Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance – Game Review

With a long history behind it, it is good to know that the Metal Gear series has finally returned to (non-portable) home video game consoles, with the last release of its kind being MGS 4: Guns of the Patriots all the way back in 2008 which is still considered one of the most impressive releases on the Playstation 3 to date. However as MGS4 more or less served as a pretty good conclusion to the “Solid” line of Metal Gear games, Kojima Productions have moved away from Snake and instead shifted the attention of this spin-off game to Raiden – a character who first appeared as a playable character in the second half of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty to a bit of controversy at the time. That being said, with Platinum Games on board as developers don’t expect to see your usual stealth action gameplay…. as Rising is all about getting into the action and attacking any enemy (or environmental piece) into pieces.

While there were some problems during the early phases of development which almost saw this project cancelled, Platinum Games and Kojima Productions have together produced a fairly enjoyable game with a storyline of the standard we have come to expect of the Metal Gear franchise while the action-oriented gameplay sets it apart from previous installments. But it was not a perfect release, and I shall explain if you read on!

Storyline

For those who have yet to play Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots… you don’t necessarily have to have played them to enjoy the storyline of this game however given many references to plot points in the series – particularly surrounding Raiden you may not be able to fully appreciate it. Metal Gear Rising: Revelgeance takes place in the year 2018 – four years after the events of MGS4. He is now working for a Private Military Company (PMC) called the Maverick Security Consulting. During one of his jobs – in which he is escorting and safeguarding the life of an African nations prime minister – they are ambushed by a group of cyborg attackers who kidnap and later kill the prime minister after Raiden gives chase. Under attack by a number of entities including a cyborg ninja named Sam Rodrigues – Raiden is left close to death. Believing the attacks came from an entity by the name of “Desperado Enterprises”, the now more enhanced Raiden sets out to find out those who are responsible…. and comes across something bigger.

The storyline despite being further along chronologically than any other Metal Gear in the past integrates itself well. While the only other returning character from previous games is Sunny (Albeit much later on), there are a number of references to past events and the new characters serve their purposes well although may leave you feeling they have been underdeveloped – generally as their only roles are through codec. The codec system – a sort of radio system where you can interact with support characters – has been changed from previous titles with a new visual appearance, but still provides the usual support, advice and comedic statements you may have come to expect from earlier installments.

Raiden on the other hand is the only character who really receives any character development – and this is the component of the storyline where you really need to know his backstory to fully appreciate it. Given he has served as an important recurring character in the Metal Gear series, Rising details his further develops his tragic backstory well and uses it effectively to deliver an overall interesting storyline..

While the character development of Raiden is solid and delivered elements that I would have expected from any game in the franchise – I didn’t feel it lived up to the standards of complexity and world building the series has been known for. The storyline is delivered both inside and outside of the seven main chapters in the game, however given their length and the fact you can easily complete the game in 5-6 hours on a standard difficulty I feel they could have delivered much more given more time to deliver it. It was however, an interesting concept and hope at the very least they can expand upon Raiden’s storyline (or even other characters) further even in some DLC content.

Design

As you will soon see upon starting the game, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is very proud of their “Blade Mode” mechanic – where at times you will find time slow down and you are given the chance to slash away at a cyborg or a structure using either the triangle/square buttons or R-stick. In doing so, you can sit and admire as every swipe you make slices the enemy into potentially dozens to hundreds of pieces before your eyes. Granted it is a visual quirk, but it is a notable one – and is one they carry through the entire game. You can also do this during regular battles with less visual impact and no time slow-down, or on many objects in the environment. Oddly enough, there were some moments where items such as wooden boxes wouldn’t break no matter how many times I swung my sword which was a bit odd.

Unfortunately I wouldn’t consider the visuals of this game to be on-par with Metal Gear Solid 4, which to this day remains a particular highlight of the PS3 to me, the visuals are still very good and offered a great variety of environments – from the streets of the Republic of Abkhazia to a sewer/laboratory mixture to even the streets of Denver… each chapter offered something different in terms of environment and while mostly linear were well planned and styled. While you are to an extent forced to go against waves of the same looking cyborg enemies, the boss characters as well as the main character themselves were well designed and where applicable… animated in battle.

