Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D (2012)

The original is one of my favorite games and this version is a really solid way to play it. I'd still recommend the original, but this version has nice additions that make it stand out.

• So many mechanics were added. Crouch walking, walking while aiming, 3 aiming options (auto, first person, third person).
• Added options for item cycling. You aren't stuck to just toggle, you can use 3 item switching like in later games.
• Able to unlock multiple titles per playthrough + hints on how to get each title
• Makes great use of the second screen by having the map always be displayed.
• Can't confirm this, but it feels like they built new assets just for this version, which looks great. I feel like they improved the caves after the Ocelot fight because it seemed easier to see than in the original game.

• Small screen size. It's hard to get used to not being able to see as much as you normally would.
• Added motion controls. I really didn't need to use motion controls to walk over rope bridges.
• Controls feel a bit unresponsive and can be a bit hard to get used to if you're used to the original version. It can also be tedious to have to use the touch screen to control zoom and toggle silencers.

This is almost the definitive way to play the game. If this were made on a console instead of the 3DS, this probably would have been my favorite way to play this game.

It turns out I was much closer to the end of MGS3 than I thought at the time I wrote my impressions! As result, most of what I said there is applicable to the game as a whole. Thus instead of writing a full review from scratch, here are some of my observations from the 3rd act of the game followed by some closing thoughts:

WARNING: This review may contain spoilers.

• As I had said in my impressions, the fact that they crammed a fairly demanding PS2 game into the tiny and underpowered original 3DS is a technical feat that I continued to marvel at for most of my play-through. However, a lot of the big action set pieces that may have been gripping on the PS2 in 2004 felt drawn-out and excessive on the 3DS in 2017. After getting a few minutes into one of these scenes, I found myself wishing that they would wrap up so that I could return to regular gameplay and have full control of Snake again.

• There are a couple of other artistic excesses that get in the way of the gameplay experience. Most glaring of these is the "boss battle" with The Sorrow. In this scene, all Snake can do is slowly walk by the ghosts of every enemy he's killed. Other than that, there's no other interaction involved with this scene, but it goes on for an extremely long time. While I realize that director Hideo Kojima may have been trying to make some kind of philosophical statement here, this section is not at all enjoyable to play. I ended up just tilting the analog pad forward while watching TV to keep myself entertained as I waited for this part to end.

• While it may have just been the way things were back in 2004, to the modern eye, the sexualization of the female characters comes off as pretty immature. Female characters in MGS3 are usually in various stages of undress, even in segments of the game where it seems completely tonally inappropriate.

• The last few boss fights (i.e. after trudging through The Sorrow) represented some of the best action sequences of the game. However, in some cases, these required the sort of speed and accuracy that the 3DS control scheme just cannot provide. As a result, I had to rely pretty heavily on auto-aim on some these which was a lot less exciting than lining up shots myself would have been.

• Though most of the action cut scenes fell a little flat for me, there were definitely some dialog cutscenes (especially the ending) that were surprisingly compelling. Kojima is at his best when he's weaving political intrigue and betrayal, rather showing Ocelot spin his revolvers around for the twelfth time.

Ultimately, the experience of playing Metal Gear Solid 3 on 3DS was less than ideal, but I'm glad I finally got around to playing it. I think a linear story-based action game is exactly what I needed after a sprawling open-world RPG like Breath of the Wild. However, throughout my play-through, I couldn't shake the feeling that MGS3 just didn't make a ton of sense as a 3DS game. The combination of clunky controls and a form factor ill-suited to watching lengthy cutscenes detracted significantly from what this game was trying to accomplish and I suspect that I would have enjoyed it more if I had been playing it in longer sessions on the PS2. Thus my recommendation would be if you have the option of playing on the PS2, go with that, but if portability is a big selling point to you, the 3DS version still manages to preserve a decent amount of what originally made MGS3 so popular (perhaps more so if you have a New 3DS).

Note: I suspect this game would have had a shot at a 4-star score if I had played it on PS2. Also, as always, if you'd like to read more of my writing on games for Nintendo systems and PC, be sure to check out my blog, Tales from the Backlog

Metal Gear Solid 3 is a gaming shame for me for two reasons:

1. I've been meaning to give the Metal Gear series a second chance after dropping it with MGS2.
2. My wife bought me a copy of this game on 3DS back in 2012, and I still haven't touched it.

With my shiny new Nintendo Switch rapidly making my 3DS and Wii U obsolete, I figured there was no time like now to finally dig into this portable Cold War mission. Here are my thoughts now that I'm about half-way through the game:

• I'm kind of amazed that my original 3DS is capable of running a PS2 game so well. While the size and resolution of the 3DS screen do leave something to be desired, I can't help but be impressed with how good this game looks and sounds in spite of hardware limitations.

• It's immediately apparent that MGS3 was meant to be played with dual analog control, but unfortunately, since I don't have a Circle Pad Pro or a New 3DS, I'm stuck with having to use the ABXY buttons to aim. This set-up is definitely not as fast and accurate as I would like, but I'm managing to make it work.

• To compensate for the less-than-ideal controls, I decided to power through this game on easy mode. This way Snake can survive taking a few hits while I take a little more time to line up my shots.

• I forgot how loaded with dialog and cutscenes Metal Gear games are. The beginning few hours of the game probably contains more cutscene time than actual gameplay time. On the PS2 this was probably fine, but on 3DS I'm keenly aware of how much time I'm spending just staring at these lengthy non-interactive scenes.

• The juxtaposition of serious political themes and wacky over-the-top characters is really bizarre. In one moment, the game is covering the effects of the Cuban Missle Crisis on US-Russian relations, in the next, I'm in a boss battle with a man that shoots "bullet bees" out of his mouth.

• The inclusion of the blatantly James Bond-inspired opening theme song "Snake Eater" is incredibly corny, but I kind of like it anyway.

While returning to the 3DS in a post-Switch world hasn't been easy, I've been mostly enjoying my time with MGS3. The convenience of playing this game on a device that I can easily toss into my lunchbox without a case means I can work gameplay sessions into small gaps in my schedule without much pre-planning. The only downside is due to the verbose nature of Kojima games, I've spent many of my lunch breaks just watching 30-minute long cutscenes. At my current rate of progress, I'll probably be finishing up Metal Gear Solid 3 and writing my review within the next 2 weeks.

For more content like this, check out my blog: Tales from the Backlog