I've played the first third of the game so far and I would say the game is flagrantly unwelcoming of modern player sensibilities--it kind of feels like it's the first PS3 game made by Japanese devs who previously only made PS1 and PS2 games. Fox Engine this ain't.
When it comes to controls, it's partly like MGS in that the controls are different enough from other games that you start out fumbling a lot, but with time you can become quite adept. And it's partly like an old PS2-era horror game in that there's a certain amount of stiffness and slowness built in to create player vulnerability and keep a tight lid on your ability to become an acrobatic action hero. Weapon aiming, in particular, feels jittery and imprecise, and taking damage causes your aim to bounce around wildly, making it practically impossible to win a straight-up firefight against a group of enemies, which instinctively feels profoundly wrong after playing any modern shooter.
Against large groups of enemies, which often include tanks or Wanzers (mechs), the only viable tactic is to sneak past without being detected. Against small groups or single enemies, it's viable to either sneak by or fight using gadgets. Guns alone are not very efficient for taking out enemies, so it's good to soften up or disable them with gadgets before opening fire to finish them off; powerful one-shot weapons like shotguns or sniper rifles are effective by themselves though.
In general, you want to get the drop on enemies with traps or grenades and finish them off before they can open fire or even see you. If you get detected by multiple enemies and are in no position to finish them off quickly, you generally need to flee and let the alert die down, which doesn't take too long, and enemies will all return to their default patrols.
It's not viable to try to clear all the enemies off the map. You can clear some areas if you wish, but making a lot of noise with guns and explosives (there are few silent weapons) will draw in reinforcements. But, when one area gets reinforcements, surrounding areas of the map will reduce troop presence somewhat, so that helps prevent the map from getting too crowded with enemies--you just have to route around the reinforced areas.
Some maps, especially early ones, are not nearly as open as they first seem; tight clusters of enemies will destroy you if you deviate much from the one path through the map. Later levels are less restrictively laid out and as you gather more weapons and gadgets, you'll become more able to punch through enemy patrols to explore more freely (you carry over your inventory from one mission to the next with the same character--and there are 3 characters--so saving supplies from previous missions mean you have more and more stuff to work with in later ones).
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