I'd heard so many great things about this game that I had to buy it. Then I played it and hated it, failed miserably at every battle and rage quit. Over time I started to realise I was probably just mad because I was bad, and for the sake of knocking a game off of my backlog, I came back to finish it.

I'm very glad I did because I actually got past the first chapter this time and began to really enjoy parts of the game, as well as understand exactly what I disliked about it. Even this time around, I really wasn't a fan of the first two chapters, most of the fights are against grunts and the pairing of this game's terrible camera and a total lack of explanation on incredibly important features made it dull and frustrating.

After that point, I began to really appreciate the amount of creativity gone into lots of the game. I'm a big fan of loads of the ideas behind bosses and their battles, and it let me enjoy the game a lot more. Some technical issues were still there, and the characters, story and dialogue ranged from unbearable to okay.

Then, in the later half of the game I was hit with chapters that are some of the most fun I've had in single-player gaming. The Sundowner, Jetstream Sam, and final boss fights were all an absolute blast and executed about everything they attempted perfectly. Sundowner's fight has an awesome concept that was a little under-explained, but super rewarding to complete, despite how easy it was. Sam's was cinematic and really stripped the gameplay down to its finest parts and did that to perfection. The final boss was probably the best part of the game, just about edging out Sam thanks to how great the story was. The gameplay of that last fight felt like your skills were really being put to the test and any failure made was your fault and something to learn from next attempt. I also wish this boss fight had been a little harder, maybe with a couple of new moves in the last half, but it was rewarding nonetheless.

Not the masterpiece I had hoped for some two years ago, but a very good game I'm glad I came back for.

This game is peak insanity. This is my first metal gear game and I can tell that there’s some missing context with Raiden, or as all the villains call him, “Jack the Ripper.” This game doesn’t rely on story too much, I mean you are stopping villains from killing children and stealing their brains to create war machines, how could it be more obvious that the villains are evil? I don’t mind the story being pretty simplistic though, because the gameplay is AMAZING! Slashing enemies, parrying attacks, using blade mode, and transforming into “Jack the Ripper” are all extremely fun to do. I also love the ninja run since it’s just a better run button. It makes you faster and jumps over objects. I can’t remember how I felt playing the earlier bosses since I started this game 4 months ago, but the final 2 bosses were absolutely perfect. 10/10, An extremely fun hack and slash, I will be trying to 100% this one.