Music / Voice Acting

A particular highlight to this game was the music, not so much the standard set of music which was pretty good – but the more intense and heavier lyrical music used during the boss battles. It music hit the right notes when it came to delivering the overall mood and experience to a boss fight and complemented it with great sound effects and other sounds.. The selection and quality of tracks went well together to make the complete experience of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance all the more memorable.

When creating this English dub for this title, Konami were able to have both Quinton Flynn and Cristina Puccelli return after all these years to reprise their roles as Raiden and Sunny and both performed equally well as their previous experiences – particularly Quinton Flynn who worked with the shifting mindsets of Raiden very well. The other new voice cast members also matched their intended character roles well and was of a standard I have come to expect from the franchise.

One of the only issues with the music in this game was when you achieve game over. While you will almost always have one character streaming Raideeeeeeeen! down the codec it lacks any music backing to it. It really took the impact away from it (Example Here). A minor but oddly noticeable omission for me….

Gameplay

While you do not have to necessarily say goodbye to your Cardboard Box just yet (Yes, even if you won’t be using it much outside of one moment in the game – you are still able to hide in them), Rising drops the Stealth Action element of the series and makes it into an all-out hack ‘n’ slash fighting game that is all about the action and is pretty hard to get through without defeating a few sets of enemies. The gameplay itself is pretty similar to that of Bayonetta – although with changes and upgrades across the board (and no bodysuit out of hair than can turn into monsters). During the game you are given two different weapons – the first being your standard sword that when pressing square builds up light but quick attacks, while the second used by pressing the triangle can be associated with one of several other weapons which allows you to deal heavier attacks at the sacrifice of speed – leaving you to combine the two to build combos and deal damage. These weapons can be acquired / purchased periodically through the game.

Unlike other similar titles, Rising does not just come down to button mashing – and any difficulty outside of Easy will quite possibly lead you down more than a couple of game overs. There is no dodge system, so instead you will have to master both the games parrying controls and blade mode to deal as much damage as possible, both of which you are required to make good use of – especially in the higher difficulty settings as quite a few battles are not escapable. The game throws in a variety of enemy types and bosses, some of which do have rather different approaches to defeating them and even on the easier difficulties can put up a half-decent fight. Outside of regular attacks, you are also given a number of additional equippable items including grenades, firearms, boxes and health items – all of which can be incorporated into your battle strategy if you have them on hand (Especially with aerial enemies which are less practical to hit with a sword). You also unlock some additional features later on in the game which I shall leave you to find out for yourself.

The game does not feature a levelling system, instead upon defeating enemies you acquire BP – the in-game currency. Either at the end of each level or through the codec (If you don’t mind being sent back to a save point),  you can access a store which provides you with options to improve your max life/fuel gauges, modify or purchase a weapon, learn new skills or simple buy a new costume for Raiden. It is a simple system but works well enough although unless you are willing to grind for BP it is generally not practical first time around to upgrade him all-purposes (In terms of secondary weapons – as all have upgrades which can consume quite a bit of BP).

The big issue with this game is that as I explained when describing the storyline there is very length to it. The game is split up into 8 chapters of which one is a prologue and seven are the main chapters. Unfortunately, some of the chapters are far shorter than they could have been – one potentially taking you ten minutes to finish while another consists of one five minute boss fight. Overall depending on difficulty setting you can expect to finish the game the first time round in potentially five to six hours… although with higher difficulty settings (Which can prove a worthy challenge) you may get more replayability out of the main mode however this doesn’t provide any additional chapters or new areas to explore.

Outside of the main story mode and until any further DLC chapters are released the only other gameplay you get access to are VR missions. These are bite-sized challenges but are not as simple as they may seem at first.

While I would have loved it if they doubled the length of the game, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance shows what Kojima Productions and Platinum Games can achieve while working together, and was overall a great release. While I do hope for a future Metal Gear installment which delivers more of the stealth gameplay I have come accustomed to over years – I am welcome to change as well and I enjoyed the concepts and overall delivery of the fast melee-combat.

FINAL SCORE
Storyline/Character Development: B
Design: B+
Music/Voice Acting: A-
Gameplay: A-
Replayability: B
Personal Opinion: B+
Overall Score: B+