After posting several long-winded reviews for the Metal Gear series already, I'm going to attempt to keep this one succinct.
Ghost Babel is a bite-sized Metal Gear, styled far more in the vein of the original two games than the Solid series they spawned, despite the fact that it uses the Solid branding. Gameplay is presented in a top-down fashion, and the screen-to-screen puzzle based stealth action that I've praised other titles in the series for is even more puzzley, and well tailored to the hardware the game is running on. You can absolutely sit down and do a full run through the game, but similar to Peace Walker it's much better enjoyed in quick bursts.
While the gameplay still works when being scaled down for a handheld, the same cannot be said of the story. I do not remember pretty much anything that happened in it. This is not just a consequence of it being considered a gaiden non-canon story, completely unimportant to Metal Gear's complex over-arching narrative, but because it just wasn't that interesting to me. This seems to be a common thread with the handheld Metal Gear games, for whatever reason. Portable Ops, Ac!d, and even Peace Walker fell flat for me in many ways, but at least the gameplay is so strong in Ghost Babel that it makes up for having a weak story.
Ghost Babel is a bite-sized Metal Gear, styled far more in the vein of the original two games than the Solid series they spawned, despite the fact that it uses the Solid branding. Gameplay is presented in a top-down fashion, and the screen-to-screen puzzle based stealth action that I've praised other titles in the series for is even more puzzley, and well tailored to the hardware the game is running on. You can absolutely sit down and do a full run through the game, but similar to Peace Walker it's much better enjoyed in quick bursts.
While the gameplay still works when being scaled down for a handheld, the same cannot be said of the story. I do not remember pretty much anything that happened in it. This is not just a consequence of it being considered a gaiden non-canon story, completely unimportant to Metal Gear's complex over-arching narrative, but because it just wasn't that interesting to me. This seems to be a common thread with the handheld Metal Gear games, for whatever reason. Portable Ops, Ac!d, and even Peace Walker fell flat for me in many ways, but at least the gameplay is so strong in Ghost Babel that it makes up for having a weak story.