>finished MGS2
You’re 19 years late, but congrats.
>playing more as an action game
This is why, in another topic, I said I think of this series as more of a hybrid of stealth and action, and not a stealth series. On the surface it’s obviously a stealth game, especially with the way it keeps track of alerts and kills, but the pace and details surrounding encounters give it an action flavor.
>room by room basis
Note that if you go into a room with alert or caution raised, you can die to reset it to get the AI and routes back to normal.
>finger gymnastics
This is a reason it’s hard to sell the series to newer to players, the controls are extremely unconventional and hard to get used to. If I didn’t have years and years of muscle memory I can’t imagine how long it would take me to get good at some maneuvers.
>chock full of details
Never played a game with more details, aside from maybe its sequel. The hidden codec calls alone amount to a ton of fun dialogue, like seeing snake in a box outside of Strut C, shooting pigeons, calling Campbell while getting pissed on, etc. Please tell me you did at least one groin punch in your playthrough.
>tanker and shell1
It’s largely agreed that the harrier fight is when the game goes through a big shift, up that point it’s almost all sneaking with some tutorials and boss fights, then shell 2 comes along and we get a bunch of weird set pieces and the game ends on a boss rush. You have the sneaking around the shell 2 core, swimming, Nikita part, more swimming, escort mission, sniping, empty backtracking, and then two big fights and two bosses. It’s certainly a weird shift and my biggest problem with the game. 3 basically had perfect pacing throughout imo, but 2 arguably has some of the higher highs.
>ost plagiarized
Only the main theme was plagiarized I think, the melody shares a similarity to a piece by a Russian composer.
>if it was a movie it wouldn’t work
Which is exactly one reason the fanbase is as rabid as it is. It’s not like most games that journos and casuals think are art, it really is a game that needs to be experienced as a game and with an open mind.
>crumble under translation
The main translator for this game actually took a bit of liberties with it, as she felt Kojima’s writing wasn’t the best. This could be a case where the translator interfering is part of why it turned out so good.
>all options are equally possible
It gets even weirder when you play the VR missions as both Snake and Raiden, for me it actually made me look at the main game a little differently. Most of the time I got the vibe that Snake is the one in the story who wasn’t real.
>censorship and information flow
The way it essentially talks about things like social media is uncanny. It actually freaks me out.
>what’s next
Yes, Tanker+Plant on Hard is probably the next step. I recommend keeping the radar on, since the game is built with it in mind. Without the radar you feel as if you don’t have enough information to assess guard patrols/visibility. This was remedied a lot in the sequels but the small environments and enemies being able to see you peak around corners doesn’t do you any favors until you really are familiar with the game. Note that quantity of enemies, as well as their routes change as you go up in difficulty. There are also more guards that make regular status report updates.
>game over if discovered
I would add that in as a difficulty modifier once you’ve cleared extreme.
>great gameplay, great story
And great level design, great art and graphics, great music, great boss fights, great everything...I’m not a fanboy, I swear.