Man, you guys. Metal Gear Rising is a fun little game. Is it good? Objectively, not really. The game has a lot of problems, not the least of which include: the gameplay is confusing, the story is hard to follow at best, and everyone but Raiden and the dog has minimal character depth. Is it fun? Well, I thought so. It’s a good five hours (six, if you’re me and can’t do the sword puzzles to save your life) of dumb violence. I had a good time. I actually really enjoyed myself. And I have a lot of thoughts about the game and characters, so I’m going to write a very long essay about it. Buckle up.
Oh and before I go any further, there will be spoilers lmao. (and some crude language, bc sometimes I feel like a game like this calls for it)
For starters, in case any of the four of you reading this haven’t played the game, let me tell you what it’s about. Metal Gear Rising is set a few years after the chronologically latest Metal Gear Solid game (4–Guns of the Patriots). For the most part, you don’t need to know what happened in 4 (I haven’t actually played it) and aside from Raiden and one other character who shows up later, there aren’t that many characters from the previous game. Events of the previous game are mentioned only once or twice, and vaguely. So if you, like me, haven’t gotten through all of the Metal Gear Solids yet but still want to see what this game is all about, you’ll probably be alright. (I was actually convinced to play this game after hearing it wasn’t canon and had nothing to do with the other Metal Gears, so). It’s about the hero of Metal Gear Solid 2, Raiden, who became a cyborg as of 4 and now runs around wielding his electric sword to save people and do good.
Let’s start with what I loved about this game–and I mean heart-eyes, hook-line-and-sinker loved.
This game made me feel powerful. And it might just be that I’m new to the action genre and I had the difficulty set to easy, but playing this game made me feel like I could do anything. It looks cool, it feels cool–i mean, come, on, you play a giant stacked cyborg who can deflect bullets and slice through anything with his electric sword, how awesome is that? In literally the first boss battle, Raiden picks up an entire Metal Gear and chucks it down the block like a baseball. After that fight I had enough adrenaline pumping in me to power a small city. In MGR, the law of the land is Rule of Cool–it doesn’t matter how ridiculous it is, as long as it’s also Fucking Awesome.
Speaking of Fucking Awesome, the soundtrack. Holy balls. If you like harder rock/metal, this soundtrack is going to blow you away. Every single track on there sounds like something Raiden would have on his iPod. And not only is the soundtrack super good, it’s used really well in the game itself: each boss theme starts out as an instrumental, with the vocals coming in at key moments. I’m sure I would have gotten more out of this feature if the xbox I’ve been using didn’t have a damaged sound output that essentially killed that effect, but there’s a video of the fight with Jetstream Sam that demonstrates it really well. The vocals only come in when Sam is holding his sword.
On boss fights, since I was playing on easy mode (hey, no shame!) I had a… surprisingly easy time with almost everyone. I’d been warned that bosses were unforgiving in this game, and after killing Mistral in five minutes by accident, I had a feeling that the difficulty you play on has a huge effect on your enjoyment of the game. Everyone whined about the Bladewolf fight, but I didn’t have much trouble with it. It was midly annoying at best. Which, hey, that was fine by me! I’m the kind of person who will put down a game and walk away if I can’t beat a boss no matter what I do (I’m looking at you Persona 4) so having an easy to average time with bosses was *ok fingers emoji*
Part of what I’ve heard made the game so hard for people was the block/parry mechanic, which was conveniently tied to the “weak attack” button. Making parry work is all about timing, which was confusing at first, but I learned that if you just mash X continually you’ll get it right eventually. By the time I got to the fight with Monsoon, I had already gotten the hang of it–which then made his battle absolutely delightful. I mean that 100% honestly, no sarcasm. I don’t think I’ve ever had nearly as much fun fighting Monsoon as I have fighting any other boss in any other game. Those are tall words, but I mean ‘em. Each time he lunged at me, I countered, sending out a shower of sparks. It really felt like every attack was making contact. With each attack coming in quick succession, coupled with the fastest boss music in the game–it was awesome to watch them go at each other, evenly matched. It took me a while to figure out Monsoon’s boss gimmicks, but boy–when I had it, I had it, and finishing that fight put me on top of the world. Man, I’m getting chills just thinkin about it.
