For a prologue to the Phantom Pain and sequel to peace walker, It carrys on the story of Big Boss exceptionally well, this is one of the darkest games in the metal gear series and it is HARSH.

The biggest issue is its length, it is a short game if you don't plan on doing all the bonus objectives and side missions, and the story is only really in the tapes and main mission. This has faded with time, the game practically being bundled with Phantom Pain and generally being far cheaper now than at launch. For a vertical slice of Phantom Pain, it does it's job wonderfully, this gameplay is clean as hell. Also, still looks absolutely stunning, visually the cutscenes are immaculate and in gameplay the base is wonderfully realised, lots of small details scattered around with multiple routes through the mission.

While this is a glorified tech demo/prolouge, it is damn good and I'm glad now we're not in the launch window with it's absolutely absurd original pricetag, this can be admired for the quality it is.

They really did play us like a damn fiddle.

This game has the story you expect from Metal Gear, following my favourite protagonist in the series Big Boss, and from that perspective, this game is great. The story is well written and presented with some great developments on the ideas started in Snake Eater and fleshing out Big Bosses character. Kaz is great and a lot of the supporting cast are really good additions. Strangelove, Huey and most the antagonists are a joy to watch throughout. I love this game for the story it tells and how well it tells it. Also it’s art and music are stunning, Heavens Divide and Love Deterrence are bangers.

So why the 6/10?

This game is miserable to play, this has not stood the test of time and the only excuse it has is "It's a PSP game".
Missions are tedious without the in-depth detail that makes metal gear as a series so beloved, the gameplay feels more stripped down than MGS1 sometimes and the repetitive nature of missions really wears down any want to keep playing for long periods.

The mission-based structure for the game makes a certain amount of sense, this was a game designed to be played in shorter bursts with side missions to occupy time. Issue is most side missions are the exact same as one another without much reason to want to do them, aside from levelling up mother base. And the process of levelling up mother base isn't that fun either, you have to spend absurd amount of time to get anywhere with it and unless you want to dedicate A LOT of time to peace walker, you need to engage with these systems to unlock further content in not only post-game but main game as well. I will admit right now I didn't spend the time doing all the side content to unlock the final chapter because by the time I finished the "final" mission, I was mentally checked out. I cheated to get what was necessary to unlock the final final missions, imagining myself going through all that effort made me consider how much time I'd be wasting on a game I wasn't having fun playing would drive me insane.

Minor changes to the gameplay like not being able to crawl or the game not stopping while you select items become massive burdens as you feel restricted constantly in your abilities, while I can understand some changes was made to make this multiplayer (A feature I never used), it makes the singleplayer experience feel awful. The gunplay is never as reliable as you want it to be, the features to try and remedy this like auto aim and aim assist barely function as intended and CQC is just not satisfying as it should be to pull off. This makes stealth in a stealth game feel kinda awful and at some point the most optimal way to get through most missions was to run past everything quickly.

The boss fights, in no uncertain terms, are my least favourite part of the game. They are designed like raid bosses, with absurd amounts of health. A boss can take anywhere up to 10-20 minutes on average which doesn't sound bad, until any death during the mission sends you all the way back to the beginning of this tedious process of shooting at weak spots and waiting for a opening while dodging predictable attack patterns. There wasn't a single boss fight I wanted to go back to, which is tragic in what’s the easiest game to replay boss fights in. Every single boss being a massive hunk of metal isn't as cool as the game thinks it is, it makes them all equally forgettable and uninteresting.

This is a great metal gear story trapped behind what feels like the most archaic gameplay the series has ever seen, which should never be something a metal gear game is described as. I will love this games story in my heart and just never touch it as a game ever again.
Until next time, Peace. V

PS: WHOEVER MADE THE MISSION WHERE YOU HAVE THE KEYCARD, GO TO THE BASE, THE KEYCARD DOESN'T WORK AND NOW YOU HAVE TO BACKTRACK TO FIND THE GUY WHO HAS THE KEYCARD THAT DOES WORK I PERSONALLY HOPE YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE LIGHT OF THE SUN SINCE YOU BELONG IN A PRISON!!!!

Very conflicted on certain aspects on this game, I overall enjoy the game, just I think it has some of Kodaka's best and worst aspects on display.

This will be light on spoilers as possible but still, warning In case you care for plot points and characters being named.

