Metal Gear (1987)

To specify this is the fossil MSX game released in caveman times, not the Metal Gear Solid game most people would be familiar with. Anyways it's pretty bad, I mostly enjoyed my time with the game, it took a bit over 4 hours to beat. But by the end I just wanted to be done. The game DISAGREED and hit me with some awful design. Multiple points in this game require you to take damage, and it can be difficult consistently getting healing items. The game is cryptic as hell, and would be a way worse experience without a guide. Saves aren't forgiving, and actual combat is a headache.

The stealth component isn't too bad, I like seeing some series staples appear like the cardboard box. It's also nice seeing characters like Solid Snake, Big Boss, and Grey Fox make their first appearance. Sadly they're all pretty bad and barely comparable to their MGS counterparts. Big Boss especially is just a cartoon villain that "dies" only to suddenly be alive and set up sequel bait. I don't think you're really supposed to care about the story with this game, which feels weird considering what the series eventually becomes.

Anyways with the bosses, the names were pretty funny. I get that it's just a Kojima thing, but an enemy named "Shotmaker" is really funny (he makes all his shots). Also the actual fight against Metal Gear is really bad, it doesn't even fight back, instead it's just laser turrets on the wall that shoot at you while you have to place bombs in a 16 pattern order. I'd also like to mention if you don't have enough bombs you have to reload a save.

Okay but for real at the end the facility explodes in the background as Snake runs and the credits roll. That was pretty cool.

Pretty cool/10

Hoje vamos falar sobre a coletânea Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1, que traz os primeiros cinco jogos da franquia de espionagem tática criada por Hideo Kojima. Mas antes de entrarmos nos clássicos do PlayStation, eu dei uma olhada nas versões de NES e Famicom.

Metal Gear foi lançado originalmente para o MSX2 em 1987, mas ganhou uma adaptação para o NES no ano seguinte. Essa versão, porém, não foi supervisionada por Kojima e sofreu várias mudanças em relação ao original, como a remoção do robô Metal Gear, a alteração de alguns cenários e personagens e a tradução cheia de erros. Apesar disso, muitos jogadores ocidentais conheceram a série por esse jogo e se impressionaram com a sua proposta de infiltrar-se em uma base inimiga sem ser detectado, usando vários equipamentos e armas para avançar na missão.

Metal Gear também foi lançado para o Famicom, o equivalente japonês do NES, mas com algumas diferenças em relação à versão americana. O jogo tem gráficos mais coloridos, uma trilha sonora diferente e alguns diálogos adicionais. Além disso, o jogo é mais difícil, pois os inimigos são mais rápidos e inteligentes, e há menos itens disponíveis. A versão de Famicom também tem um final alternativo, que revela que o líder dos terroristas não era quem parecia ser.

Apesar de não serem as versões definitivas dos jogos, as edições de NES e Famicom de Metal Gear têm o seu valor histórico e merecem ser conferidas pelos fãs da série. Eles mostram as origens da jogabilidade e da narrativa que consagraram a franquia e servem como um contraste interessante com as obras posteriores de Kojima

The pieces are here, but they're not put together well...

Metal Gear, as seen on the NES (a port which took some liberties), has a great outline for an early stealth/action game, but it is full of flaws. I mean FULL of flaws.

A common complaint of games from this era (as in - before the mid-90s) is that there is a great deal of trial and error. This comes from the simple fact that games did not have the capacity to be long endeavors without some of what we would now call "artificial difficulty". Unfortunately that is only one small aspect of the issues that plague Metal Gear.
Stealth is the name of the game: sneak through an area and dispose of your enemies before they even know what hit them! Except... they respawn. Not only do they respawn when you leave a screen and go back, they respawn if you use your binoculars, they respawn if you exit the inside of a truck or building.
Enemy placement is frequently set to protect the entrance of a location... which means when you enter and then leave that location again, guess who is RIGHT ON TOP OF YOU AT THE DOOR? That's right, the 3 guys you killed 30 seconds ago. This time, you have nowhere to hide to sneak up on them.

I will forgive the translation errors. I can forgive the bugs. I have a hard time forgiving the level layouts that don't even give you the chance to hide in a game based on stealth.

I also have a hard time wrapping my head around just how many dogs I had to punch to death. As a child, my family had a German Shepherd/husky mix who looked just like the dogs in this game. RIP, Rocky, you were a cool dog for a little kid.

5/5 dog. 2/5 game.

