Way back when, I impulsively picked this up at a Best Buy, not knowing anything about the game, but recognizing that Yoji Shinkawa art on the cover. And lets just say, Metal Gear Solid this was not. I think it’s really sleazy how hard they tried to dupe suckers like me into thinking it was with all that similar imagery. Even more so when I learned after the fact that it actually belongs to the Front Mission franchise, which was dormant for a while prior to this game. I have no connection to that universe but I can’t imagine those who do being too happy with this after waiting ages for a new entry in the series.
The game itself, I really don’t know what it’s trying to do, but it’s not good at any of it. It seems like it’s framed as a stealth game, but it hasn’t even the most basic of stealth mechanics, not even a takedown (well, it does, but not in a stealth context). It doesn’t really work as an action game, the shooting is some of the most janky and unpolished in any game, and you’re severely punished for engaging enemies, they’re stupidly spongey and hose you down in seconds with laser precision. It’s clear to me that combat is meant to be something to avoid, and yet you aren’t really given the tools to avoid it. Hell, it tells you to run away at points but then it boxes you in and makes fighting your only real option, and through most of it, you’re fighting the game’s mechanics more so than the enemies themselves. I dropped out I think around the halfway point. I made it as far as I did by either A) spamming RC explosives to clear enemies out from afar, the AI is stupid as hell and just kind of congregates around where the explosion happened, letting you keep lobbing them at the same area until they’re all dead. B) Cheesing them with this trick I found where sliding into them knocks them over, letting you instakill them on the ground with the pipe, an unreliable strategy because the hitboxes are weirdly strict and the slide will sometimes just go off in whatever direction it feels like leaving you to be gunned down. And C) just bull rushing past everyone to the exit on the dubious hope that I don’t get gunned down, essentially this: https://youtu.be/XWsTpvJIM5g?si=vxMBzKfnZsn8IpnT
Add to that a pretty generic story, voice acting that ranges from embarrassing at worst to okay at best, levels that look like they were put together in Gmod, these really sloppy mech sections, the Koshka voice which never shuts up and triggers my Metal Gear Survive PTSD, and yeah, no. I don’t think this game is very good.
The game itself, I really don’t know what it’s trying to do, but it’s not good at any of it. It seems like it’s framed as a stealth game, but it hasn’t even the most basic of stealth mechanics, not even a takedown (well, it does, but not in a stealth context). It doesn’t really work as an action game, the shooting is some of the most janky and unpolished in any game, and you’re severely punished for engaging enemies, they’re stupidly spongey and hose you down in seconds with laser precision. It’s clear to me that combat is meant to be something to avoid, and yet you aren’t really given the tools to avoid it. Hell, it tells you to run away at points but then it boxes you in and makes fighting your only real option, and through most of it, you’re fighting the game’s mechanics more so than the enemies themselves. I dropped out I think around the halfway point. I made it as far as I did by either A) spamming RC explosives to clear enemies out from afar, the AI is stupid as hell and just kind of congregates around where the explosion happened, letting you keep lobbing them at the same area until they’re all dead. B) Cheesing them with this trick I found where sliding into them knocks them over, letting you instakill them on the ground with the pipe, an unreliable strategy because the hitboxes are weirdly strict and the slide will sometimes just go off in whatever direction it feels like leaving you to be gunned down. And C) just bull rushing past everyone to the exit on the dubious hope that I don’t get gunned down, essentially this: https://youtu.be/XWsTpvJIM5g?si=vxMBzKfnZsn8IpnT
Add to that a pretty generic story, voice acting that ranges from embarrassing at worst to okay at best, levels that look like they were put together in Gmod, these really sloppy mech sections, the Koshka voice which never shuts up and triggers my Metal Gear Survive PTSD, and yeah, no. I don’t think this game is very good.