Legitimately the closest to being fine art a video game has ever gotten. Like it's unfair how much better this game's story is than anything I've ever played, and I feel like it's unfair to the rest of the franchise. Like I know MGS3 is the fan favorite but I don't know how I'm gonna play the game and not be like "yeah but MGS2 was better" every time something cool happens. Like it's not FAIR
In my review of MGS I said the story was great but the gameplay was awful. I'm not gonna pretend this game has perfect gameplay but it's much more playable than it's predecessor. I actually had FUN at points which was very nice. Some of the bosses were lacking but Solidus Snake, Vamp and Fatman made up for with some really entertaining fights.

I feel like whenever a game tries to be meta, gamers have a fuse like break in their mind. Like they see any meta stuff and assume that means deepness. Like look at Undertale and DDLC. VERY surface level games. The themes can be explained to a toddler and they'll most likely get it. But it has these little gimmicky moments where a character goes "this is a video game" and everyone is like "THIS IS SO GOOD", but I don't think any game I've played that's made an attempt to have a meta story actually did it well. Except this one. It does it in a such a perfect way and doesn't just use it as a gimmick. These fourth wall breaking scenes aren't just put there for shock value, they actually make sense and expand upon the MANY themes of the story. Rather than relying on the fourth wall to feign depth, the fourth wall expanded on already existing depth.

My favorite meta detail in the game is the structure of the story itself and how it criticizes how we perceive sequels. I think a lot of video game sequels have a similar problem that I've become so used to, which is the repetition of plot points to an almost absurd degree.
Here are some examples (of course, spoilers for all the games mentioned)
-Pokemon games following the same pattern of: Get pokemon from professor, beat 8 gym leaders while an evil team bothers you, beat evil team, fight champion (and many other annoyingly repetitive elements)
-Persona 4 and Persona 5 having twist villains who are both brown haired detectives with very similar names (Adachi and Akechi)
-The third case in every Danganronpa game is always a double murder (There are some other repetitions in this franchise but I don't wanna get into it rn...)
-Resident Evil games all being about a different zombie-like virus that are almost the exact same but we're supposed to just ignore the fact that they're kind of just palette swaps of eachother.
These are a few examples I can think of, but I'm in no way saying that any of these franchises are BAD for repeating elements. Videogames, and really sequels in general, rely on familiarity in order to get players to come back, and you become so used to those sometimes absurd repetitions that you begin to glance over them. And that's exactly what happened when I played this.
"Oh ok, Raiden's also starting his mission by swimming into the base"
"The main bosses are a sniper woman, an explosive brute, a guy with unexplained magical powers and the main villain is a clone of Big Boss."
"You're followed around by a mysterious ninja who refers to themself as deep throat"
and really so, so many more connections to the first game were COMPLETELY looked over. I didn't even look at it and go "hmm that's kinda lazy" I just saw it as completely normal. And then by the end of the game, it calls you out with the twist that the whole operation was meant to be a recreation of the Shadow Moses Incident. It's so fucking cool.
And I did kind of skip over this, but "killing off" Snake at the beginning adds to this as well. All the marketing showed Snake as the protagonist of this game. And once people found out he wasn't the protagonist, people got PISSED, and that's exactly what Kojima wanted. They wanted familiarity, they wanted a repeat of MGS1 and revolted when they got something new. That subconscious need for unoriginality links right back to one of the main themes of the game: suppression of ideas
Of course that theme is mostly expanded from a militaristic, societal perspective, which is a whole other can of worms that I would get into but I really don't wanna make this even longer, but I think there's also a case to be made that MGS2 is also about the suppression of art. Even if we don't want to admit it, there's something hardwired in the human brain to make us hate originality, to hate progress, to fear change, and so we suppress that change.

It's honestly depressing how right this game predicted things: the rise of the internet, the growing totalitarianism of the government, the prevalence of AI and the homogenization of art. Like yes this was all happening in 2001 as well (maybe not AI so much), but it's happening even more now.

These are the ramblings of a mad-woman who just finished the game 20 minutes ago. Like I have a lot of things swirling around my brain that I want to say about this game, so many ideas and conclusions, but very little concrete ways to word them but what I'm trying to get to is this: I don't think there will ever be a video game as good as this ever again. Like there will be more fun games (I'm not sure this game is gonna surpass Yakuza 5 as my favorite game, purely for how entertaining Y5 is), but nothing as close to ART as this game. In a way Kojima tried to guide game devs into subverting expectations in a meaningful way and using video games as a medium for real creative expression, and people didn't really listen. Of course triple A games are all the same now, even the good ones are soulless most of the time, but it's the same even for indie games. Even the most respected of indie games seem to get their respect from using the tactics MGS2 use as a shock factor, like I said before. Indie games try to be unique but I've never seen a video game other than this say something truly meaningful that isn't inherently surface level. Consider Nier Automata, a game that feels like it was written by someone who watched a 30 minute "introduction to existentialism" video on youtube, or the beaten to death trope of indie games about depression (which is a horse so dead that the bones themselves have already crumbled into dust, so I'm gonna refrain from shitting on them too much), or games like Hylics which seems to use the avant-garde as an aesthetic, it loves the weirdness but didn't put the effort into finding a reason for it.
All of these games have depth or meaning to them, but they lack one thing that MGS2 has: They don't say anything new. There are no big innovative ideas or things that needed to be said but haven't. It's just repetition, echoes. Even at the deepest level, the most meaningful of games are just relying on familiarity. And that's my big problem with video games as art, it seems like most of them don't know how to be art. But this game does. And it's perfect for it.

Alright pretentious ramblings over. No I don't think what I wrote was some masterpiece nor do I expect to get sucked off for what I said, I just kinda started typing and then didn't stop cuz I felt like getting my thoughts out. Ok bye.

Weird game. So many of its decisions are insanely baffling and just a straight up downgrade of key aspects from the previous entries. A lot of the worst aspects of the series are at their peak, there's so much linearity to its game design, i could only name 2 memorable bosses that live up to the standards of the series and some of these new characters are just straight up not it.

Besides all that? I love this game. It's a shame i didn't get to play it myself and had to go out of my way to learn about its systems and whatnot, because its approach to actual stealth and new systems blow my mind and is something that at the very least i have a lot of respect for. Big issue with the cutscenes themselves is how dragged out and substanceless they can come to feel, but those times when it delivers some its best plot twists and sensational character work make it all feel extremely worth it. Metal gear as a series is one where you can feel, in each one of its games, its urges to destroy itself and be the last one forever for real this time around, but none do it like this one. There's a huge feeling of finality and exhaustion lingering as you go, you've been here, you remember the good times you've had with these people and the ways you've been changed by it. But also everything has changed for everyone since the last time, for the worse! Nothing and no one feels eternal or at their best, their struggles should've ended a long time ago and yet they're still here, fighting and suffering the same way as last time but with barely anything to look forward to. Their time has passed, and in the end it all loops around to the same thing! It was worse this time and if the fight goes on what's there to look forward to, why should Snake be around anymore anyway? For a lot! this game's focus on legacy is something else and it's hard to explain, but i think the novelization puts it well by just giving us Otacon's perspective on Snake's last days:

"I won't tell you in this book how long he lived after Big Boss set off on his voyage from that cemetery, or what kind of life he had. All I'll say is his last days were peaceful. He passed gently, simply falling asleep with a smile on his face. When I thought back to the days and nights he'd spend in constant battle, I found great solace in this."

I too find great solace in this, so i'd rather believe in it, at the very least.