I tend to not really enjoy older titles like this unless if they're FPSs or platformers (and maybe RPGs), so I can't say for sure if my issues with "Metal Gear" come from my personal biases as a cringe millennial, or if my criticisms and complaints are genuine and fair.

I enjoyed the game enough at first, the atmosphere was really engrossing and I loved being able to stealth my way through the compound, despite the old graphics and incredibly clunky controls, I was still able to lose myself in the game.

For the first area anyway.

As the game went on, and I progressed further through the fortress, I quickly found myself getting overly frustrated. The way the game doesn't convey where you need to go at all, the mind-numbing boss fights, and the general frustrating base layout and unclear interactable elements all quickly drove me insane. (Like seriously Kojima, I know the NES had a limited color pallet, but could you have at least color coded the keys and corresponding doors? Is that too much to ask?)

Anyway, I ended up giving up on this game roughly halfway through; It was just too much for me. Thankfully the version I was playing has this nifty manual that explains the story and lore pretty well, so I can be content with that.

I never even figured out how to contact Schneider...

This is the bastardized version of Metal Gear Kojima wasn't involved with, released in the West while the MSX version never saw the light of day here until it was released with MGS3: Subsistence on PS2.

While it's generally on-par with contemporary NES games, it's really flawed compared to the original, with some poor design decisions like the drawn-out and linear jungle section before reaching Outer Heaven, having to fight a stupid supercomputer at the end instead of the eponymous robot, and a janky password save system that serves to frustrate more than anything.

You may be struggling to imagine that there would be anything interesting to talk about in regard to a NES port for the original Metal Gear, and under normal circumstances you’d probably be right. This version is not a totally unremarkable footnote for the franchise, however. In part because said franchise might have never even existed without it (more on that in a bit…), but also due to just how much is actually changed from the MSX2 release.

Now, obviously it was going to be hard to squeeze a computer game onto Nintendo’s first home console released outside of Japan. A fact that resulted in certain bosses being removed (such as the actual freaking Metal Gear itself) and being replaced with simpler ones, on top of minor alterations to the occasional level design. Some of the differences are plain bizarre though. Like, why they went out of their way to create an entirely new opening sequence where you parachute into a jungle or turn the basements of a couple buildings into their own separate bases that you have to traverse a confusing outdoor environment of repeated screens that wasn’t present before in order to reach. The latter of which, paired with the checkpoint system now respawning you at set places based on your ranking instead of whatever elevator you last left, causes you to spend more time lost and perplexed than you already would have.

Fortunately, and perhaps shockingly, not every modification was for the worse. A few legitimately make aspects of the adventure easier, believe it or not. For example, after defeating “Shotmaker/Shotgunner” on the MSX system you’d be thrown into a giant maze where you’d be expected to punch random walls to find hidden rooms containing crucial tools, but here you’re greeted by a normal hallway where the objects you seek are locked behind typical doors. There’s still plenty of wall-punching later on, but this decision removes a lot of frustration from the early portion. You also no longer lose your items when you die, slightly lessening the sting of the aforementioned checkpoint woes and reducing the number of steps you’ll have to retrace following an untimely demise.

Overall, I’d say its distinguishing features are about 50/50 in terms of quality. For every translation issue or enemies not dropping the rare consumable upon death, you get scorpions that are easier to avoid and the ability to open secret passages without the use of precious explosives. As a result, they don’t necessarily make this any better or poorer than Kojima’s handcrafted take in my opinion. So which would I recommend then? Honestly, I’m the type who couldn’t suggest playing Metal Gear in either form, as it’s not a terribly enjoyable game no matter how you slice it thanks to its frustratingly cryptic structure and vague sense of direction (if interested, you can read this review for more on that). Yet, if you’re simply determined to I see no reason to pick this option over the official one. Why not go with the canonically recognized of the two after all?

Consequently, it’s easy to look at this for what it is, largely the exact same game with a handful of questionable unique characteristics, and dismiss it as altogether unworthy of note. Especially considering the “real” MG has since been localized and is fairly effortless to get your hands on today. Although without it the property might not have reached the Solid heights it is currently known for, so I’d argue it’s about as important as any other entry. Konami’s decision to commission Ultra Games, the devs responsible for bringing the title over to the NES, to create their own sequel is what inspired Hideo to give birth to his true follow-up and the resulting massively successful series. Therefore, while it might not be necessary or fun to go and dig up a copy for yourself, it’s pretty historically significant regardless.

5/10