In defense of Raiden in MGS2, though, I submit to you: But that backflip he does when you hang off of railings.
Comment on "You Were Supposed to Feel Lost": Metal Gear Solid 2 and the Shock of Playing as Raiden
FrChazzz@lemmus.org 19 hours ago
I will never forget this rug-pull. Especially after spending HOURS playing the MGS2 demo once it came out. I hated the change at the time, but have come to appreciate it as time has passed. If for no other reason than it’s “Terence and Philip: Not Without My Anus” levels of trolling on Kojima’s part.
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
I’m more impressed by his ability to get players to like Raiden later on. He’s still a massive cringy dork in MGS4, but now he’s an edgy Gray Fox expy and that was apparently enough to change player’s minds about him.
Kpjima later did something similar with Otacon using a completely different approach. Otacon was introduced as a coward and a naïve fool, though he improved with every game, and many players didn’t like him due to that poor first impression.
The prequels featured Otacon’s father, who committed suicide years before MGS1 because he found out Otacon was sleeping with his stepmother, and managed to make him a more hateable character than most of the actual villains. He had all the same personality flaws as his son, but they were all turned up to eleven and he lacked any of Otacon’s virtues to counter them.
And his character spiraled downwards from there - it was basically Kojima rubbing into your face how much worse Otacon could have been and shining a spotlight on the importance of character development.
otacon239@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
It’s weird seeing a breakdown of the character that I got my username from.
sundray@lemmus.org 17 hours ago
He really came into his own. I feel like it’s a shame people slept on Revengence, where he really shines. (And it’s fun!)
Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
I would do terrible things for a remaster of Revengeance that adds in all the features they had to cut during development to get it to run on only 256 MB each of RAM and VRAM. The sword slicing in the released version is impressive, but the original prototype was nuts.