My first introduction to the Metal Gear series was when I was in elementary school. I was obsessed with the game LittleBigPlanet and there was a Metal Gear Solid themed DLC pack. I only wanted it because there was level editor objects in it that I wanted to use, so I convinced my grandma to buy it. I remember it also came with a campaign of like 4 levels, but I don't remember it or the story very well. The main thing I remember from it is the Metal Gear boss fight at the end, which was very hard, and also the "Encounter" remix that came with it.

A few years later in middle school I was introduced to Super Smash Bros. I was given the 3ds version and a few months later my grandma got me Brawl on the Wii. Snake was in this game, but I didn't care or think too much about it at the time. It wasn't until he returned for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate that I decided to play as him and try to learn him. I really liked his playstyle in Ultimate back when it was still new. All his projectiles and explosives were really fun to use, and I loved going for his risky side smash attack. But I think my favorite part of Snake was his forward air attack that could immediately send your opponent down to the bottom of the blast zone. It was really satisfying to pull off, mainly because of how hard it was to time right.

Whenever I started playing as a character a lot in Smash Bros. I would always naturally start to get curious about the game they are from. It's how I got into series like Earthbound and Persona. I didn't have any console or way to play a Metal Gear game at the time though, but luckily a Twitch streamer I watched started doing a playthrough of the series. I listened to it in the background while I did school work. What I remember most is the plot being kind of complicated and hard to follow along when not paying full attention. Also the hilarious line Otacon says during this cutscene.

With no way to really play the series though I kind of forgot about the games until last year, when Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection was announced to have a Switch release. I bought it when it went on sale earlier this year, and decided to start playing Metal Gear Solid a few weeks ago. It's needless to say I was looking forward to getting into what this game has to offer, and the opening cutscene when the game starts explains very well what the plot of the game is going to be. Now the basic aspects of the plot aren't that crazy or unique, it's just about stopping terrorists from launching nuclear missiles from a remote island called "Shadow Moses Island" in Alaska, but I liked it, and it was a cool enough scenario to build a story around.

The stealth gameplay instantly had me entertained, it brought out anxiety and stress but in a good exhilarating way. Anytime the guards caught me I was in instant "oh shit" mode, and the way the game becomes fast paced and about escaping the interaction is exciting. I've never really played a stealth game before this, the closest would be Persona 5, which had a sorta stealth like dungeon gameplay. This was a really awesome intro to the genre.

One puzzle early on I would like to talk about, is when you have to contact the character Meryl on the Codec system. There's a bit of an issue I have here that I would like to go into. You are given a MO Disc in a cutscene before this, which is an item that has no function, and you are told Meryl's Codec number is "on the back of the CD case." By that the game meant it was on the back of the ACTUAL PHYSICAL CD case for the game. I spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out what to do and how to get the disc I was given to give me the Codec number. I eventually gave in and looked it up online. I do appreciate the cleverness of a puzzle like this, but the fact you are given a pointless disc item ends up being a red herring for what you are supposed to actually do. The other problem was just that it didn't translate well to modern consoles. I bought it digitally and didn't have a physical CD case to look to, which lead me to even further thinking the MO Disc had to be the solution.

Another part of the game that didn't translate all that well to modern consoles, but was still really cool, was the Psycho Mantis boss fight. The cutscene beforehand has him "read your mind" and by that, he gives an analysis of how well you have been playing the game so far. Mantis also tells you to lay your controller flat so he can "move it" with his psychic powers, which is in reality, just the controller vibrating. But it was still really funny. He also looks at how often you saved the game, and if you have save data for other certain games. Playing on the Switch I obviously didn't have save data he could read, but it was cool looking up on youtube afterward to see the things he says when finding certain save data.

This isn't the end of the fun fourth wall shenanigans though! During the fight he is able to do this move that "disconnects" your console from the TV using his psychic powers. It displays a black screen saying "HIDEO" for a few seconds. He is also able to use his psychic powers to dodge pretty much ALL of your attacks, because he can read your mind. In order to get past his mind reading, you physically have to plug the controller into the second slot. In the Master Collection that meant opening a screen and switching the controller to controller 2 in the options, but it was still an awesome gimmick for a boss. It's needless to say that this was my favorite fight in the game.

After defeating him he goes into his traumatic backstory. My favorite part of this is what Snake says to him. It feels like a cheesy inspirational quote but it really fit his character to say that.

Now after this boss fight I encountered what is easily the worst section I've ever seen in a video game. You come across another boss fight, Sniper Wolf, but in order to fight her you need a sniper rifle. To obtain that you need to backtrack all the way towards an earlier section of the game, and then go back to where Sniper Wolf is. This is time consuming and felt really pointless, but it's what comes after the fight that pissed me off really bad. You get cornered by Sniper Wolf after defeating her and then you end up captured by the terrorists. After a cutscene there is a sequence where you are tortured by the character Revolver Ocelot. You must mash A repetitively to not die during the torture. Now I won't go into this too much, but button mashing is my BIGGEST gaming pet peeve. I am physically bad at it, and I feel like it's a cheap and unfair thing to throw at players. This button mashing was especially intense too. On my first attempt I died pretty fast.

