Everything is at its peak here: gameplay, camera, music, boss battles, Ocelot(!). The series and its mechanics have always been creative, but they’re on steroids here. There are genuinely tense moments at times, it feels like the perfect love letter to action spy flicks and it wears its inspirations proudly on its sleeve. An absolute treat to play, except for that one section where Eva decides to take up competitive eating in the middle of the jungle. Some of the Cobra unit members felt a bit one note, and the structure of the game follows the same pattern as MGS1 & 2 but this time without a decent narrative/thematic premise for doing so like with 2 - these gripes didn’t really take away any enjoyment though. Very glad that there was no attempt made to explain the supernatural here, as we know how that would’ve ended up..

While not on par with what MGS2 made me feel throughout the whole game, it is undenyable that this is one of the best videogames ever made, and its impact on the whole medium as a whole is massive. I'm gonna share some of my thoughts of my personal experience

The stealth mechanics, while not perfect, are incredible and you can very clearly see all of the love put into them. You can really play the game however you want and you can very clearly feel that just since virtuous mission alone. This is a complete overhaul from metal gear solid 1 and 2's gameplay, and it's a great one of course.

While i cannot put emphasis on how great of an experience this was, i cannot deny that, while the plot and story is impecable, it didn't have the same impact on me as MGS2's story. It may have been because maybe i wasn't taking it all seriously enough, or maybe because it just didn't resonate with me as much, but it didn't make me feel that clump of unexplained emotions i've never felt before metal gear solid 2 gave me.

Thematically i cannot shut up over not only how well all of the themes tie up into everything, with the sorrow being a clear example of this, but also about how the whole gameplay experience ties into the story itself and creates a perfect link between both. Even if the themes didn't hit me as hard, They're undeniably one of the best parts of this whole experience, and i will appreciate them regardless of my personal impressions.

I would love to put this game something inbetween 4.5 and 5 stars, but that is not possible, so it's going to stay as a 5 star game, because i really liked it :p

TL;DR This is an incredible game, but it's the biggest and best "it's really good, but i don't think it's gonna stuck with me all that much" i'm ever going to play.

10/10

I'm not goind to talk about how perfect is the writing in this game, there are hours of content on youtube just analysing the each character and it's to much for a quick review.

However i will talk about the gameplay. There are modern day games that tries to do bare bones stealth gameplay when this game did something almost flawless in the f*cking Playstation 2!!!
The levels are masterfully crafted, so many options of how to engage with each challenge, on higher difficulties you need to know what you're doing to stealth your way each section, it's a forever replayable game, be for it's narrative or for it's gameplay, one of the must play for the console, Kojima and his team are geniuses of game crafting

Wow! without a doubt this is my favorite of the original 3 MGS games!

From a pure gameplay standpoint it's an upgrade in so many ways! The camo system is incredibly fun and encourages stealth game play in all sorts of new ways! Choosing subsistence is also the correct way to go for this experience, as the new camera system makes the game feel incredibly modern! Hunting for food and hearing Naked Snake's opinions of each one was a cute little thing (it was also cute to hear a companion at the end's opinions as well lol).

My favorite addition game play wise however had to be the breakable silencers. I think this added a new level of narrative to the game play experience through this one simple change. Before in the MGS games, you had the choice of using a bullet/choking to kill an enemy, "permanently" removing them from an area, or a sleep dart/tactical take down which would incapacitate them for the time being but allow them to get woken back up by other guards or once you reloaded the area. Ultimately this made it an easier choice for the player, I can use my silenced pistol to kill, or my other silenced pistol to put to sleep. From the start, you typically knew what you would go for more often. Sure there was an element of "I'll be a good guy or a bad guy" but ultimately it was a slight bump in difficulty. However with the introduction of breakable silencers, the game hits you hard with the fact that you have to be LOYAL to the choice of killing or not killing. At first I was going for as little kills as possible, using precise head shots with my knockout pistol from a distance, or hitting a soldier's knees though a hole in the wall to put him so sleep and sneak past. It was a lot of fun and added that extra difficulty bump I mentioned earlier. And then my silencer broke. I was now hit with a realization, if i wanted to use my knock out pistol I would be making sound, LOUD sound. That's simple, I thought, I'll just be extra stealthy until I can find a new silencer! That's much easier said than done. After attempting a particularly difficult stealth section without the ability to pick off targets from far away, my faith in a kill-less run wavered, I wanted to see the story unfold! I wanted Naked Snake to win! I wanted to win! This slow breakdown of the comfort I had found in knowing I could always stealthily take down guards and keep the number of casualties I caused to be low was really important. When I sat hidden in the bushes aiming a silenced lethal pistol at the head of an unsuspecting guard I thought to myself "I don't really want to do this. But It's easier this way." That shot into the grunts head altered the course of the rest of my play through, it would be easier if I just killed the guards. I had set out to stay non lethal, and I had failed my mission.

(Story Spoilers Ahead! Please Play this game if the game play above seems cool to you! The story is just as good!)

Speaking of failures, I loved this games narrative. I think it's my favorite overall narrative of the first 3 MGS games. MGS2 had a really really compelling ending that left my jaw dropped for the entire final codec call, but in terms of an overall story I think this game hit it out the park. I think one of it's biggest strengths is that The Boss at the start basically says the games theme outright "What do you fight for?" or rather, what do each of these characters fight for? What is the point in fighting? Who wins the war? And that's where this game being a prequel, the earliest game in the series, is genius. The answer that I came to as a player? Nobody wins. You know this as a player from the start, Solid Snake has defeated Big Boss, with the exception of Ocelot none of these characters are familiar, they have all already failed and we know it. I don't know if I can fully articulate how smart each major character plays into this question, Big Boss of course ultimately becomes what he fights to stop in this game. The Boss is a character who seeks to make herself "whole" through violence, and ultimately loses what little she had left with the very violence she tried to complete herself with. Volgin seeks absolute power, and believes war will allow his power over others to shine through, which of course, ultimately kills him. Eva sees war as profitable, bending it to her whims, but ultimately losing in the end. Ocelot is without a doubt my favorite character in this game, There's of course the twist at the end that may undermine the "truth" of his character, but still the performance he puts on is so intriguing to see. While Naked Snake doesn't know what he fights for at first, he hopes that by blindly following his mission, he'll understand what it is he fights for. Ocelot on the other hand thinks he knows what he fights for, but ultimately, learns that he doesn't. Seeing the slow growth of a character (pretending to be I suppose) obsessed with being good at war, what ultimately is the downfall of the rest of the main cast, learning that the only way to win is to not fight at all (right down to the blank trick on the plane) is so fun to see. Of course, I think the themes of some of these characters can be read even more openly, this was just what I got out of the game as someone who's not typically the best at diving TOO deep into a story without outside help lol.

Ultimately, I would recommend anyone who has the means to to play this game! I think playing 1 and 2 first is a good idea, but ultimately this IS the first game in the series chronologically, so while some bigger picture things and references might go over your head, the main story is contained enough I think anyone could enjoy it.

Oh yeah the half star off is for the escorting Eva section at the end. I don't tend to use save states, but that section was so infuriating, especially as the final segment in the game after an annoying rail shooter segment, that I broke my rule. It's my review I can be petty about taking it down a notch lol.