Retreading a bit of ground for those who have read my recent review of Metal Gear 1, but I am a large and longtime fan of the Metal Gear series who, by some random circumstances, never got around to the original 2 titles. I have been rectifying that as of lately, and enjoying my time immensely.

When I played The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, I greatly enjoyed my time with it as it is an excellent video game. Something that I noticed, as someone who had played and adored its 3D sequel- Ocarina of Time- was how much the latter took from LTTP on the jump to the third dimension. Sure, it may have played and been presented differently, but there was so much DNA from the SNES game baked into the mechanics, structure, atmosphere, and overall design
I bring up my time with Link to the Past because that feeling of watching the groundwork being laid out as a fan of later entries was very prominent with Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake is to Metal Gear Solid what Link to the Past is to Ocarina of time- and like the Zelda games, both games here are excellent as well.

Most of what I have to say about Metal Gear 2 is lifted directly from what I said about Metal Gear 1 as they are pretty similar in how they are executed, but Metal Gear 2 really amps up things and expands the experience just as a good sequel should. There is more variety in locations, items, boss encounters, and music. There is more dialogue, set pieces, and story scenes. The enemies are more advanced and capable. And best of all, that rock-solid game design is still here too.

Zanzibar Land is crafted with such care that despite it being multiple buildings of multiple floors, all with mazes of locked doors and enemies. I never got lost, and once again from Metal Gear 1 I found the gameplay loop incredibly satisfying. The addition of crawling, different sounds on different types of floor, the soliton radar, alert phases and times, using a real tap-code chart to decode messages(?!?), etc. are all pretty groundbreaking to see on such primitive hardware, and it all works wonderfully. Everything I could really want out of a 2D Metal Gear gameplay experience is pretty much perfect here.

As a Metal Gear fan I knew most of the general events going into this game as they’re important in later entries, but I was very impressed how investing the story was here, and the characterization of Solid Snake and a handful of other important figures was both fantastic and surprisingly moving? As MGS was ahead of its time, I think this game was too.

There are a few fumbles for me in this game, but they’re not really too bad. Like the first, I think this isn’t a guide game but more of a “Google once or twice” game as sometimes it isn’t quite clear about what it wants- or it just gets annoying. The highlight annoying part for me was in the forest you have to walk on a windy and narrow invisible path around quicksand, and it is just tiring and tedious. I also think the boss fights are mostly pretty weak here. None of them are hard, but most of them are just kind of weird (in a not-very-fun way like later entries) and annoying. The backtracking can also get a little excessive, I know backtracking is in Metal Gear 1 and later entries, but I think that this is the title with the most to be found (or it felt that way, at least). And while not a criticism nor complaint, this game is also long enough to not really have the same replay value of the original, lightning quick Metal Gear.

I also just want to say that I was pretty shocked how many times I noticed something that was just flat out reused in Metal Gear Solid, as it was wild to see things like an elevator or staircase ambush or forging keys in different temperatures to name a few. I just think it was interesting and worth mentioning and highlighting once more how ahead of the time this game was.

I keep saying it over and over, but it really just is ahead of its time. It isn’t quite as cinematic as the 3D games, but compared to the first this really feels like a thrilling and well defined story told via 8-bit video game, and I found that to be equally fun as it was impressive. I think the first Metal Gear is great for having a really fun and tightly-knit stealth action game and I love it dearly for that, but I think this game sits pretty confidently among the Solid titles for what it sets out to achieve. I wish more people would play these first two entries as I found them to be a heck of a lot of fun and really added to my love for this wonderful series. Great game, great duology, great times to be had overall.

Also, considering the PS5 version of this game (and MG1) basically give you every trophy for simply completing the games and then playing their boss rush modes, I did get the platinum trophy and consider this fully completed, even though there isn't really any optional content to be found in the game itself.