"The memes!" growls Raiden as a US senator is laying out his plan of world domination through military contracts atop the smoldering remains of a Metal Gear that you've picked up with your bare arms and tossed across the battlefield. Metal Gear Rising was a baffling, exciting mess that was born out of a cancelled project that moved through various conceptual phases until it was once again shelved. Although hard to imagine now, originally Rising was meant to be primarily stealth oriented, and taking a life was supposed to present a huge moral dilemma. This was before the project changed hands and leadership, ultimately landing at Platinum Games known for their over the top character action titles such as Bayonetta. While Rising seems to have very little to do with the core ethos of Metal Gear, or even the original project envisoned by Kojimas then functioning studio under Konami, what finally shipped was altogether more exciting.
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance feels like satire that doesn't know it's actually presenting itsef as satire. Most of the dialog is on this razor thin edge of being self aware yet playing out the absurdity completely straight. Halfway through the game Raidens voice actor adopts an unhinged interpretation of the character influenced by his childhood trauma that is heavily inspired by a theatrical rendition of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. Everything from cutscene direction to the written word that actors were paid to speak aloud is absolutely ridiculous in the best possible ways. Raiden driving a car in a sombrero and poncho, with his augmented cyborg body clearly visible underneath.. a cyborg mercenary with a sword sheath that has a gun trigger which literally shoots his katana out of the scabbard.. a boss that separates into thin slices that jiggle around like a living Mr. Slinky to avoid your sword thrusts. The entire final encounter with the senator which you might have seen on YouTube, most notably for the single line where the very same evil senator proclaims he wants to "make America great again!" It's all absurdist fantasy, a fever dream of real world ideas laced with LSD and spat out in game form. Needless to say it's very Japanese and very good.
Rising was no slouch on the gameplay side of things either. Adopting the original "slicing" mechanic from earlier iterations as the primary driver of gameplay, it combines novel new ideas with a classic character action skeleton of light / heavy combo strings. Years before people cursed Sekiro for being a game that revolved around parrying, Rising was laying the foundation for a model that favored a defensive-offense style of gameplay. In a very smart design move low level thugs require little effort for Raiden to dispatch, but as the game ramps up more enemies are introduced that require the particular flavor of directional parry that Revengeance adopted which forced you to attack into your opponents attack in order to interrupt it and engage the signature slow motion free-form cutting. This gradual on-ramp for players is smart as it both helps create a power fantasy from the very start but also makes sure it introduces what will become a necessity in late-game combat at a manageable pace. Even so, one of the first real bosses - a mechanized wolf - proved to be quite a wall for many players. At the time of release I myself spent quite a bit of time trying to best "Blade Wolf" using the elusive parry against its flurry of attacks that thanks to the games rather clunky camera would often come at you off-screen. I recall Rising being challenging even on the normal difficulty but certainly not insurmountable even for a rather middling character action player that I am. So it is very curious that so many years later and after having played and finished Sekiro, I came back to Revengeance over the weekend and was able to easily blow past 3/4 of the story and bosses without much trouble. In fact a lot of Rising seems rather tame in how forgiving the combat is compared to a game like Sekiro or even Jedi Fallen Order. Bosses have checkpoints past certain phases and you are liberally showered with healing items throughout most pivotal encounters. It seems very interesting to see this change of pace where the parry is no longer an exotic concept but has over the years become a common staple of most action titles - one that a lot of being are organically become quite accustomed to.
Another curiosity is that my own desire to revisit the title has coincidentally ..well.. coincided with a resurgence in the games popularity thanks to, what else, but memes.
Although it is almost 10 years old, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is seeing numbers it hasn’t seen since launch.
— PlayTracker (@PlayTrackerNet) May 23, 2022
📈 concurrent players up 1000%
🏆 peak in achievement activity across all platforms
The cause? Various meme templates featuring characters from the game went viral. pic.twitter.com/Ey6FmYAXJp
So if you never checked this game out in the past there has never been a better time to play Metal Gear Rising. It's relatively cheap and on PC offers a silky smooth gameplay that was not always the case back when it released on the PS3/X360.
In the wise words of Jack the Ripper "let 'er rip!"
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