How much money did this cost to complete

[GAMING_Alligator]

In the arcade days, how much would this have cost to actually play the game to completion? As it is with unlimited continues, it's stupidly difficult and seems designed around killing you over and over again, presumably to keep you pouring money into the machine.

Seems to me it could have been very expensive if you actuall wanted to complete it back in the day!

[Brave Sir Robin]

I think the very first time I played this on an emulator it took 52 credits to clear it once. The final boss alone was probably 20 of those as I just stopped caring by the point and died to refill my grenades because I was tired and just wanted it to end. By contrast I think the first clear of Metal Slug X was only 17-18 credits. The first three stages are generally okay, it spikes hard on stage 4, then it fools you getting easier for the first half of stage 5 before giving you a giant middle finger and going full bs mode.

People always say this is the best, but frankly Metal Slug X was better designed. 3 feels like it drags on a bit too long and stage 4-5 are designed to more or less eat as many quarters as possible; as some sections are basically impossible unless you've played it before and know exactly what's coming or how to exploit certain things. X had less moments of 'that was completely unfair'.

[LilG]

It would cost a TON of money to complete at the arcade since they usually had it on the hardest setting in order to eat your money faster. I remember speding my pocket money trying to get past stage3 or 4 never did until I got thie game.