Revengence

In thirty days or your money back!

If there's one topic that does tend to grace this blog quite a bit, albeit rarely in the 'centre stage' manner, it's that of the 'auteur' and their special brand of work which only they quiet get. It's this illusion of a story or ongoing narrative which seems so woven and strange that one cannot just supplant the original mastermind behind it all or everything will simply fall apart, and it's something that I find myself conflicted on. In some ways the person who created the story originally bought out a bit of their own heart and soul to bring that thing into life, which one could argue is irreplaceable, although that's never stopped anyone else from putting in their two cents before. And to be honest, usually the best stories are the ones formed of a melting pot of different perspectives and life experiences. However, we usually to see auteurs as some sort of holy exception to this rule and thus have a tendency to automatically diminish any work within the role which isn't directly connected to them. Take Hidetaka Miyazaki of the Souls series, for example; his work is cherished for birthing a whole new genre and handling videogame storytelling in a unique manner to practically every other style of game on the market. Yet Dark Souls 2, the only one not be directed by him so far, has suffered considerable backlash for its very existence and the gall it has to try and add upon his story. (As well as a series of legitimate criticisms such as that mess of a hitbox.)

First I'm going to throw a predictable spanner in these works; I don't believe in a story that can't be adequately attributed to by other people. Sometimes what you really need is a whole new look at things to uncover a quality about the narrative that you never saw coming, or in terms of gaming, a whole new approach to make you realise that your favourite series was more versatile than you imagined. And in the vein of proving that, I want to take you all back to one of my favourite surprise games that pulled off just that in one of the favourite series' ever. Yes, once upon a time there was a Metal Gear game that Kojima himself did not get to direct, and I'm not talking about Metal Gear Survive because... yeah, that game sucked... No, instead I'm talking about a little title out of the lunatics over in Platinum Games which bore a curious deviation to the series stable naming structure alongside a long redundant word as its suffix. I'm talking about: Metal Gear Rising: Revengence.

Now to understand the sort of expectation around this 2013 game, you must first understand that Revengence was the first Metal Gear game to follow the modern day setting for 5 years. (With the Naked Snake following: 'Peace Walker' coming out inbetween.) This means we had here a game that was set to follow the apparent 'last game in the franchise', Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, promising to continue a solid-shut storyline regarding the commercialisation of warfare and the manner in which human suffering has turned into a profit-driven industry. Also, the 'Rising' tag was meant to symbolise that this time players wouldn't be controlling series-beloved protagonist Snake (indeed, they probably couldn't, given the year in which this was set) but instead Raiden. Butt of the joke, Raiden. The man who, famously, was introduced to the series in a bait-n-switch which upset just about everyone. (At least among the Western fanbase. Can't speak for the East) This was the man destined to be our protagonist in this monumental series continuation? Please...

But those many who wrote this off on the anime-face of the protagonist alone were casting great underestimation on Platinum games and the potential they contained, because they knew exactly what to do in order to correct this age old wrong. Raiden was critiqued for lacking the presence and richness of Snake, looking like a K-pop Star, constantly having inane dialogue with his annoying girlfriend Rose, and just not being a very decent replacement for Snake. Immediately Platinum identified these issues. Rose is annoying? She's gone. (Okay, to be fair I think that was done in MGS4 but Platinum knew she wasn't worth more than a half-hearted mention) He isn't cool? drastically shift his tone dynamically right at the beginning of the story. He looks like a prissy boyband member? Turn him into one of the most badass Cyborg ninjas to grace the video game space since Grey Fox himself. (Heavy cybernetics always make everything better. Ain't that right, Cyberpunk 2077?)

Right from the getgo Platinum games proved they could do something that Kojima couldn't; they took a character that had failed to land with audiences and transmuted him into someone objectively more interesting. The first mission had happy-go-lucky mercenary Raiden (Whom MGS4 had already established as a Ninja assassin by this point) come up against a band of international cyber-terrorists not unlike the crew from 'Deus Ex: Human Revolutions'. (Do I detect a hint of inspiration?) In this fighting he is beaten down and defeated in a manner most befitting any half-decent anime protagonist; yes, he loses his arm. (And gets cut-up pretty bad, but the most anime thing is the arm loss) This marks a change in Raiden's character to a lot more of a gruff, pessimistic, leading man who still retained the cockiness that differentiates him from his more sneaky counter-part. And all of that is just the character work, bare in mind how Platinum evolved the gameplay too.

Metal Gear is a name synonymous with stealth, due to the way in which the franchise resulted in great strides for the medium, but Platinum were a studio who specialised in beat-em-up action, so how could they reliably pull off a Metal Gear game without looking like pale imitators? By completely changing up the formula and largely discarding the stealth (except for in small gimmicky and forgettable optional moments) in favour of bringing a hack-and-slash edge to the game which Platinum committed to entirely. With Raiden at the helm, Platinum created a new trademark to sell their game under in their 'cut anything' system, wherein players could manually control their sword through use of the analog and cut away in any which way they so please. This combined with an engine that could procedurally generate the results of these cuts in such a way that enemies could be literally sliced into chunks, and often were, throughout of the course of the action.

So a traditionally slow-paced stealth action series exploded into gory and loud action which completely committed to spectacle in all the most admirable ways. Heck, the first mission's final boss is the Metal Gear final boss from MGS 2, Metal Gear Ray. As if to directly reference the difference in scale this game's action wanted to present, the player is tasked with fighting one-on-one with Metal Gear Ray in a fight that will take from a rooftop across an entire street and up the side of a clock tower before you literally slice the machine in half with your sword. That is Metal Gear Rising, and it only grows in scale and/or spectacle from there. This game implemented a strong and effortless sword combat system, awesomesome-ly over-the-top bossfights, great and challenging enemy variety and, let is not be forgotten, a robot pet dog. Love the robot dog.

Metal Gear Rising Revengence is a absolute gem from Platinum games that doesn't get talked about enough, and honestly it's a shame that we haven't seen a sequel since because this title alone proved how big and wide-reaching the Metal Gear franchise could be. Even with everything traditionally 'Metal Gear' stripped from the title, (including the series' famed director) the series is still unmistakable in this game's very soul and nothing feels hackneyed. Since then I've, of course, come to realise what a truly special studio Platinum games is, and what a great result one can see when a fresh team of developers get their hands on something ostensibly immutable. Am I saying that we need a turn-based JRPG version of Dark Souls? No, (But then 'Like a Dragon' does seems to be getting well received…) just that it helps to keep an open mind for what could turn into a great, and unexpected surprise. Also, play MGR Revengence. It'll impress you by some degree, I promise.