To start with positives:
I really like the overarching mystery of the game, the "Secret of Kanai Ward" is another grand twist he loves doing with any game he makes, and I think aside from V3, this is the most it's ever landed well for me.
The major antagonist of this game is my favourite he's written, Kodaka has perfected a certain genre of character, and this was another great execution.
The supporting cast is generally quite fun, a lot of the main detective group grew on me throughout the game and I am looking forward to most of their DLC episodes to spend more time with them. Viva and Hallara are particularly my standouts.
Cases 2 and 4 are particularly strongly written murder mystery cases, how their crimes was thought out and executed was really impressive thought out.
Yuma and Shinigami are a fun duo to follow, I like their chemistry and how they interact through most the game.
The art direction and world design is really inspired, the neo-noir aesthetics are wonderfully executed. Rui Komatsuzaki did really great with their signature style of art and how its adapted to 3D is generally quite good.
The great soundtrack by Masafumi Takada. The music in this game goes for a different vibe from Danganronpa and it's full of bangers.
This game has a lot of neat references to other murder mysteries and feels like a love letter to shin honkaku murder mystery, some are more subtle than others but I can tell this was a product of love for the genre.
The English voice acting is consistently excellent, I don't have any performance that never feels like they're not trying.

For my negatives:
The mystery labyrinth feels fundamentally flawed from a narrative and gameplay standpoint. A lot of ideas and mechanics get added to be dropped or never mentioned again, the most annoying being found in the prologue, but that'd be delving into spoilers for that case. The rules to the labyrinth aren't very consistent and feels "Random for the sake of it".
A lot of gameplay segments aren't as fun as most of the mini games from Danganronpa. The most fun is the Argument Death battle and those are just Nonstop Debates with a lot less going on mechanically and logically. This game felt generally easier than every Danganronpa game in terms of mystery solving and playing. Failing never feels like it's a actual tangible possibility. Also for the love of god Kodaka please let go of "Hang Man Gambit" brother that just isn't ever going to be fun.
The side stories are mostly bad, when I saw they had a different writer for them, it made a lot of sense. They are really shallow at the best of times and actively irritating at worst. Ideas will just be introduced to never be brought up again and it feels like "We have Yakuza Substories at home". There are 3 I do enjoy but that’s 1/4 of them being good.
Case 3 is a low point in terms of the game because it feels like half assed filler, nothing introduced in the case ever really becomes important and the mystery itself falls apart as soon as one detail is introduced. It's the only case I'd consider "bad".
I hate Desuko, Desuko is the worst genre of guy Kodaka keeps insisting on writing. The creepy, pervy, wants to shag all women type who is just gross. It doesn't help he is not just implied to be, but is just a pedo. Please stop writing this kind of character Kodaka.
This game has technical errors constantly, thankfully nothing game breaking, but for a game designed for only one console it doesn't feel optimised for it. Pop in is a constant issue with the environment, audio has weird leaps in being louder than was probably intended, anytime the camera would switch perspective it would cut everything to black for a brief moment. It's nothing that is detrimental but can feel really cheap.

This is a good game, I enjoy it for what It is, but it's not close to the best Kodaka can do as a writer. DR2 and V3 are still much better experiences in my opinion, but I hope he sticks with this world and characters. He has something special and I pray he does more with it.

This review is purely based on the game itself, the incident this game is widely known for is not relevant to any discussion of my opinions on this game.

I should also preface I am not somebody who, to my own knowledge, experiences depression. If this game is accurate to the lived experience of others is not my place to comment. I can only speak for my feelings and experiences. With two prefaces out the way, I feel comfortable saying this game really polarises me.

There are moments where I stared at the screen in silence realising other people in my life or I myself have done some of the behaviour shown in this game, and that mirror reflecting back at me chilled me a lot. Knowing that it is a experience that isn't just isolated to just me and the people I know felt almost revealing in a way. Knowing that other people are out there to share in experiences as sad as these is a reason for art to exist, to share in emotion and experiences that are uniquely human.

That being said, for every moment I felt like my own life experience was seen, a lot of others felt very ham-fisted, there was a lot of moments I thought could have been handled better, and the major issue I have is the game part of this game.

This having multiple endings, there being a "True" ending, feels wrong. No matter what, I feel the experience is cheapened knowing there is a "right way" to be playing it. You can ignore this fact and only play it once, the experience you got, and I think if I did that I would of been more positive towards the game However, knowing that there is other, better endings, it becomes a active effort to ignore that information when privy to it. It was my fault I went through the effort of getting these endings to see how they're handled.

I am not a fan at all with how the "correct" options to get to some of these endings feel really wrong. Lying to please people being one that stuck out as really strange to me. It feels like what you yourself might view as healthier or more productive choices aren't the ones the game thinks are correct, and that just doesn't sit right with me. But this is heavily subjective, you might think all the choices made to reaching this "True" ending are sound and entirely logical. I will still have issue with the fact it exists at all.

