I was wondering who else find the final boss to be a major let down? While I appreciated fighting the obligatory Metal Gear the fight just felt like a total change of pace for the game. The game encourages this offensive gameplay all the way through via the parry system and blade mode, yet the final boss forces you to play defensively because of his unblockable attacks. I understand Platinum like's to go crazy with their bosses so I was expecting something crazy but fighting the Hulked out Senator just felt so disappointing. The game builds Sam as the antagonist for 90% of the game then kills him in a unsatisfactory fight and has the Senator as the final boss, where he (in typical Metal Gear fashion) explains his motivations and plans and what he had for dinner in a 10 minute monologue before the fight. In my opinion fighting Sam in the end would have been much more meaningful. Frankly I think they should have cut the Senator completely and just given his views to Sundowner, this would have freed up space for a nice epic sword fight with Sam in the end. It would make the game longer but in my opinion a stronger finish is worth the drop in game time, besides it's a game that is meant to be played through multiple times.

Treating it as a Metal Gear game first and action game second, in MGS3(arguably the best of the series) The Boss is saved for the last fight in a poignant one on one fight between student and master, and Volgin is used as a set piece battle but not the final fight of the game. This formula would have worked perfectly with Rising, Platinum even could have kept their crazyness with Raiden and Sam cutting through the environment and blade mode being used for more than just knocking Sam's blade away. With that said I do love using the Zandatsu to rip out the Senator's heart at the end.

Anyone else agree?

No, man, you're seeing it wrong. The ending is a parody of Metal Gear. They introduce this third wheel character out of nowhere, you think he's just a regular man-behind-chair-laughing type villain, and then shit just goes nuts.

I liked the tone the game took at the end way better than anything that happened before. Everything else is explained behind ridiculous technobabble, whereas the Senator's explanations are "I used to play football" and "Nanomachines, Son". it's just perfect.

You don't have to play defensively. You can totally rush the boss, most of his attacks are blockable (or escapable with Offensive Defense or whatever it's called) and he's very easy to stagger. Provided that you can take a hit or two you can just charge him down and combo/parry him into the first Blade Mode sequence very quickly, then rinse and repeat. The boss is all about keeping you away and then charging you, he has few counters for a straight up offensive rush.

So he doesn't have a name except Senator?

Steven Armstrong.

Btw, I like the little bit where there's this 4th-wall-breaking cheer when the Senator kicked Raiden like a football before proclaiming "Don't fuck with this Senator"

@nilazz: His name is Steven Armstrong.

@zella: I honestly enjoyed the Senator's place in the story a lot. After all the (literal) madness of taking apart Desperado and having his showdown with Sam, there needed to be something to bring Raiden back down to his normal self, and his bout with Armstrong and their exchange of ideals kinda does that. Sure, Armstrong starts off spouting a lot of B.S., but in the end even he admits that it's bull and the truth is that he wants to end all of the PMC driven warfare that's been going on. He's using war as a business, so that he can get elected, so that he can end the idea of war as a business. His goals are good, but his means are unforgivable- he even tells Raiden they aren't that different, since both of them are willing to do whatever the hell they have to in order to achieve what they think is right. It's the sort of wake-up call Raiden needs to get away from all the Jack the Ripper stuff he fell back into when he was fighting Desperado's thugs.

Also, Armstrong's just kinda cool. Crazy, but cool. I liked how he helped Raiden up out of the dent in Excelsus and dusted him off before trying to give him a handshake when he thought they were reaching an agreement. He seemed genuinely excited about the idea that the two of them could stop fighting.

And "Nanomachines, son." is still my favorite line in the game.

Was this suppose to be satirical?

Nevermind, I thought it was alright. Let my frustration get in the way of me using items.

@earthbowl: It wasn't obvious enough?

@dasmart1: I wasn't like I didn't have that thought when I was fighting him, but I just wanted to know if this was suppose to be that way. I know Metal Gear game's have to have character dialogue centered around the philosophies of war and politics, but this game just made it seem like it was either making fun of this narrative element, or the final boss himself.

He's a fantastic boss that is way more interesting than anything else in the game. Easily my favorite part of the game. TRY UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS!!!

@earthbowl: Yeah pretty much the whole last encounter was a parody

I kept dying because I did not know you needed to use both sticks to control Zandatsu when he throws the rocks :( but finished it eventually

@dasmart1: Ok, that's good to know, thanks for the clarification dude! Above all, the game was better then expected and the final boss (having now been clarified on his significance) was fine.

"Nanomachines, son," is an instantly classic Metal Gear line. When he started getting hulked up, I was just thinking, "Okay, now this is getting dum-Oh, wait, nanomachines? Okay, I can roll with that."

Armstrong is so far the best new video game character to be introduced in 2013; as everyone's already mentioned, he was like some sort of deconstruction of how ridiculous MGS can often get. Plus for as much trouble as I had beating him, I still loved the majority of its design; the way it started it all up with a load of scripted fail states before eventually pitting you against him for real. And it has such a great theme song, too.

outside of the enjoyment of it's over the topiness Armstrong doesn't require you to master any real technique. I mean with Sundowner you need to master the Zendatsu to slice his shields, jetstream sam you need to master counters.

But armstrong fight is just wildly amusing and reminded me more of Solidus Snake from MGS2

I haven't had any sleep for nearly two days now and I was seriously questioning if the whole end of that game was actually happening or I imagined it... I guess it totally happened, that's cool.

In the words of Raiden himself the ending is "batshit insane."

I was actually a little disappointed by the levels of crazy up to the final boss. But the levels of insanity in the last act make up for any that was lacking throughout the rest of the game. Armstrong's rant about pretty much everything and nothing is gloriously dumb. Thankyou Platinum.

gameplay wise it wasn't the greatest, but I kind of loved Steven Armstrong as a character. Just the perfect amount of dumb, and being self aware that it's dumb. America you guys.

@phatmac: I agree. I think Armstrong as a character was a bit ridiculous (but who in the Metal Gear fiction isn't?) but the fight itself was so incredible. I was very frustrated with the fight, dying over and over, but came back an hour later and had one of the best experiences in recent memory.