Just a little retrospective I wrote.
It is super interesting to me that there was a time when you could have a giant twist like this: a hugely successful prior game setting the stage for Solid Snake being a main character, then the ‘rug pull’ of making the following sequel feature someone else.
As I’ve read elsewhere in some comments, this kind of twist couldn’t really work today, with the immediacy of social media covering every facet of everything.
From the typical action star Snake to the over-confident Raiden, the shift was a big one for Metal Gear Solid 2.
But good lord was that leap in graphics a giant one for just a few short years!
I just wrote up a little look back at how/why it was done, and since I’ve got a terrible cold/sore throat, it was an effort. If you’ve got some nostalgia for MGS2, you might enjoy this one. And my question to you here, is were you there for this? Playing the intro on the tanker as Snake, settling in to what you thought would be a Snake-filled game, then finding out Raiden was the focus? Was it a shock?
Anyway, as ever:
Having to switch to Raiden really ruined the game for me. And I even bought the demo disc from eBay before release and played the hell out of it. 100% the original on PSX too. I knew that tanker top to bottom.
Suddenly I’m playing as this girly looking rookie. I learned to enjoy his story arc through the rest of the series, but Hideo Kojima really swung and missed in my opinion.
Never mind that the story got batshit bonkers at the end of the game. Metal Gear Solid 3 and Metal Gear Solid 4 are at the top of the heap for me. MGS2 was a let down.