Bit of background: I was actually late to the MGS party. I didn't actually get into the series until around 2010. Before then, I had tried MGS1 on a demo disc and not liked it, and a lot of what I heard secondhand was that the series sharply declined after the second game.
Then one day I happened to find MGS1 and 2 at a goodwill. At this time I had just gotten a working PS2 so I was inspired to try out new things for it.
If you're wondering how I didn't have a working PS2 in 2010... the keyword is "working." PS2's are notoriously fragile pieces of shit and after having had two go bad on me near the beginning of the system's life, I just avoided it and in fact dropped out of gaming for a bit. The one I have now is actually one of the last production models and surprisingly seems to be a durable little guy. Or maybe it just loves me.
Anyway, for a combined ten bucks, I was willing to give Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2 a try and see if they were as bad as I'd heard.
... They... weren't. Okay with MGS1 that wasn't much of a surprise, I don't think anyone in their right mind could hate that game.
MGS2 was the real shocker. I went in already having heard for years how it was such a letdown and Raiden was such a bad character, the Scrappy Doo of the MGS series... and just, none of that was true.
Metal Gear Solid 2 is my favorite game in the series, and I unironically like Raiden. At the very least, the one thing nobody can disparage is that the gameplay is solid (I will not make the pun).
Around now I was hearing people say that MGS3 was the actual best game in the series. This one I had to order online since I specifically wanted the two-disc edition that included the MSX games (and the Ape Escape crossover, but that was a bonus more than anything).
.... MGS3 is where I start to fall off the truck a little. The story was still great, but I always hated the gameplay, and playing it again now, I still do. Even having beaten the game several times I never got used to the controls and still often have times where I feel like I'm fighting with them, and I feel like the game does not give you enough to properly stealth--I find no matter how much watching and waiting I do, I always get blindsided by an enemy I didn't know was there.
I think a big problem was MGS3 had no training mode. This was the purpose VR missions served in the first two games. Fans will say "well they can't have VR because its the 1960s." I never quite bought that excuse--you could just rebrand it as "boot camp" or "war games" or something and get the same idea across. But the bigger problem is it means MGS3 essentially throws you into the deep end of the pool without a life jacket, and you just have to adapt to its gameplay on the fly.
I still liked it enough to continue the series at least.
So at the time, I had to make a choice: get a PS3 for Metal Gear Solid 4, or get a PSP for the whole four Metal Gear games that system has.
I chose the PSP, which turned out to be worthwhile in the long run--I honestly don't think there's any PS3 game I want to play besides MGS4.
And again, I unironically liked Portable Ops. It's far from perfect, and the storyline felt like fanfiction at times... but I felt it basically improved on MGS3's gameplay. Most notably adding this sort-of radar that represents your character's hearing. And this was supposedly one of the "low points" of the series, and Peace Walker was better in every way
You know where this is going, don't you? Skykiii got excited for Peace Walker, finally got Peace Walker.... and hated it. I hated it so much that in fact, I never finished it, and its one of the few MGS games I just don't see any redeeming value in.
This is both when I dropped off the boat entirely, but also started having some thoughts. I low-key have a theory that Hideo Kojima was intentionally trying to sink the franchise by making the gameplay unbearable. Part of my rationale for this is I notice that in games where he's not involved, they tend to actually think of things like player convenience, but then when its an entry Kojima is heavily involved in, he tends to intentionally fuck with these things.
Most notably, Portable Ops had a lot of anti-grinding features. If you needed big rations but didn't have the tech level to make them yourself, there's a map you can raid for them. Peace Walker... makes it so this won't work. You have to do the grind. Also it turns that radar into an equippable item you have to build. Lots of little things like that just add up and make me wonder about Kojima's intentions.
Also, can I say that the prequel era of MGS is kinda dumb anyway? Seriously every single game has been obstensibly about how Big Boss became the ruler of Outer Heaven, but the story amounts to "oh several times he had to start over from scratch" and that happening three times in a row gets a little bit silly.
I never did get to play MGS4 or 5. MGS4 I might at least want to play at some point, but V... I dunno. It basically sounds like "open world Peace Walker" and that's already a choice of words that makes me not wanna bother.
Personally, if the series had ended with MGS3, I might've been fine with that. MGS is a good example of how dragging a thing out forever can ultimately ruin it. Especially when even the series creator clearly wants the series to just end already.
