>>9958087Yeah, licensing stuff with toys is weird. That's why sometimes companies pick movie sequel licenses, like Child's Play 3 or Hellraiser 2, to get around producing figures of the characters or something like that. Not sure why they picked the 3rd game, but probably like you said something like that happened.
For reference, this is what they look like in the updated Soldier Select for Metal Slug 3. It is weird they kept the guy's faces pretty similar to
>>9958059 but changed the girl's faces.