“Letting player live in a world they saved” is a demand made on Waypoint Radio quite frequently. Yours truly usually replied “For the love of God, do not give those corporate bastards that idea! They are doomed to fuck it up!” Ironically, 2013’s Metal Gear Rising Revengeance (“MGRR” for short) granted such wish well given the game’s troubled development circle.
Sons of Liberty 3: Electric Boogaloo
The year was 2018 and private military contractors were still big players on the world stage. Cyborg ninja Raiden was then employed by Maverick security firm. After a job in an African country went pear shaped with dead client and region unstable, Raiden came in conflict with the war mongering Desperado Enforcement LLC. It’s time for Raiden to turn in the badge and keep his service weapon to stop yet another group of nut jobs with world dominating plot.
MGRR took place after Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of Patriots’ intended-to-be-epoch-changing ending and played into the “it’s a new age” narrative well. Gun totting commandos who can only take down Metal Gear one per game made ways for blade wielding cyborgs eating MG for breakfast for starters. There are still life and death struggles but with the all controlling Patriots gone, the game’s story can focus on a “good versus evil” story. And Homo Sapiens might finally go to space in this world, compared to our reality where military industry complex still has a choke hold on…
In many ways, Raiden is a similar place here as Solid Snake is in 1998’s MGS1. Both are in their respective third storyline. Raiden had reached his warrior poet phase here, even though his lines feel less original than Snake for several reasons. Though writers over at Platinum being better at this “heroic myth” bullshit than Hideo Kojima ever is. For starters, Raiden got much less “woe is me” moment here and there are people he helped comparing notes scenes like Kojima and crew could never.
All in all, MGRR might be the best narrative in any Platinum game. Part of it is the English translation handled by 8-4. The game’s story has less twist than some Platinum original. I was excepting the scientist with a foreign accent to have a Heel turn, and no he is totally kind and on the level. with the presentational effort mostly put into making the rogue galley deliciously fun to watch and fight.
Rushed in more than one sense of the word
For better and worse, MGRR plays like a rushed Platinum production. Back in 2015, I made the mistake of playing it days after Phantom Pain and found the movement way too clunky compared to how smooth Diamond Dog commandos’ movement is. Playing it after MGS1 this time around and 15 years’ worth of advance certainly shows. And yes, the camera is really bad at times.
MGRR is a hack and slash game with your usually left face button for light attack (Plus parry.) and up face button for heavy ones. As Raiden cut through the rogue galley, his fallen foes’ weapons would be up for purchase. Equip those, and Raiden would wield them as heavy attacks. So do not except this one to be a Ninja Gaiden replacement.
You also got the usual right trigger to dodge Platinum business, Of course, the barrier since Devil May Cry is also here, and if you are one door away, active combat would prevent you from fleeting the scene.
Left trigger and bumper are where things get bit different. Left bumper is mapped to explosives, like rocket launchers and different types of grenades. Holding left trigger leads to what the game calls “Blade Mode” which is linked to a juice bar and should be used according. The Blade Mode is only useful when one body part of one enemy is ready to be made into mince.
The game keeps some elements from MGS series, like a mini map and Alert state during combat. The game does not encourage stealth with changes to such kept elements. One cannot tell where the enemies are looking at on the mini map and engage them in active combat does not send in endless reinforcement like in MGS 1 and 2. Yours truly was told about reinforcement twice in the game and they only lead to optional combat arenas.
The PC port has the 2 additional mini campaigns as end game bonus. In those player assume the roles of 2 relatively more admirable rogue galley members. One of which involves farther “people helped by Raiden comparing notes about Raiden”. Both play different enough from the main guy.
Lightning in a bottle
MGRR was once a compensational trophy for owners of Xbox 360 only since Konami would not port MGS4 there after everyone at the company got exhausted just to get the damned thing running on PS3. Then the project itself got so derailed, they got to ship the wreckage to Platinum to savage. And somehow it worked.
Of course, the game is not perfect. Platinum vices such as bad camera angles and enemy types repeated to a ridiculous degree are here. The game’s post credits also teased a sequel not likely to be made. But overall the game gave out a sense of closure closer to Bayonetta 1 and 2 rather than the bizarre cliffhanger by the end of Vanquish. This is a weird but fun one we might never see the like of again.