"The story, and more importantly the spectacle, is certainly unique and has that signature Metal Gear craziness."

Personally, I think the brand of craziness in Revengeance is largly different from what you get in MGS. It's more "look-at-this-funny-clown" crazy than "watch-this-long-self-serious-cutscene" crazy.

Despite your gripes about some of the gameplay elements, I actually thought the gameplay was the best part of this game by a mile; whereas I didn't much like anything else about it (especially the music). But it had me wishing that it wasn't a Metal Gear game and was just it's own thing. Similarly to how I wish AC4 wasn't an AC game. They should have just called it "Bayonetta: Featuring Swords".

I don't want to go nit-picking every part of this blog based on personal differences so I'm going to sum up my thoughts in one sentence:

MGR was awesome (gameplay, story, characters and soundtrack, the entire thing basically), Bayonetta was awesome, the DMC games were awesome, DmC is not awesome.

@kasaioni: oh yeah the music. I totally forgot. The music was awful. I might have been indifferent about just the instrumentals, but when the vocals kick in it's just terrible.

@tarfuin: It fits the tone of the game perfectly. It's basically power ranges music. It's loud, hard, and stupid.

Revengeance has one of the best video game soundtracks ever for an action game because of that.

Revengeance is by far the best Metal Gear game.

Revengance is fantastic although it doesn't explain much to begin with, once you get the hang of it though it's a blast

Yes yes yes. No shame in admitting that I keep that album in my exercise playlist.

Revengeance is fantastic and did not get its proper due back when it was released. The boss fights in particular were very well done and the ending chapter includes the story line beat that turns out to be one of my favorite swerves followed up by one of my favorite series of boss fights in video games.

Rising is a constant stream of really great dumb stuff, but because of that it loses all impact very quickly. Once the spectacle is gone, you're left with a shallow husk of a story and lifeless, uninspired characters spouting dialogue that's occasionally even worse than the worst stuff in Metal Gear (okay, maybe not as bad as "They're pecking at my flesh, and my soul").

So you could say I didn't enjoy most of it.

I don't understand how anyone could not love MGR after playing that last hour. The places that the story goes and how it goes about presenting them is completely captivating. Great game with great combat, great music, great characters, great boss fights and without a doubt one of my favorite ending sequences in a game ever.

I played Revengeance and DmC pretty much back to back, and I liked DmC a hell of a lot more than Revengeance. Revengeance was fine other than the last boss fight which smelt of cheese, and they made some stuff look pretty stupid and cool.

The parry timing is pretty consistent and intuitive for me, maybe it had something to do with TV latency or something?

@frostyryan: The vibe I always get from Revengeance's soundtrack is "Evanescence remix". So you're right, the soundtrack does fit the game well tonally.

There's some great stupid stuff in MGR, but a lot of the story and characters are pretty terrible. It has some fun villains, but mostly the story is pretty bleh.

But the parry timing being tight is what makes it so good, especially on the highest difficulties, where the window is smaller and the punishment for failure is way higher. It's because it is demanding that it ends up being more exhilarating and more satisfying to actually achieve something. Ignoring any of the trimmings and the lack of polish due to Platinum not having as much time as they probably needed, it's a really rewarding game to play well.

The main bad guy, or the guy I assumed was the main bad guy is completely uninteresting to me and feels really poorly imagined. He looks less like a murderous force and more like a drunk 45-year-old from your softball team that found a combat suit and decided to try it on. You fight him at one point in the game and he gets away, setting the stage for him to reappear in the final battle.......except he doesn't. That's the last you see of him. The actual end boss kind of just drops into the story out of nowhere near the end.

I'm not really sure what you're talking about here. I guess you're talking about Sundowner? But you don't fight him at all until later in the game, and he does not get away. There's the prologue fight against Jetstream Sam that is left unfinished, but that's also resolved later.

Also, I'm not sure if there are any Zandatsu sequences anywhere in the game that are instant fail. The ones against Armstrong definitely aren't, you just take damage. I know this because of a bug I get sometimes in that fight (PC version) where the camera snaps straight down on the ground when you activate blade mode and you don't have anywhere near enough time to reposition it on the harder difficulties.

Certainly, MGR is a flawed game, so I'm not really surprised when people don't like it, but when you're playing on the harder difficulties and you're in constant danger but you're in the zone, it really comes alive and I love it.

Do play Bayonetta though. It's the pinnacle of the genre, as far as I'm concerned. Avoid the PS3 version if possible, the game is so good that it really deserves to be played optimally.

@dudeglove:

I played on Normal then stepped up onto harder difficulties for a few "Don't take damage while fighting X boss" trophies. I never had much trouble with the Parry. Thing is, the Parry itself? That requires some good timing however if you are slightly off then you still pull off an effective block. Plus it's so satisfying once you master it and you get into big "parry duels" with the huge longsword mercs before slicing and dicing them effectively.

