This game is an apology written to me by Hideo Kojima for the character writing in MGS2.

I think this is the most accessible game in the original trilogy. It's freeing gameplay and more understandable and character-driven story definitely has a more mainstream appeal that completely works for me.

It's important to note my main issues from the first two games are still here, those being the awful forced action sequences and boss fights; in fact I'd say these bosses are the worst of the first three. Not only does the stealth control scheme not translate to boss fights, making the fights themselves awkward and frustrating, but the character you're fighting don't even have interesting personality or stories besides the Sorrow, Volgin and the Boss. Luckily the action sequences are only in the end but God does the ending of this game suck gameplay wise. It goes shitty boss fight-awful action sequence on the bike-slightly less shitty boss fight-more bike shit-the worst escort mission I have maybe ever played-another shitty boss fight. If the story wasn't so good the ending of the game would be an absolute failure.

That being said, this definitely has the best gameplay of the first 3 games. I haven't played 5 in a while and I've never played 4 or PW but this feels like the blueprint the rest of the series builds off. The ridiculous amount of freedom you're given is absolutely delightful. I've had to say goodbye to my beloved "FREEZE!" from MGS2 but in return I've had the most fun with a stealth game ever.

But most importantly for me, this is the best story in the franchise. Gone are the shitty, annoying characters of MGS2 and tell don't show tendencies of the first game. Kojima really has improved and matured as a writer as of MGS3.

I never really cared about snake or the team in the first two games; they were fun to watch and likable enough but the only time I felt for them at all was the Colonel's goodbye to Snake in MGS1. And MGS2 is a whole different beast. I'm glade Snake isn't as much of a misogynist any more but Raiden, Rose, EE, Otocon and Vamp are some of the most annoying characters in gaming.

The characters are leading the show in MGS3 though. Big Boss is a million times more likable and interesting than Snake or Raiden. Hayter's voice acting has greatly improved and it's just one factor that makes him feel like a real human instead of an archetype we're told things about. He's still a closed off solider but more of his emotional centre is slowly revealed. He can joke about with his team, he has chemistry with nearly everyone and even his cheesy badass features add to his characterization as loyal to a fault. His character arc from a slightly more likable Snake to the seeds of the villain of the OG metal gear games leaves those last 10 minutes or so as one of the greatest moments in gaming.

The more simple approach to storytelling actually show me things to think about rather than talk at me about complicated ideas and literally spell out the message at the end of the game (I love MGS1 but that ending was ridiculous). By crafting a story that focuses on its character rather than its ideology, we have been gifted with one of the most tragic origin stories in gaming that I can finally just call amazing instead of ambitious.

This was my first MGS game and I didn't entirely know what I was getting into, nor what happened in the game. I haven't played it since I was 14 and ooooooh I have some thoughts now.

As of writing this section I haven't given this game a rating yet because I'm really not sure how I feel about it. Overall I really appreciate what this game is going for; it's incredibly ambitious ideas and approach to storytelling is mind-blowing and a kind of creativity we don't see often in any form of art, games included. However, I think said ambitious, post-modern and exciting ideas distract the majority of players from some fatal errors made in execution.

Passed on from the first game-the boss fights are still awful. I'm not a huge fan of boss fights generally unless they're in a game by fromsoft but they are especially atrocious in these two games. The controls meant for tactical stealth don't transfer to boss fights which just makes them awkward, unengaging and frustrating (Besides fat man which I weirdly enjoyed and couldn't tell you why).

Gameplay is mostly an improvement over the first game. The addition of first person makes me feel so much cooler and able to tackle stealth missions, making the core gameplay generally more fun. I found myself not using many tools outside of my guns though but that may just be because of my playstyle and how much fun I was having telling enemies to "FREEZE!"

Despite my love of the gameplay, I was given much less of it in this game which leads into some of my thoughts on the story.

Unlike its predecessor, the pacing is very off in this one. The game begins throwing you into its most complex, difficult levels and then pulls back when you start playing as Raiden as it goes back over an unskippable tutorial that players of the first game know already and new players were just forced to figure out in the tanker chapter. What follows is a few bite-sized fragments of gameplay consistently being interrupted by an absurd amount of CODEC calls, making the early section of the big shell chapter almost like a parody of a MGS game.

Now I've heard some people say that this is part of the story. The opening Raiden section is annoying to make us kind of hate him at the beginning so we can slowly build that relationship up. But I think this kind of illustrates my issue with this game and its response. Kojima and the team came up with a cool idea, it feels shit in the moment of playing but in understanding that decision, people just accept this flaw. And for some people things like these aren't flaws which is great and I'm not telling you that my opinion is correct. But I do genuinely believe this game is given a lot of slack because of its ambition.

This problem extends to the characters for me as well; most of the cast feel like archetypes with traits I'm being told and not shown about. I think the poor character work is my overall problem with this game. While the first game presented mostly interesting characters with engaging archs, this game's eye roll worthy emotional scenes and poor voice acting from some important characters (Raiden and Rose) feel completely looked over by most people because of the admittedly cool ideas Kojima and his team tackle.

Even then, these ideas that is most of what I believe distracts people and admit are interesting aren't as fleshed out as they could be. The calls with GW at the end are cool but they stop way too quickly and I don't feel sufficiently mind-fucked given their reputation. Also, the exposition dump of and ending doesn't organically present these ideas; it kind of feels like Kojima came up with the twist and just decided not to write the 3rd act and share the bullet points with us.

I know this review has focused on the negative but I do like this game. Not as much as the emotionally engaging stories of 1st and 3rd games but I really appreciate the experiment this game is, even if not everything works. For me, the game still hits the fundamentals, leaving it as an incredible idea that resulted in a fine -bordering on really good- final draft that I understand the acclaim for, even if I think a lot of missteps are overlooked.