Another thing here that got me really annoyed was that dying from the torture results in a game over, but there is no "continue" option. If you die you have to go back to your last save. The game also makes no attempt to go out of it's way to warn you and say "hey maybe you should save?" before this sequence. I hadn't saved since the Psycho Mantis fight, so I had to get to the Sniper Wolf fight again, backtrack to get the sniper rifle again, then go back and defeat Sniper Wolf again. It was so god damn irritating and annoying. I made sure to save before the torture sequence on the second time around but this was beyond cheap and shouldn't have made it into the final draft of the game. Then again this was 1998, games were just kinda cheap like this back then.

The game doesn't force you to complete the button mashing, there is an option to submit to the torture and move on, but doing this means you wont get the canon ending so to me you are basically forced to get through it. In order for me to complete it I had to exit to the home screen of my Switch in between button mashes to rest my hand and arm. A few failed attempts later I finally complete it. After this you are sent to a prison cell. I started contacting everyone I had in my Codec, Otacon said he would be on his way to help get you out. Then out of nowhere, the guard gets you and you have to get through the torture sequence AGAIN. After getting through it again Otacon brings you an item, a bottle of ketchup. I used a walkthrough and learned if you wait for the guard to leave to the bathroom, lay down, and use the ketchup you will make it look like you died. This will lead to the guard entering your cell upon returning which gives you a chance to escape. I do dislike how unintuitive this is, and wouldn't have figured it out on my own, and apparently if I didn't, I would have had to sustain through another torture session to then get rescued by another character.

This took me a couple hours, and was the worst most obnoxious thing I have seen. I don't really rage at video games but I was a bit salty while going through this. It was that bad. Luckily after this the game gets good again, with a cool part where you have to climb a bunch of stairs while being chased by guards, which is then followed up by a helicopter boss fight at the top of the tower.

You have to fight Sniper Wolf again subsequently, you have this funny weird little cutscene where Otacon is sad when she dies because he fell in love with her. Following this though the story starts to rapidly pick up in pace. A lot of this revolves around plot twists behind the people you've been talking to in Codec the whole game. Now the game so far made it pretty clear that the colonel was actively lying and keeping secrets from Snake since the beginning, as well as Naomi, another person you have been talking to in Codec. Naomi is revealed to actually be a spy, Master Miller is the one that tells you this, and he also tells you not to trust the colonel because of how much he has been lying about things surrounding the mission.

But as it turns out, Master Miller was actually dead, and the "Master Miller" you've been talking to was actually Liquid Snake, one of the terrorists as well as Snake's twin brother, impersonating him. This was a really well written plot twist and I genuinely didn't see it coming. He was someone you thought you trusted because he was never blatantly dishonest the way colonel and Naomi were. Another thing you learn though, is the reason Snake was sent to Shadow Moses Island by the government was so they could inject Snake with "FOXDIE" and have him spread it among everyone there. FOXDIE is a virus that gives certain people heart attacks if their genes are in the system as people to be killed. This, along with all the Codec drama really makes you feel like everyone in the game is playing you. It was so insane to watch it unfold not knowing what was happening, and it's sort of hard to explain it perfectly because of how complicated this games story is.

After this though, Liquid Snake takes control of Metal Gear and is ready to launch a nuclear missile. You must stop him and there is a boss fight with Liquid. The first phase has you fighting him while he is in control of Metal Gear. Upon destroying Metal Gear though you learn the US military is going to bomb Shadow Moses Island to destroy all evidence of everything that happened here. Liquid dumps some lore about how Snake was designed to genetically be good as a soldier, and that the government gave him all the good soldier genes, and Liquid the bad genes. He then challenges you to a fist fight. This part of the fight was kinda hard and annoying, some of the hitboxes on his attacks are really hard to avoid. It took me about half a dozen attempts to beat it.

You end up reunited with Meryl after defeating Liquid, you haven't seen Meryl since the torture sequence. Snake and Meryl have a cute little reunification before Meryl suggests they escape before the island is bombed. You have one last fight with Liquid where you are both escaping in Jeep's, Meryl is driving and you have to shoot at Liquid. Both of you crash though as you reach the outside, and Liquid tries to confront you again after the crash, but he then dies from the FOXDIE. The government decided to cancel the bombing of Shadow Moses Island too, so Snake and Meryl are safe. As the game comes to a close you hear Naomi going on a monologue about genes.

It made me relate to Snake and realize I'm not so different to him really. He was genetically designed to be a great soldier, but during the entire operation on Shadow Moses Island you can tell how little he wants to do with this and how he was roped into all this nonsense. I am trans and my genes say I'm biologically male, but my genes don't define who I am.

All in all I really enjoyed this game. Even if the torture sequence really soured things, the story was incredible. The gameplay too was really entertaining. I can't wait to dig into Metal Gear Solid 2 when I finally bring myself to start playing it.

thanks for reading, i love you :3 💕