Way back when, I impulsively picked this up at a Best Buy, not knowing anything about the game, but recognizing that Yoji Shinkawa art on the cover. And lets just say, Metal Gear Solid this was not. I think it’s really sleazy how hard they tried to dupe suckers like me into thinking it was with all that similar imagery. Even more so when I learned after the fact that it actually belongs to the Front Mission franchise, which was dormant for a while prior to this game. I have no connection to that universe but I can’t imagine those who do being too happy with this after waiting ages for a new entry in the series.

The game itself, I really don’t know what it’s trying to do, but it’s not good at any of it. It seems like it’s framed as a stealth game, but it hasn’t even the most basic of stealth mechanics, not even a takedown (well, it does, but not in a stealth context). It doesn’t really work as an action game, the shooting is some of the most janky and unpolished in any game, and you’re severely punished for engaging enemies, they’re stupidly spongey and hose you down in seconds with laser precision. It’s clear to me that combat is meant to be something to avoid, and yet you aren’t really given the tools to avoid it. Hell, it tells you to run away at points but then it boxes you in and makes fighting your only real option, and through most of it, you’re fighting the game’s mechanics more so than the enemies themselves. I dropped out I think around the halfway point. I made it as far as I did by either A) spamming RC explosives to clear enemies out from afar, the AI is stupid as hell and just kind of congregates around where the explosion happened, letting you keep lobbing them at the same area until they’re all dead. B) Cheesing them with this trick I found where sliding into them knocks them over, letting you instakill them on the ground with the pipe, an unreliable strategy because the hitboxes are weirdly strict and the slide will sometimes just go off in whatever direction it feels like leaving you to be gunned down. And C) just bull rushing past everyone to the exit on the dubious hope that I don’t get gunned down, essentially this: https://youtu.be/XWsTpvJIM5g?si=vxMBzKfnZsn8IpnT

Add to that a pretty generic story, voice acting that ranges from embarrassing at worst to okay at best, levels that look like they were put together in Gmod, these really sloppy mech sections, the Koshka voice which never shuts up and triggers my Metal Gear Survive PTSD, and yeah, no. I don’t think this game is very good.

TL;DR: you could build a mountain out of the complaints thrown at this game, but you'd only get a molehill out of the ones that are actually valid

left alive isn't metal gear. it has a fair amount of low budget jank, but outside of the inconsistent performance, some weird animations and a few ai quirks here and there, it works as intended (if you can handle literally anything made by cavia, you'll be fine.) that said - depending on your playstyle and willingness to experiment, the experience is either gonna be totally exhilarating or completely exhausting

let's dispel the myth once and for all: not only is left alive not metal gear - it's not even a stealth game. enemies are armed to the teeth. these aren't dudes in military garb - they're soldiers with armored exosuits. it'd be stupid if you could just 'stealth takedown' them. so what's the solution, especially on higher difficulties? (read: any one that isn't the casual mode that they patched in for people who refused to play the game properly)

RUN LIKE A BITCH

oh, but if only i could easily obtain tools to distract or disarm guards to avoid the constant gunfire. if only i could plant traps or obscure my trail with smoke bombs. if only i could slide tackle into enemies while sprinting as if this were vanquish and knock them on their asses. oh wait - i can do all of that. soldiers are spongy, but the sheer amount of ways you can manipulate them justifies that. sure, it'll take eight headshots to kill someone, but what about when while they're too busy shaking off a molotov cocktail to retaliate? or trying to dismantle a barb wire trap?

on paper it might seem like you've got all the tools you need to dispose of anything, but ammo is fairly scarce and you can't carry much of it. maps are visited under different circumstances by all three characters and the loot in each area is finite. stocking up on ammo or all the scrap you can find might sound like a good idea at first, but you could be giving your other characters a much harder time for lack of preparation

narratively, i don't have a lot to say without spoilers. as a front mission fan, it's certainly cool to dicaprio_point.gif at all the familiar terminology and factions. definitely feels like there could've been more on the narrative front, but what's here is cool and the cast carrying things is surprisingly high profile - even nigh animation-less sidequest npcs are absurdly well voiced. the morality decisions are also interesting and fairly pivotal (ranging from survivors killing themselves because you told them the wrong things, to actually important characters dying unjustly for your actions). i like that what you get out of the narrative is reflective of what you put into it. moreover, i appreciate that because this is a front mission game i can pilot wanzers. that's pretty cool too

look. if you're still here then your curiosity must be sparked in some manner. i'll be frank: this game gets cheap. i bought it for $6 and i'd have gladly paid multiples of that. there are great ideas here and they're not even deeply buried under jank. this is just a fun and unique experience through and through. easily recommended to anyone with passing interest and an open mind. play on the hopeless difficulty too - it isn't - it puts you in the right mentality to get through novo slava as intended. don't sweat the side missions too much - they're tough and staying alive is hard enough as is

moral of this story: never fucking trust game critics or youtube funnymen. seriously. most of the negative reviews on steam have less than an hour of playtime and yet they act as if left alive assaulted their family and left no one alive

it's embarrassing