually falling off a bridge, which Morden himself blows up, and onto a boat. From there, you take down entire swarms of planes and obliterate coastal fortifications. Eventually, the boat reaches an island where you have the final showdown with Morden himself in his Hi-Do helicopter, which can fire homing missiles, raze the ground with a machine gun and carpet bomb the screen. You can still beat it on foot.
  • 2/X has you fighting against the Mars People. After you fight Allen and make him orca food, you take on several Mars People at once. When you reach the end, the Mars People betray the Rebels and abduct Morden. Once you damage the Dai-Maji, a warship of the Mars People, by yourself, you have to fight off the Mars People in their giant mothership, the Rugname. Then the main theme kicks in... which starts with the Rebel Army aiding you against the mothership, this being the first time in the entire series that the Rebel Army helps you, along with their shots all counting on the final boss. You also get a SV-001 delivered alongside Hyakutaro Ichimonji, who gleefully helps you. Let's not forget that the whole battle with the Rugname is a Shout-Out to Independence Day...
    • The background during the final fight is the Rebel Army having a brutal dogfight against the Mars People. And they don't trade just missed shots, both sides get shot down by enemy fire. In fact, the Rebels can be seen scoring kills more often than the Mars People.
    • At the end, the Rugname is about to fire its Wave-Motion Gun again... only for a Rebel pilot to fly into it, destroying it and freeing Morden.
  • 3 is known for having one of the longest and hardest missions in the entire series. You go through a long dogfight with Morden, Allen, and the enemies, eventually fighting Morden himself in a remake of the original's final boss battle with the Hi-Do... only to discover that that Morden is actually a Martian in disguise and he abducts your character. You then take control of another character to go to space, then participate in a dogfight against the Rugname mothership from the last game (that's right, you fight the two final bosses from the last two games in this final mission). Then you storm the mothership, freeing Morden and your captured character in the process, and destroying the Rugname's core to ensure its destruction. After escaping the collapsing mothership, taking down powerful clones of your captured character, it finally culminates in a free falling climactic battle with the leader of the Mars People, Rootmars.
    • The battle against Rootmars has you use a Slug, but Rootmars has immobilized it with one hand, so unless you know how to jump out, you can only use it for a few free hits in. When on foot, you can climb at the brain of Rootmars and stab the leader of the Mars People repeatedly. But the truly awesome moment comes when your captured former character joins you in a hijacked personal saucer and shoots Rootmars occasionally. And yes, their shots count as damage.
  • 4 has you rappelling down Amadeus's base Mission: Impossible style, fighting against enemies and scientists that fire bullets which turn you into a monkey if shot. However, being a monkey gives you unlimited Heavy Machine Gun ammo, and you face Allen O'Neal again... except he's a robot. Then you have the final showdown with Dr. Amadeus himself as he mans his armed-to-the-teeth supercomputer, and after defeating Amadeus, you must then escape his exploding base!
  • 5 has you start the final mission in a driving stage where you must leap from highway to highway, ending at a war-torn city and an abandoned subway. After that, you survive a wave of tough Ptolemaic officers and end up in some sort of factory, then a castle where you fight two elephant turrets and a lot of explosive worms, and when you reach the end, you fight this absolutely MASSIVE demon, the Avatar of Evil, to the tune of this AWESOME remix of Final Attack.
  • 6 has you going underground into the Invaders' hive, and to make it better, both Morden's infantry and the Mars People will lend you a hand for this mission, with the Mars People serving as the prisoners of war for once. This mission also has a much darker version of Final Attack, signalling that the Invaders are much more dangerous than Morden or the Mars People. Upon reaching the end, you must battle your Brainwashed and Crazy friend who's under the Invaders' control, and you battle the Invader King himself while driving a Golden Metal Slug. In the end, you make the Invader King drop into a chasm, survive his last dangerous barrage of attacks and either Morden or Rootmars saves you.
  • 7/XX has you fighting Morden's soldiers from the future and eventually reaching the time portal from which the Future Rebels came from. Upon destroying the portal, a massive machine comes from the portal and Morden gets inside of it. Then, at the end, you battle the Kraken which is controlled by Morden on top of lava. All to the tune of this remix of Final Attack.
• Any time you manage to finish a mission with a special POW (Rumi Aikawa, Hyakutaro Ichimonji, et al.) counted. This is harder than it sounds, because you lose credit for every POW rescued up to that point if you die. Likewise, finishing a stage inside a Metal Slug gives you a big bonus, and it's also harder than it sounds because Slugs get blown up after a few hits and the best way to keep one functional is to keep jumping in and out, and if you are out when you win you won't get the bonus.
• The fifth mission of the first game. You will devastate a whole city full of Rebels while they throw everything they can at you, until you free several prisoners from the Iron Nokana.
• The Traintop Battle in 2 is iconic. You have to carefully navigate the train as the enemy is much smarter than usual, jumping from wagon to wagon as you do so, until you fight the Dragon Nosuke, which has different patterns for planes and infantry.
• Using the zombie form in the third game against the Monoeyes. The Monoeyes are no pushover normally, but you can take care of multiple of them at once, instantly, with one bloody stream.
• In 6, you can take control of Rootmars and use its shockwaves in an optional route. Most of its body is invincible, and you will make the leader of the Mars People obliterate entire swarms of the predators of its kind.
• When you finish a particular game, it tallies how many continues you used. Given the series' obscene difficulty (especially 3), completing a Metal Slug game with a continue count of zero is an Awesome Moment.
• Even after 20 years, the series' detailed art and animation still looks amazing.
• The opening to the PlayStation 2 game shows Marco going Rambo on the enemy soldiers, Tarma slicing and dicing enemies with his knives, Eri disarming a bomb, and Fio engaging in a Showdown at High Noon with an enemy, who, after shooting a butterfly, is instantly shot by Fio.