Another thing I really loved about this game was how unabashedly stupid it was. It knew it was really dumb, and it owned that. At no point did this game try to take itself more seriously than it should–there were serious conversations and plot points, but for the most part I felt they were “dumb action movie” serious, as opposed to “intellectual thriller” serious. For fucks sake, two characters have a serious conversation about memes halfway in. “Your memes… end here!” is a literal line of dialog said by an actual character. Raiden’s idea of camouflage in Mexico is a poncho and a giant sombrero. You know this game isn’t serious the minute you chuck that Metal Gear down the block.
At the same time–when the game was taking itself appropriately seriously–it could be surprisingly thought-provoking. In particular I’m referring to Raiden’s development over the course of the game, as well as Bladewolf’s.
I love Raiden, I’m just going to be upfront about that. I loved Raiden in MGS2 and I love him in this. What really stuck with me about Raiden from this game was the idea that he’s still struggling with his past, and though he knows he might not be able to make things right for himself, he can prevent something similar from happening to others. Raiden enters the game as a merc with a mission, one might say–he wields his sword as a tool of justice to protect the weak. He’s practically the definition of “chaotic good”: what’s most important for him is doing the right thing, even if he racks up a body count on the way there.
As the game goes on Raiden meets with a lot of challenges to that way of thinking, particularly from local Brazilian beefcake Jetstream Sam. Sam practically snipes the weakness in Raiden’s thinking: if you’re wielding your sword to protect the weak, what about the innocents you kill on the way there? Up till now Raiden has been primarily fighting PMC soldiers; as Sam points out, these are people who joined private armies so that their families could afford to eat. After this revelation you can hear the thoughts of the enemy soldiers, and let me tell you–that fight fucked me up. It’s no wonder Raiden shuffled around with a headache until the next boss. It’s all fun and games until someone points out violence is wrong!
When Raiden reaches the next boss, he admits that he’s been lying to himself about the sword of justice thing–he’s just been telling himself that to take his mind off how much he loves killing. As a child soldier he’d been taught early that killing enemies feels good. But when he tried to return to a normal life, he had to do something to curb that addiction. After letting loose and defeating Monsoon, he remembers what he came out there to do: stop World Marshal from creating cyborg child soldiers using the same program that made Raiden what he is. Raiden knows he’s a terrible person who loves killing, but he promises to do whatever it takes to prevent anyone else from ending up like him (and I think that’s beautiful).
I want to hug Raiden
Anyway
Bladewolf is my other huge fav. I love Bladewolf so much. He’s a robot dog that understands jokes!!! He spends most of the game unlearning some toxic stuff he’d been programmed with (his artificial mind is closer to a humans’ than a computer’s) and making dry jokes. His heroism at the end really stuck out to me too. Best dog? Best dog
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I guess now it’s time to talk about stuff I didn’t like, which, hoooo boy. As much as I heart-eyes loved this game, there was some stuff I really didn’t like.
Gameplay-wise, I think Blade Mode was cool in theory, but probably the biggest weakness. They didn’t do the best job of explaining how any of the mechanics worked, much less Blade Mode, so the start of the game included a lot of me going “I don’t know what I just did, but okay!” Since knowing how to execute Blade Mode correctly often meant the difference between life and death, I had the hardest time learning how to use it. It was hard to wrap my mind around both angling the camera and slashing the blade at once, and trying to line up my sword with the puzzles was a nightmare. This really only came back to bite me in two bosses: Sundowner and Senator Armstrong’s final form. I think I beat Sundowner by shooting surface-to-air missiles at him, but Senator Armstrong didn’t give you the luxury of using side weapons, so I was effectively toast. I did eventually use Blade Mode properly on those bosses, but it was less a practiced skill and more something I did on accident in a frustrated panic. A lot of the cues for where to use Blade Mode were also less clear; there was definitely a level I had to redo like 10 times because I had no idea I was supposed to use Blade Mode on the ceiling.
