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.