Adventures as a Cyborg Ninja (Metal Gear Rising: Revengence review)

It’s not very often that I decide to review a video game instead of a movie. I was originally going to focus on game reviews instead of movies since I tend to be extremely critical and passionate about gaming. For me, movie reviews tend to be more fun since I can focus on a whole bunch of aspects and differences about the movie instead of the several aspects that I tend to find in video games. But hey, there’s a first time for everything.

Legendary game developer Hideo Kojima's very long-running series has always been a game of hide-and-seek: creeping in khaki, sneaking with silencers. Sure, the tense scuttles past armed guards under a cardboard box are usually followed by a tense struggle about standoffs and philosophical views about warfare, but the stealth espionage series has brought together the most memorable video game bosses of all time. But this turns out that this game was not the game that Konami originally set out to make.

This game, originally titled Metal Gear Solid: Rising, was announced in 2009 and was going to be based around a swordplay-based spin-off of the tactical stealth series. One period of development hell where rumours of near-cancellation and rusty development later, Metal Gear Rising has been reborn. Kojima and his team collaborated with what I honestly consider the best active Japanese developer team, Platinum Games, a team that has shown itself suited to deliver on that initial promise of free-form violence that made itself famous with the works of Bayonetta. While Platinum handled the game play mechanics of the game, series creator Kojima Productions has overseen development to ensure something recognizably "Metal Gear” and went ahead with the other aspects of the game. I never really played a Metal Gear game prior to playing this game. I understood the story, knew the bosses and other aspects of the series. But with the strengths of Kojima Productions in its legendary story and lore design and Platinum Games in developing exhilarating action. In the end, remaking the game from scratch was a good call. I had a feeling that this game was going to deliver something excellent. A fantastic story, memorable boss battles, awesome soundtrack and a solid gameplay mechanic.

And holy s**t did this game deliver what it promised.



Set about four years of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots in 2018, Revengeance allows you to play as Metal Gear Solid 2 lead Raiden in the middle of a globetrotting battle with interesting super-soldiers of a major Private Military Company named Desperado Enforcement, uncovering a strange military conspiracy. Initially unprepared, Raiden finds himself personally invested in taking down Desperado and its politically connected backers in a Kill-Bill worthy revenge story.

While the game did give you insight into Raiden's background as a child soldier, Revengeance also takes the gameplay possibilities of his transformation into a cyborg ninja and with Platinum Games at the helm, takes everything right up to eleven. This game easily favors action over stealth. Previous Metal Gear heroes Snake and Big Boss were known for their ability to sneak and hide, and Revengeance does actually present presents situations where sneaking provides a unique advantage. But then again, with Raiden being the character he is in this game and given the aspects of the game, I went into action at every opportunity. The swordplay feels fantastic. Unlike most games that feature sword combat, it usually feels like you are actually just beating them with a sharpened stick. In this however, you actually feel like you are using a sword. You feel the satisfaction of killing one of your enemies with your sword unlike the feeling you get in games such as Skyrim or Fallout where after you kill an enemy, your just like “Ok...onto the next enemy, I guess.” You actually feel powerful, and that is a feeling in which I have never felt from a game such as this. It’s fantastic.

In terms of combat design, it is extremely solid, if not perfect. With light and heavy combination moves that are familiar to action games, combat actually feels super exciting in this game and has actually been spot on, which has been rare for some games of this genre. While Heavy attacks do more damage and refill the fuel cells that power the God-tier special ability of Blade Mode, but light attacks are faster and can parry melee blows from Raiden's enemies. The hand-to-hand combat is also excellent and can be expanded upon with the addition of unlockable moves and quite a few interesting yet well developed weapons taken from the corpses of Desperado's most lethal. It starts simple, but Revengeance's combat builds into a harmony of a process of carefully timed deflection and counterattacks that weave into beautiful yet powerful combos. While the game’s tutorial is very light on information about combat, specifically the importance of parrying, I quickly forgive it once you get the hang of combat.

Your special ability of Blade Mode is worthy of a separate paragraph. Blade Mode is a absolutely brutal conclusion to combat encounters that pulls the game camera in closely, slows down time and lets Raiden slice apart enemies freely from essentially any angle. Blade Mode lets Raiden perform dozens of slashes in the span of mere seconds, climaxing with Raiden reaching into the carved body of his opponent and ripping out a glowing blue spine that instantly recharges his health.. It happens hundreds of times throughout the game, but it's exciting every time. These executions are satisfying every damn time you use them.

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You feel like a total badass with Blade Mode​

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And even then, absolutely destroying the common mook is consistently satisfying, but it's the handful of boss fights with the boss characters and giant mechs that deliver the game's best, yet insane encounters. Within the first fifteen minutes, you what is considered a last boss as your first boss in insane fashion, specifically speaking when Raiden body slams a colossal Metal Gear Ray — With expert combat design with energetic yet dynamic music, you end up with the game's most memorable moments.

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While I could write about the absolute fantastic combat mechanic, the game has very few but relevant flaws. The biggest of these flaws is the camera. While you are hacking up your enemies, it can be fairly easy to lose sight of enemies in certain situations, leaving the player to guess where the next attack may originate. While it’s not perfect, the developer makes up for the camera problems by making our hero extremely damage-resistant and health drops plentiful, as in they're buried within almost every enemy. But it can be frustrating during the boss battles

What I’ve discovered is that this game is ridiculously good in terms of soundtrack, worthy of having a place on my Ipod. As with "Rules of Nature", all of the battle themes for the bosses start off as instrumentals in the game, only to gain vocals and become Image Songs about the characters at perfectly timed cues when the final phase of the fight starts. And trust me, they sure do put the metal in Metal Gear


For example, the meme-worthy “Rules Of Nature” is the first song with vocals that you encounter in the game itself. Only the instrumental version plays over the Metal Gear RAY fight until you move to finish the robotic titan off. What follows is a brutal Metal Scream of the song's title that puts emphasis on the ass-kicking that Raiden is putting on the machine by describing the conflict as a battle between a wild predator and its prey. The songs actually describe the bosses themselves, such as “A Stranger I remain”, theme to the boss character Mistral, describing how she only feels at home on the battlefield fighting for a cause she believes in - the first time in her life that she's ever found one.

[video=youtube;h-rj8HVW3PQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-rj8HVW3PQ[/video]

Seriously, the soundtrack is amazing​

Between combat, Revengeance tells an exciting (if occasionally confusing) story enhanced by surreal twists and turns. In your typical Metal Gear fashion, lengthy cutscenes and dozens of insightful codec conversations between Raiden and his Maverick companions draws out the narrative and the personalities of all involved. A few of cutscenes could ramble on for too long, but some jaw dropping moments inside of the game, which I will not spoil, more than makes up for taking control away from players. But despite the extended cutscenes, Raiden's story is still the shortest Metal Gear to date. I installed and finished the game within nine hours. But despite this, the game digs deep with a suite of unlock able weapons and moves, as harder difficulties and more challenging VR Missions will reveal themselves when the time is right.

This is a fast, frantic, fun game that does its own thing. But it’s bizarre plot manages to carve out a comfortable niche within the Metal Gear franchise despite the change of pace. Platinum Games has done something incredibly rare: honoring a beloved series while successfully broadening its reach into a whole new genre. This game is fantastic.

This review was written with the assistance of nanomachines, son.​

This game has scored Nine out of Ten Lionhearts