Another gameplay complaint is that it was hard to use the secondary items, especially the box and oil drum. You had to constantly hold down RB to keep yourself hidden with the box/drum, and oftentimes if an enemy saw the box they’d immediately know something was odd and start shooting.
Aside from that, I don’t think I have many other complaints about gameplay, probably because this *is* the first action game I’ve ever played.
Character and story complaints, though… hoooo boy.
This game was short–I wasn’t kidding when I said it’s five hours long. I once thought my file had been deleted because I didn’t think I could possibly have only been playing for three hours. The story is kind of confusing. You kind of just roll with the punches. Now we’re going to Denver, I guess! Now we’re fighting this lady–why? Who is she? Who knows, let’s beat her up.
Honestly, I think they could’ve gotten away with the unclear story if they’d fleshed out their characters a lot more. The characters I wanted to know most about–Mistral, Monsoon, and Jetstream Sam–got the least attention. Sundowner got marginally more than they did by virtue of showing up more. Senator Armstrong was the only villain with any kind of complexity, which is a real shame. Don’t get me wrong, he’s horrifying, and I thought he was a fitting last boss. But you’ve got pretty regular ol’ Armstrong versus a bunch of superpowered cyborgs (and one crazy Brazilian) with neat designs, and it’s just like… what? Armstrong can I guess turn his skin into iron, but come on, Mistral has 90 arms and Monsoon is literally made of magnets. Jetstream Sam is a regular human who is completely on par with enhanced cyborgs. Come onnnn.
Not helping matters is the fact that Mistral and Monsoon have little to no introduction before you fight and kill them. You learn that Mistral is from Liberia and Monsoon is from Cambodia. (I had to double check Monsoon’s metal gear wiki entry to make sure I got that right, and jesus christ–where is all this background from that wasn’t in the game itself??) That’s about it? You learn that Mistral likes killing, and Monsoon likes philosophy and memes. These two characters seemed so incredibly interesting from a design standpoint, but were never given proper time to shine, and that’s really disappointing.
Jetstream Sam gets marginally more development, but emphasis on marginally. I feel like he was set up to be a big rival for Raiden, but you only really fight him twice, at the start and end of the game, after the latter of which you kill him. There’s that scene where he shows up and fucks with your head, but that’s. About it. Mostly he just hangs out and is ruggedly handsome in the background, if he’s there at all.
I love Sam–rather, I love the idea of Sam. I love the idea of a cute hunky samurai Brazilian as a rival and foil for robo prettyboy Raiden, and I would have killed to see them really talk out their differences (instead of Raiden just murdering Sam because he pisses him off). I would have loved to hear what experiences brought Sam to think the way he does, and how that differs from Raiden’s perspective. But unless I get the Sam DLC, it seems like I’m SOL in that department (I will probably get the DLC, but it’s a pain to connect the xbox to the upstairs router). Basically, I needed more Sam, and I was really sad at the amount that came with the game.
I was also sad that Sam used his growly bear voice for the fight with him instead of his cute voice, but I digress.
Another thing I really disliked was that all the codec calls were optional; and those were often where important background info about characters was relocated. I probably would’ve learned more about Mistral and Monsoon (and even Sam) if I’d remembered to use the codec more.
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Anyway, I thiiink that’s about all I have to say about MGR, though I just know I’ll think of more. Complaints aside, I had a good time–despite its shortcomings, I think it’s a fun little game. I’d love to get some friends together and play through with everyone watching, because this game is nuts and I love playing goofy videogames with friends. I’d say if you want to spend an afternoon playing a dumb fun game, this is a good game for you–if you’re looking for something meatier or less frustrating on higher difficulties, I’d look somewhere else. Oh and you should def check out the soundtrack if you’re into that. (“Rules of Nature” is my fav, but there’s seriously only one or two songs I don’t like!)
I plan to play through the game again at some point, maybe on a higher difficulty just to see how I do, but also to check out the sweet sword I got after clearing the game. I also plan to do the DLC, so who knows, you might hear more metal gear rising thoughts from me in the future lmao
Thanks for reading!
