What a bizarre game that I almost completely forgot about. I remember back when there were only 9 campaign missions and all of the enemies were IP ripoffs like Minecraft and Pyramid Head. The Level 4 hospital boss scared me so fucking much as a kid lmao. Also I could never beat the Slenderman boss I had to get someone else to do it for me. The nostalgia for this is equivalent to the amount I remember. I've heard it's not as good these days but it's been a literal decade since I've played so I can't really comment on its current state.

Super solid classic oozing with style. Checkpoints are basically non-existent, however the ability to Quick Save whenever you want somewhat Remedies this (pun intended). Unfortunately, because of the enemy placements, by the end of the game you will be save-scumming every encounter. I've heard that this game has 'adaptive difficulty', which I never would have figured out from my own gameplay. I guess weapons became less effective when I spammed them, but it goes away when you swap between them which was a good way to encourage varying your approach. Bullet-time is badass to the Max (also pun intended) and I spent the first couple hours belly flopping at every opportunity. Although the aforementioned save scumming means you don't really need to. Ammo and health is pretty plentiful, at least on normal difficulty. The nightmare sequences were really creative even if the platforming sections in this game are quite janky. The story and comic book style are pretty good, it's like noir tropes on steroids (or Valium). However the dialogue was extremely quiet for some reason, basically anytime Max talked during gameplay was inaudible. Enemy dialogue volume was fine so I got to overhear a few funny conversations. My main issue with this game is that I didn't find the gameplay varied enough to keep me that engaged; the game is super short but it would've been hard to stay interested if it were any longer.

NOTE: Below are just thoughts I wrote down like halfway through the game, this is my actual review



My biggest gripe with this game so far is the excessively cruel checkpoint system at times; in the context of the series it has gone from generous to brutal. In older entries, entering a loading zone would give you an automatic checkpoint along with a full health revival upon death. In The Phantom Pain, you could spend 30 minutes carefully sneaking across a 500m wide base, tactically avoiding or taking out each guard. Then, as soon as you reach the objective, accidentally alert one of the guards, locking the door to the cutscene when you’re standing right next to it, so you die or reset to checkpoint, only to be placed half a kilometre away from the entire facility, tasked with the daunting prospect of having to do the whole thing again.

The good news, however, as I came to realise, is that this isn't always a complete disaster, as your knowledge of events will stay with you and can be used for a quicker victory. For example, one mission tasked me with eliminating a guy in a massive compound, the only lead being that he would meet up with another guy. I spent ages sneaking in, interrogating soldiers to learn their route, and attempted to sabotage the road but was caught and had to reset. 15 minutes of progress reset? Not necessarily. Using my new knowledge of where the vehicle the target entered was parked, I chose a quicker route to its hangar, rigged it with C4, and simply waited from a safe distance until the right moment.

Came for the "nanomachines, son!" stayed for the "your memes...are over!"

As a chronically online person, it can be quite fascinating to see certain games get a second resurgence. Senator Armstrong memes had been floating around for years, then all of a sudden Max0r makes a video on the game and everything about it goes completely viral. Next thing you know every character, funny scene, song and bossfight has been memed to death. Jestream Sam Bait and Switch, Armstrong Max0r dub, Red Sun, Monsoon, etc, etc.

Metal Gear Rising is a rare piece of media that has achieved what I'm coining "Peak Meme Status", where every single detail is picked apart and stripped into its own separate meme format or topic. Another example of PMS would be Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul, where basically every character death or important scene in the show became its own meme format for a month or more. I think it's a really fascinating aspect of Internet/Meme culture that isn't talked about. It's turned a spinoff of Metal Gear into something that feels like a completely separate entity to the rest of the franchise; the other games having a mostly homogenous appearance on the internet.

That makes talking about MGR unique because it feels like half the people who are fans of this game have never touched another Metal Gear, and the other half are fans who have never actually played this game.

All this being said, it's still a pretty entertaining and fun videogame, albeit not the best hack-and-slash or Metal Gear. The game becomes a lot more fun once you actually figure out how to parry; the game doesn't word it's tutorial very clearly so it wasn't until R-04 that I actually searched up how to do it (yes, I beat Monsoon without knowing how to parry, I am a psychopath). The bossfights are definitely the highlight, because they use the combat system in the most interesting way as well as having the iconic music and characters.