Still overall I really liked Revengeance, I liked how the story was designed to custom fit to Raiden's backstory while still having some small ties to the greater lore about the Patriots and the War Economy. The characters were by-and-large quite enjoyable I found. I especially liked Doktor as a good source of comic relief and fictional technical wizardry. The boss characters could be hit an miss at times but their FIGHTS are amazing. Honestly I loved the idea of Monsoon's fight so much, they better have another character implement that tech somewhere down the line. The soundtrack and gameplay were pretty excellent as well, with the soundtrack adjusting to support the gameplay. Just opened up the enemy's weakpoint? Time for some thrilling vocals to emphasis how you are DESTROYING this fool. It all just kind of worked for me. Amazingly it kept me interested in Metal Gear's 'World' and eager to know more. Though I suppose with Konami going to ground this franchise won't reappear the same again neither.

Biggest drawback for me was Raiden's "Jack the Ripper" moments, the dialogue just gets absurd at that point.

For the record I don't remember any instant-fail conditions in the last fight. I think maybe the things he throws at you can take off 100% health...but if you've been upgrading your health at all that's not an instant kill (you go beyond 100% health in this game). Then you've also got rations to keep you going anyway. Also...don't quote me on this as my memory is funny...while the game absolutely sets you up to cut those things into tiny pieces. I think you can just ignore that and ninja run underneath them at the start, avoiding the whole scene.

It's barely even a Metal Gear game... Not even close to being the best one.

I don't think I've ever read an impression of a game where I disagreed with every single point made (DmC can never hope to be as good as Revengeance), but saying that the music is awful is something that I vehemently disagree with.

I could list all the amazing boss fight tracks and talk about how the music changes with the boss phases until it climaxes with the vocals at the perfect moment, but I feel like it's something you either get or don't get. Revengeance is THE BEST when it comes to music enhancing a boss fight.

Actually, Sam Vs Blade Wolf is one of my favorite fights in the game so I'll leave this here. The song you love cuts into the scene with an additional treatment and the lyrics start IMMEDIATELY because Blade Wolf charges at you before you even gain control of Sam.

I've played through every main MGS game (aside from Portable Ops; couldn't get into it due to the PSP controls and other stuff), but I could never get into Revengeance. It's not important me. Also, Raiden's a cool character, he's always been an alright character to me, but as cool as Snake? Ehhh. Revengeance might be alright from a gameplay perspective if you're one to love slashing guys up, but for me, that's not really what I want out of Metal Gear Solid, and when I mean importance, I mean the story isn't important, so even though it is considered part of the canon, I don't care to get into it, nor do I think its required.

@golguin: Personally, I'm in the boat of thinking that the music totally fits the tone of the game and a lot of it absolutely elevates the impact of the action onscreen etc, but it's also really endearingly kind of terrible music. 'Rules Of Nature' sounds like something you'd find on a circa 2003 Midway Xbox game when they were in their music-videos-on-the-disc phase. I just imagine a scenario where 10 years ago, Psi-Ops 2 was being developed, but then it got canned and Konami just bought the music they had. I think of it very much as a guilty pleasure. But while it sounds like I'm being pretty harsh here, I totally get the songs stuck in my head from time to time.

If I had to guess, I would say that's maybe why some people have that opinion. Not being snarky or speaking for myself, because I love Metal Gear, but I can see that being appealing to some people.

@damodar:

Eh people need to stop thinking of it as part of the standard Metal Gear formula. It's clearly a spin off, hence it doesn't bear the "Solid" trademark. If you approach it as part of the Solid series, yeah you'll be disappointed because it's not trying to be that.

I love both the standard "Solid" games and the Rising game a lot but in different ways.

While people are talking about the music, I love Collective Consciousness most of all I think:

Live in Ignorance, and Purchase your happiness

With blood and sweat, it's the real cost!

Thinking ceases the truth is lost.

Don't you worry, you'll be told exactly what to do!

I give my people the lives they need.

The Righteous will succeed!

I could quite happily quote the rest of the song, the lyrics fit the villain so well at that point in time, it's perfect.

Wow, a lot of responses since I last checked yesterday. Thanks gang!

Maybe, I think my bigger problem was with the direction of it. They said you should press the stick "towards" the attack and press X. I never knew if that meant you press towards the enemy, or if they're swinging with their left hand you press left. On top of that the camera gets pretty messed on some of those fights and I felt like it wasn't even registering my attempt to parry sometimes. Nothing was more frustrating than trying to parry a boss, only to have Raidin weakly attack-step right into a kill-shot.

I had to double check to see who Sundowner even was, but yes, I was talking about him. I could be remembering wrong, but doesn't he hop on a helicopter after you fight him and get away? I actually really liked both encounters with Sam and Sam himself as a character. The parts with him were probably the highlight for me.

