Metal Gear's biggest crime is putting people off from giving Metal Gear 2 a proper go.
This is a very rudimentary version of this concept. Practically a prototype. They haven't learned all the beats yet. Screens exist as their own self-contained states, resetting after you walk into a new one. The radio only works on a handful of screens, and there's little indication of where you ought to be using it. There are also so many leaps in logic and entirely hidden primary objectives, that a walkthrough becomes a requirement. At one point, with no hints or guidance, you need to find an item by exploding your way into a secret room, and unlike the version of this puzzle that appeared in an incomparably superior sequel, the walls are not a different colour.
This was made on a tight schedule from inexperienced staff, and it doesn't do a lot of the things that fans of the later games may be looking for. If Zelda 1 seems too barebones for you, you ought to remember that game was from world-class pros who'd already made Super Mario Bros and Donkey Kong. If any of the staff of Metal Gear 1 had worked on anything before, it was stuff like Magical Tree and Monkey Academy.
Still here? What the game has to offer is atmosphere. It's very much an 80s videogame, but the theming is so much grittier than anything that tried to cover the topic of war or militaries. Outer Heaven is a dark, depressing location. It's all these wide, unpopulated corridors, weird pillars and army trucks. Like it was a third world factory that had been gutted and repurposed by a would-be dictator, or something. Of course, it's all just playing pieces in an action game, but there's a lot of space for headcanon. Indoors, it's unlit and under constant patrol from guards, and outside is covered with landmines and attack dogs. It feels precarious and desperate. There's constant suspicion and danger, and the THEME OF TARA completes the package beautifully.
Metal Gear has a bunch of ideas. Most of them take the form of one-use items, but they're ideas nonetheless. You disguise yourself as the enemy to gain entry to a building, gain a parachute to drop into a blocked-off courtyard, and most iconically - hide inside a cardboard box to bypass security cameras. Using a remote-control missile to blow up a generator for an electrified floor? That's been part of Metal Gear since 1987, baby. There's also a ranking system, based on how many hostages you've freed, determining how much health and ammo you can have - something that's secretly still in the series as late as MGS1 (when Snake eats a ration after a boss and gets a bigger life bar). These little ideas break up the simplistic gameplay, and when it works well, it stops feeling like the Tiger LCD game it often resembles and becomes a top secret mission.
It's easy to see why Kojima thought he'd be better suited to text-based adventure games than free-roaming action games, as the flights of fancy don't often complement the core gameplay, but there is a bit of the explorational appeal that would be developed in later Metal Gears, the Zelda sequels, and games like Metroid and Resident Evil. There's always a bit of excitement to discovering a new key card, wondering which of the previously inaccessible doors you'll be able to open. It's tangible progress, and it feels dead cheeky bypassing each subsequent clearance level in this regimented military fortress.
Does it hold up without association with the later games? I mean, it does as an MSX2 game. Games of this vintage don't often offer Metal Gear's depth, unless they're RPGs, and most of those are far more tedious and scrappily designed than this. I refute the notion that old games can only be appreciated for their historical merit. Super Mario Bros 3 is brilliant fun, whether you're playing it on a NES or discovering it for the first time on the Switch. People were happy to pay full-price for it as GBA title, 15 years after its original release, and rightfully so. Metal Gear requires much more patience and open-mindedness to play. Yes, there's an appeal for series fans to see the first time many of its ideas were attempted, but that only takes you so far. This is a very bullshitty old game. Checkpoints are only logged at each elevator entrance, and there can be a hell of a lot of progress between each visit. Metal Gear TX-55 itself needs to be defeated by memorising a 16-part sequence of which leg to place each explosive on, and if you get any part of it wrong, you have to start over. And the "plot"? Even in this post-Subsistence localisation, it only amounts to about five dialogue boxes, and you won't know which of them are supposed to be significant unless you've heard how those moments are mythologised (and massively expanded upon) by the sequels. We've osmosised ideas about Gray Fox and Big Boss and Outer Heaven over the years, but the reality is no match for the legend, I'm afraid. Don't let anyone tell you you're missing out on a crucial part of the series if you skip this one.
It will add to your appreciation for the later games, though, if only because you'll see how much better these ideas can be done. And people who have played both MSX Metal Gears tend to be far kinder to MGSV's ending than those who only know the Solids. If you're a big fan of the series, I won't tell you not to play this. Just make sure you stick with it, at least until the first boss. I promise it picks up after that.
