This review contains spoilers
initially, snake eater was really tiresome to play, i know, ludicrous. but yeah this game felt like a chore for a while, the healing system felt too invasive (i still largely feel this way), the stealth felt like an afterthought, and the story, while interesting, felt detached from what made sons of liberty so interesting.
eventually though, the game slowly started growing on me one by one, i realised that even if the game felt less stealth based than 1 and 2, more options to play isn't bad, and eventually embraced it and just ran thru areas with my LMG and had more fun that way; the gunplay in this game was actually pretty fun and overall the combat/boss fights were generally good.
like i mentioned, i still find the healing system to be kind of overbearing but i understand it's there to make the setting of "solo mission in the jungle" more believable and real, i just personally took issue with spending a larger amount of time behind menus and interfaces. i especially dislike how there's a limit to how much you can carry, it would seem the devs put this here so you'd have to think about what you can and cannot carry, but the freedom to switch whenever you'd like kind of makes it more tedious than anything.
finally, the story really hooked me in once the character's motives began to become more clear. snake eater's story is way easier to follow along than sons of liberty but it still has that classic metal gear tension and misdirects. my issue of finding the story detached was resolved once the plot was wrapping up and finally started tying things back around to the previous 2 games, and the ending was absolutely phenomenal, as all of the endings thus far have been.
even though i predicted the naked snake = big boss reveal, and the bosses defection being more complicated than she led on, it was still super duper satisfying to have them answered in such a neat way.
my score for about 60% of this game was 3.5/5 but the further in i got, the better the game got, so i (somewhat reluctantly) give it a 4/5. it may sound like i was dogging on this game for the majority of this review but that’s just how i felt for like… half of my playthrough, again, it wasn’t until further in i began to appreciate the game’s qualities a little more - it’s not quite as good as sons of liberty in my opinion, but still, an amazing game nonetheless. i'm really looking forward to MGS4 and where it could possibly go from here.
p.s. the ladder part is super overrated, sorry.
eventually though, the game slowly started growing on me one by one, i realised that even if the game felt less stealth based than 1 and 2, more options to play isn't bad, and eventually embraced it and just ran thru areas with my LMG and had more fun that way; the gunplay in this game was actually pretty fun and overall the combat/boss fights were generally good.
like i mentioned, i still find the healing system to be kind of overbearing but i understand it's there to make the setting of "solo mission in the jungle" more believable and real, i just personally took issue with spending a larger amount of time behind menus and interfaces. i especially dislike how there's a limit to how much you can carry, it would seem the devs put this here so you'd have to think about what you can and cannot carry, but the freedom to switch whenever you'd like kind of makes it more tedious than anything.
finally, the story really hooked me in once the character's motives began to become more clear. snake eater's story is way easier to follow along than sons of liberty but it still has that classic metal gear tension and misdirects. my issue of finding the story detached was resolved once the plot was wrapping up and finally started tying things back around to the previous 2 games, and the ending was absolutely phenomenal, as all of the endings thus far have been.
even though i predicted the naked snake = big boss reveal, and the bosses defection being more complicated than she led on, it was still super duper satisfying to have them answered in such a neat way.
my score for about 60% of this game was 3.5/5 but the further in i got, the better the game got, so i (somewhat reluctantly) give it a 4/5. it may sound like i was dogging on this game for the majority of this review but that’s just how i felt for like… half of my playthrough, again, it wasn’t until further in i began to appreciate the game’s qualities a little more - it’s not quite as good as sons of liberty in my opinion, but still, an amazing game nonetheless. i'm really looking forward to MGS4 and where it could possibly go from here.
p.s. the ladder part is super overrated, sorry.