Overall, I love seeing the wild range of opinions on the game. Seems like we all agree that it has a lot of similarities to DmC and Bayonetta, and most of the disagreement is between which one of those each of us likes best!

It's basically this. I like how Revengeance seems completely aware its story is dumb bullshit instead of trying to get all deep and philosophical. Also I'm bad at stealth.

I loved Revengeance. I would rather play MGR: Revengeance 2 over MGS5.

Push the stick towards the enemy, not against the direction of the attack. But yeah, the camera in that game can get super jacked up sometimes. Unfortunately, you kind of have to learn to manage it.

Well you remember right that Sundowner hops on a helicopter while you're fighting, but what happens is that he shoots rockets at the roof where Raiden is, causing him to fall off the building. Raiden manages to mount one of those UGs with wings (I think they're called sliders) and flies into the building and then up it, cutting his way through the ceiling and flying back out to the rooftop, where he flings the slider at the helicopter, causing it to explode and launch Sundowner towards Raiden, who is flying towards Sundowner because of the momentum from his flight. Blade mode, chopped up Sundowner, Sam mocks him on the radio by asking if he cut himself shaving aaaand scene!

And yeah, Sam is a great. Definitely my favourite character in the game.

I liked the spectacle of Rising, its self-awareness and lack of smugness was refreshing, but the gameplay didn't make it for me. Parry spamming makes the gameplay a joke, until you encounter a boss, and the controls are not made for some of the finer stunts some bosses require.

The combat mechanics are definitely the weakest of the Platinum games of late...

@golguin: I don't understand why people think the music-changing during the fight is something so special. It's definitely nothing new to video games.

I remember pretty much hating everything about this game except the gameplay actually.

And I would agree with others that the music does fit the style well, Id also say the whole thing just rubs we wrong way though and the music annoyed me to hell and back.

I remember thinking at the time when playing it how unselfconscious the whole thing was and just honestly terrible in the story department....and that it wasn't nearly as crazy as people were making it out to be...

I Guess most people think its the exact other way around though haha ......maybe I should go back to it again.

I'd rather play DmC though, not toooooo crazy about that one either but its a fucking fine game, dont get all the hate honestly. Is it opposite day today or what?

I didn't like it. Sometimes I think about reinstalling it, but then I remember how much it annoyed me. I remember how stupid (story and cutscenes), shallow (action, action, action), grindy (enemy HP), bland (level design and music) and broken (camera) it is. This might be my first and last PG game.

@dudeglove: I think the reason people don't really talk about it is because it's seamless enough that it's probably easy to not consciously notice what's happening. I wouldn't be surprised if for a decent chunk of the audience, it greatly enhanced their enjoyment by elevating the action at the perfect moments, but without them ever really noticing that the game was doing all that. Which is probably the ideal situation, getting the effect of the trick without ever being aware that it's happening, like a god damn musical Keyser Soze.

I don't remember playing as Sam. How do you get to play as sam?

@ravelle: There were two DLC campaigns, one as Sam and one as Blade Wolf.

@damodar:

The Blade Wolf one was really disappointing though, except for the unique song for Khamsin's boss fight which is one of my favourite on the album.

@dudeglove: So I'm not saying this game didn't do a really good job of it, but that kind of thing has been in games since forever.

There's even a concept page for it on this site, dating all the way back to goddamn Space Invaders.

I completely missed that somehow.

It definitely wasn't as good as the Sam campaign (Sampaign?), but I did think it was interesting how it emphasised stealth in a way that the rest of the game never really did, even incorporating stealth into the Khamsin fight. I also liked the story it told, despite not finding Blade Wolf terribly interesting or well utilised in the broad story. I think Mistral is cool, so it was nice to get more of her character.

@damodar:

Yeah but man...you didn't get any of Wolf's especially cool moves, you essentially played like the computer controlled downgraded clones of him you fight later in the story.

And the story was paper thin, it was like downloadable extra trials at best. Sam's campaign now that was REAL dlc.

I didn't really learn how to parry, or at least use it effectively in combat until the boss fight with Jetstream Sam. This made most of the game not that fun to play and I'd just be trading blows with the tougher dudes. Coming back and playing some of the game again it was a whole new experience actually using the parry and some other moves the game doesn't do a good job of telling you about.

I only played it for an hour or two when I had it on PS3 but learned almost everything about it through forum chatter and videos. It easily makes my list of essential character action games to play along with (most of) the Devil May Cry games, Bayonetta and so on because the gameplay on on that higher level for me in terms of enjoyment. I honestly don't really care about it's common criticisms like "It's not a real Metal Gear game" or that "The story is completely absurd" because I go to character action games for the gameplay and I'm pretty accepting of absurdities in general.

I'll definitely get back into it on PC after an upgrade or two.