This is a very rudimentary version of this concept. Practically a prototype. They haven't learned all the beats yet. Screens exist as their own self-contained states, resetting after you walk into a new one. The radio only works on a handful of screens, and there's little indication of where you ought to be using it. There are also so many leaps in logic and entirely hidden primary objectives, that a walkthrough becomes a requirement. At one point, with no hints or guidance, you need to find an item by exploding your way into a secret room, and unlike the version of this puzzle that appeared in an incomparably superior sequel, the walls are not a different colour.
This was made on a tight schedule from inexperienced staff, and it doesn't do a lot of the things that fans of the later games may be looking for. If Zelda 1 seems too barebones for you, you ought to remember that game was from world-class pros who'd already made Super Mario Bros and Donkey Kong. If any of the staff of Metal Gear 1 had worked on anything before, it was stuff like Magical Tree and Monkey Academy.
Still here? What the game has to offer is atmosphere. It's very much an 80s videogame, but the theming is so much grittier than anything that tried to cover the topic of war or militaries. Outer Heaven is a dark, depressing location. It's all these wide, unpopulated corridors, weird pillars and army trucks. Like it was a third world factory that had been gutted and repurposed by a would-be dictator, or something. Of course, it's all just playing pieces in an action game, but there's a lot of space for headcanon. Indoors, it's unlit and under constant patrol from guards, and outside is covered with landmines and attack dogs. It feels precarious and desperate. There's constant suspicion and danger, and the THEME OF TARA completes the package beautifully.
Metal Gear has a bunch of ideas. Most of them take the form of one-use items, but they're ideas nonetheless. You disguise yourself as the enemy to gain entry to a building, gain a parachute to drop into a blocked-off courtyard, and most iconically - hide inside a cardboard box to bypass security cameras. Using a remote-control missile to blow up a generator for an electrified floor? That's been part of Metal Gear since 1987, baby. There's also a ranking system, based on how many hostages you've freed, determining how much health and ammo you can have - something that's secretly still in the series as late as MGS1 (when Snake eats a ration after a boss and gets a bigger life bar). These little ideas break up the simplistic gameplay, and when it works well, it stops feeling like the Tiger LCD game it often resembles and becomes a top secret mission.
It's easy to see why Kojima thought he'd be better suited to text-based adventure games than free-roaming action games, as the flights of fancy don't often complement the core gameplay, but there is a bit of the explorational appeal that would be developed in later Metal Gears, the Zelda sequels, and games like Metroid and Resident Evil. There's always a bit of excitement to discovering a new key card, wondering which of the previously inaccessible doors you'll be able to open. It's tangible progress, and it feels dead cheeky bypassing each subsequent clearance level in this regimented military fortress.
Does it hold up without association with the later games? I mean, it does as an MSX2 game. Games of this vintage don't often offer Metal Gear's depth, unless they're RPGs, and most of those are far more tedious and scrappily designed than this. I refute the notion that old games can only be appreciated for their historical merit. Super Mario Bros 3 is brilliant fun, whether you're playing it on a NES or discovering it for the first time on the Switch. People were happy to pay full-price for it as GBA title, 15 years after its original release, and rightfully so. Metal Gear requires much more patience and open-mindedness to play. Yes, there's an appeal for series fans to see the first time many of its ideas were attempted, but that only takes you so far. This is a very bullshitty old game. Checkpoints are only logged at each elevator entrance, and there can be a hell of a lot of progress between each visit. Metal Gear TX-55 itself needs to be defeated by memorising a 16-part sequence of which leg to place each explosive on, and if you get any part of it wrong, you have to start over. And the "plot"? Even in this post-Subsistence localisation, it only amounts to about five dialogue boxes, and you won't know which of them are supposed to be significant unless you've heard how those moments are mythologised (and massively expanded upon) by the sequels. We've osmosised ideas about Gray Fox and Big Boss and Outer Heaven over the years, but the reality is no match for the legend, I'm afraid. Don't let anyone tell you you're missing out on a crucial part of the series if you skip this one.
It will add to your appreciation for the later games, though, if only because you'll see how much better these ideas can be done. And people who have played both MSX Metal Gears tend to be far kinder to MGSV's ending than those who only know the Solids. If you're a big fan of the series, I won't tell you not to play this. Just make sure you stick with it, at least until the first boss. I promise it picks up after that.