While this game will stick with me really personally in regards to moments that struck at my core and made me consider myself and others more, I can't say it was a flawless execution.

I'm happy this game exists for those it helped, and if it helped you, that is a testament to the power of games and art.

This is one of the most accidentally funniest games I've ever played, I got in a call with a group of friends, played through it and had the time of our lives. This is garbage, but I cannot forget how much fun it was watching how insane this was. God has graced you with the ability to pepper spray people at complete random, you better use it.

The only reason I know it exists is because of a artical reviewing ace attorney compared it to this, which is one of the strangest comparisons potentally ever made.

It's cute if a little basic. The puzzles are fine, nothing amazingly interesting but it's serviceable. A lot of its charm comes from it's character writing, for as little time we get to spend with these characters they are quite endearing. I can see these characters being used in a D&D setting and being fun to interact with. The art for the characters are really well done and have a lot of personality. Also, consistently quite funny, the more subtle than usual reference to Ace Attorney didn't pass by me.

It was cute, I enjoyed it and would hope the developer the best in future endevours.

This game has so much potential and it was so engaging for most of its run. It's setup is really interesting, it forces you to keep your own notes and make your own deductions and the presentation, while minimal, is effective. I have to commend how much work this is for a game made in such a short span of time, this was clearly a passion project and I will be checking out their other games in future.

Now, with that said, the ending and the solution to the crime is bad. This is not a game that you can logically intuit most of what you need to come to a complete deduction. You have to make WILD assumptions and leaps in logic to get to the solution, with so many details just not being properly hinted at in some ways. Some of the evidence is poorly explained, through the (admittedly pretty good) prose of the author, some details about what the evidence is gets lost and left feeling incomplete as a result.

I managed to get far with my deduction, I played on the puritan difficulty because I had faith in the game to be solvable with everything present. Half of my deduction was correct with the other half being pure guesswork. I had to abuse the intuition mechanic near the end of the game to even get the ending, because I had solved all but 1 persons fate, and that final person was so asinine in the way the game wants you to describe their death, it was awful.

The deduction screen lets the game down awfully, because motives can be so broad or vague in what they mean that you might think you know what its going for but need a different motive that fits it slightly better. It's not intuative and just fumbles greatly.

The ending deduction is one of the worst I've seen due to how much information you just aren't able to know from the evidence given to you, this is not a deduction that can be made with such certainty yet it feels like its telling you "Yeah this is obviously how all the evidence lines up", The relationships between characters are practically impossible to guess beyond a point but the final deduction expects you to know their personal histories to a absurd degree to just guess. The final speech felt unearned, the idea is there, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.
This game really let me down in the end, and this is a open apology to my girlfriend who I had play through the game with me, I am so sorry we spent so much time on this game for a solution that bad.
This debt is one I must carry now. Damn you The Crimson Debt.

It's just okay. The puzzles in concept are really fun but in execution, they can be tedious and really repetitive. This might easily be a me issue, but lag often caused deaths to be unfair as characters fraked out and started doing actions we didn't want to happen, but mileage may vary on that front.

A lot of gimmicks are cool but quickly ware out their welcome, the dog platforms being one of the worst for me. Things can feel too slow and for a puzzle game where you need to figure things out and experiment, that slowness can drag.

The story is also just nothing really, the choices the game have you make are interesting from the perspective that each party only sees one half of the events and you have to try and find which one you'd prefer to pick, but the actual overall narrative is just nothing special. The ending just kind of happened, multiple twists happen all at once that have no real gravity to them because they're not really well executed and it feels like it's trying harder to be deep than actually bothering to have depth. I didn't care enough to get the secret ending I just looked it up and god if I played through this 2 more times to get THAT, this review would be lower.

For as harsh as I'm being it's not awful, some of its puzzles are fun, its art style is really wonderful between the two perspectives and for the multiplayer focus it has it does a good job creating interesting collaboration scenarios even if they don't all land well.

What happened during that boring winter without snow? I might just forget it.

This is good, isn’t it?

This is a complicated game with complicated feelings, this is a game that has consistently some of the most needlessly convoluted and outright bad writing in the series. This is some of the lowest lows the series ever has.

But the amount of tears shed, the amount I think about this game and how much I adore the ending. Your enjoyment of this really rides on how much you let its emotions wash over you and I am nothing if not sentimental.

This is not flawless, this is flawed as all hell. I would prefer this game to remain like this forever, in its unfiltered, unchanged state, for the future to witness.