Been a while since I’d been in here, huh. I have a lot of fresh games since then but I don’t think I’ve actually finished any. Instead I’ve been replaying some old ones.
Had got MGS3 on Steam, but refunded it unfortunately after some issues came up. Maybe they’ll be fixed some time, but it’s not worth it for me right now. So instead, I dug out the PS3 and started up that version. Surprised to find I still had a save from August of last year, just at the start of Operation Snake Eater. So didn’t replay from the beginning, but most of the really good stuff.
Man, have I become really bad at it, though. I remember doing a run without any alerts or interactions with guards much whatsoever, and now I’m getting caught left and right. Ah well. Still really fun and engaging, and has me hyped for the remake. Some small parts are a bit tedious but somehow less annoyed with them than before. Overall still my favorite game in the series, best balance between story and gameplay and showing/telling, even if it’s not quite perfect in some areas. 9/10
Going off that I decided why not just jump right back into mgs4? Funny how it’s the one game I really wanted to play on ps3 for so long, having got into the series in general sometime in 2010 only for said ps3’s disc drive to end itself. Was between jobs and had no money to replace it for quite a while. I’d since played it, even after seeing so many others dissect it and critique it to death. And for the most part, I kind of agreed.
Still, there’s been a more recent slew of hot takes on it being some misunderstood masterpiece. Not really keen on seeing it that way but thought it was worth entertaining while I replay it. Learned my lesson and played on easy rather than normal, though maybe that wasn’t the best decision. But I find the Gekko extremely annoying, so I’m not too miffed about everything else being a cakewalk.
The gameplay seems like such a shame. So many good ideas, but very little room to play with them, nor for very long. AI is a bit of a mixed bag as well, because it feels neat to sneak right up close in conflicts but it feels kind of inconsistent at times, and then the robots work entirely differently as well. And no matter what anyone tells me, the third act with the trailing stuff is just the worst and biggest pace killer. At least all the bosses are either great or very creative in some way. Was disappointed none of the mgs games after had anything as good as the last boss here…leave it to a game like RDR2 to have anything remotely similar, huh.
That being said, the bosses as far as the story goes, eh…the story is the real contentious part of this game anyway. Could have been better possibly without Drebin’s lore dumps, perhaps just leave it more up to the imagination like the Cobras (which were again retroactively ruined by parasite bs). The rest, well, you can definitely tell some of the better writers left by this point and Kojima was free to write all his corny dialogue and overly drawn out cutscenes, full of holes and contrivances. Even so, feel like I understand quite a bit more now about the themes of letting things die that should have done so already, but then I kind of feel that is giving too much credit to a story that just happens to be able to be interpreted that way. Who can say?
Fun time with it, but a bit more on a casual level, and still rolling my eyes at dumb stuff like Raiden’s OOT brooding or Meryl pulling a gun on her father, etc. Not as good as the prior three games by a large margin, but still recognizable as Metal Gear and by virtue far more entertaining than MgsV ever was. 6/10
Well, I’m done just in time for Like A Dragon Gaiden, so hoping to rate that next.
EDIT: actually, I did at least finish Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. Now that was a great game. Sadly kinda have to knock it down a little for being a bit jank with glitches, such as crashes that effectively made me miss some presumably important cutscenes. 8/10
EDIT 2: don’t want to spam so I’ll just put this new rating here.
Well, I spent something like 30-odd hours total on Like A Dragon Gaiden, got near everything I cared for at least. All substories, requests, coliseum stuff, clothing, most of the new little mini request things. Barely touched the hostess stuff just because it seems like it may take way too long to do it, and pocket circuit, ugh…maybe it’s just because it’s my first time trying it but I can’t seem to build anything that doesn’t fly off or stall on the third track. Feels like RNG enough to get me frustrated with the whole thing and be done with it, unfortunately.
The rest of the game certainly got easier after the first few hours, once you start getting super OP for the most part. The only thing I set the difficulty to easy for was the Amon fight. Seen others say it was easy but it felt way harder than the one in 6, which only took me two tries if I remember right. Still neither are as bad as the one in 4, which I don’t think I ever beat.
Inadvertently spoiled stuff I didn’t know, having only played halfway through 7, but I kind of expected it and it’s been hard not to see some spoilers by now for that game just being involved as a fan anyway. Regardless, for how short it is compared to others, I really loved my time with the game and especially the ending. Folks were not kidding about how emotional it gets…and it makes me both worried for and sort of anticipating how much YongYae’s poor acting will butcher one scene in particular - the same kind of train wreck you can’t pull your eyes away from as someone like DSP just being totally awful at a game. Ah well.
Then finally gave the Infinite Wealth demo a shot, just an hour each for both modes as I don’t want to ruin everything for myself. It’s crazy even with a ton of shared assets just how different the game feels. I’m all for it for the most part, but I think it also accentuates just how much Gaiden is sort of a culmination of the series prior. Something I think was said about Dead Souls, fits far more here. Tears of the Kingdom has been my personal game of the year, and this is nowhere near that scope for sure, and yet I feel it’s surpassed the amount of enjoyment and value I got out of it. 9/10
Really don’t know what I’ll do next. Plenty of games I have to get back to, probably most excited to get back to the first Atelier Ryza. But I may take a bit of a break from gaming to focus on other things I need to get done.
