Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is and off-shoot of the historical Metal Gear franchises. Set after the events of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriot Once, Metal Gear Rising takes on the role of Metal Gear Solid 2‘s leading man Raiden, as you wage war between the Private Security Providers (PSP’s) and Private Military Companies (PMC’s). Raiden is still a cyborg ninja, and as such you would expect stealth to be your main weapon against enemies. However, unlike previous games Metal Gear Rising is not a Kojima stealth based game, but instead a Platinum Games Action based hack and slash Adventure.
The game takes place in Africa, and Raiden is assisting the Prime Minister with making Africa a more peaceful continent. As a member of PSP Raiden is training their security to prevent wars and invasions by PMC’s and potentially other countries. During travels the convoy is attacked and the Prime Minister is abducted, and so begins the tale of revenge known as Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Overall the story is highly melodramatic and what you’d expect to find in a Metal Gear game, although not quite as thought out as Snake’s and Big Boss adventures. The dialog and acting are acceptable, but overall MGR is lacking when compared to the standard set by the Metal Gear franchise.
The game is absolutely over the top as you would expect from Platinum Games (creators of Bayonetta, MadWorld, and more), but the combat is top notch as always. As former employees of Capcom and having worked on games such as Devil may Cry and Viewtiful Joe, it’s with complete confidence that I can say Platinum Games are the best combat developers for the hack and slash genre. Metal Gear Rising, may not have the same degree of depth as Bayonetta, but it’s easily among the top in the genre for pure entertaining combat. The controls are your traditional options. Square for light attacks, and triangle for heavy attacks. You can also push the analog stick in different directions to perform different combo attacks. However, Platinum games has once again developed a unique gameplay mechanic for the genre. Instead of traditional blocking, in Metal Gear Rising you must perry enemy moves by using a light attack to knock foes back and leave them momentarily open for a counter assault. Mastering perry can take some time getting use to, but it’s a skill you must master in order to progress through the game at all (especially on harder difficulties). However, for such an important mechanic Platinum games completely failed in preparing you or teaching you that you will need to perry the entire game, and after getting to the first boss, and not realizing that it can make the game seem much harder than it is.
Blade Mode is the second most important tool of combat, as it allows you to quickly finish off your enemies and replenish your Blade Mode meter or cut off the enemies left hand for upgrades. With Blade Mode activated the game zooms in and everything slows down allowing you better precision of where to slice. Blade Mode has been significantly toned down from the original demonstrations by Kojima when the game was just Metal Gear Rising (no Revengeance), but it’s still fun to see things get chopped up into little pieces. Getting back to upgrades there are many for Raiden to play around with ranging from enhanced durability and Blade Mode, new weapons, and skills. After getting enough upgrades the game’s combat and diversity truly shine, and let’s MGR shine as one of the best in the genre (again from Platinum).
But there is one significant problem with the game. I don’t know what it is about 3D hack and slash games, but the camera just doesn’t work for them, and MGR is another example of that. At times the camera can be PS2 levels of bad, where you can’t see any of the attacks coming your way and end up taking unnecessary damage in combat. Thankfully Raiden can take a good amount of damage before dying, but on harder difficulties it’s not a luxury that Raiden really wants to use. The camera can literally get stuck in corners or on walls, while the enemies try to pummel you, and all you can do is try to Ninja Run out of the situation or hope for a parry. It’s bad.
MGR is a great game to look at. MGR has solid texture work, solid lighting, and great character models. But the graphical star of the game is the deformation from cutting enemies and objects down to multiple parts, and the beauty of the game running at an amazing 60 frames per second (most of the time). Metal Gear Rising is only 8 chapters long, and can be beat in around 6 hours (on hard), so it’s a fairly short game. However, the game is still fun and no one does boss fights as consistently good as Platinum games in the genre (well maybe Sony Santa Monica, but Platinum games has a greater variety of games under their belt this gen). Ninja-Cyborg vs. Ninja-Cyborg battles are great as are Ninja-Cyborg vs. Metal Gears, and are the more memorable moments of the game.
You might not be able to believe this, but Dark Souls is a pretty tricky game on the PlayStation 3.
There are more good non-Kojima Metal Gear games than one would realize. Scientifically, three examples prove a trend, and in this feature are three excellent Metal Gear games that Hideo Kojima did not direct.
I hope so, still cant forget MGS Survive , the first MGS game without Kojima involvement and it was a complete failure, the thing is Kojima way of thinking is outside the box and that's why their games 99% end up unique, original and a almost instant classic. MGS series are full of intricate things that somehows connects to each other, Lalulilelo, the Patriots, Outher heaven, Foxhound, PMCs , heck even Kojima manage to insert DARPA in there lol, a US government Defense Agency. So is really great MGS3 Remake is reviving the series but without Kojima who knows of the end result, I hope Konami have another or more developers insight their studios who can also think outside the box.
It actually can’t. But it won’t matter.
Kojima is Metal Gear the same way that Christopher Nolan is The Dark Knight, or David Lynch is Twin Peaks: The Return episode 8. Artistry is the creation of a thing from your own thoughts and feelings. Take away the original artist’s thoughts and feelings and you have a new thing entirely.
This isn’t going to stop the mega corporation creating a fake version and spending millions TELLING customers that it’s made with the same thoughts and feelings. The masses will buy the idea the same way the corporation will sell the idea.
I guess everyone forgot metal gear solid rising was tossed to platnium games with a story script and that is it.
kpjima just did the story everything else was platnium games look it up.
Hence i said script
i think the bigger issue is whether or not Konami is actually interested in fully funding AAA games development. Even this remake is done by a studio not really known in gaming industry. Quality remake/projets vs cheap cash in quick releases. Which way will Konami head. I am a huge MGS fan and i feel like Kojima did long time MGS fans dirty with how made MGS5 and it's story elements
Remakes and remasters provide a gateway through to producing AAA games faster and cheaper.
Actually MGS Portable Ops which was technically the first canon MGS game that Kojima wasn’t mainly involved with it. Kojima was only the producer but not the writer and director.
Konami did other MGS spin off that were successful but that because Konami put effort. Just along Konami is not lazy and cash grab, they can a MGS game without Kojima.
i mean sure, but he made it the thing it is today and why people love it so much.
i think its not easy to replicate.
I doubt it could.
Say what you want about the bloke, but his games are uniquely his.
I don't think anyone makes games like kojima does, for better or worse.
Could mgs continue without him, yea maybe, but it would lacking his genius so wouldn't be the same.
Well , he already created it. They just have to recreate it? Not like its a new concept or IP. Trash article.
Demand for a sequel is about to skyrocket, like the good ol' days of 2013!
In case you're living under a suspiciously rock-shaped object, the recent PlayStation Showcase revealed that a remake of Metal Gear Solid 3 will be coming, alongside a Master Collection of Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, and 3. While it is a remake of an existing game, there's a great deal of significance to it, considering the last time a game in the series came out was back in 2018 with Metal Gear Survive (and the less said about that, the better). Konami's decision to pull a Konami and feud with series creator Hideo Kojima has long left the fate of Metal Gear uncertain, but this recent announcement has led to all bets being off as to where Metal Gear can go from here.
