23-10-2025, 01:02 AM
I recently played through METAL GEAR AC!D for the first time. I thought I'd type up some of my thoughts since this site is currently devoid of any AC!D talk. I owned it when I was a kid and played some but frankly didn't get it. Fast forward however many years and I am now an adult who loves Fire Emblem and so I actually got it this time. That being said, as any of you who have played it at all know, it's not as simple as just a tactical RPG. The game is also a deck-builder which can both fuck you over and bless you. The cards are largely themed around other Metal Gear games which is neat, with many of them having abilities based on characters or weapons throughout the series.
GAMEPLAY
I found MGA's gameplay to be very effective. Due to the random nature of the cards you are constantly reassessing what you should do based on the hand at your disposal. Partnered with the (mostly) turn based nature every round can feel like a rush against the clock to execute your plan before the enemy can get in the way. Each card and action has an added COST that correlates to its power meaning it's not just a case of using the best cards as soon as they come up-the more you do the more time after your turn the enemy has to spot you or stop you. Sometimes it's best to do less and let the guards rack up a higher COST of their own.
In a strange way Acid is the originator of the deployment system seen in Peace Walker and MGSV. You can buy card packs and individual cards to bolster your collection and edit your deck in-between stages. This is vital as certain sections of the game need you to have certain cards equipped. This is one area where the game loses some points as you often aren’t aware of which equipment is needed. Obviously for secrets and collectables this is fine, but there are stages where a NIKITA is needed for instance and you won’t be aware until you’ve loaded in. A small briefing before deployment to let you know the most important equipment wouldn’t have gone amiss. I deployed against Metal Gear with nothing but non-lethal weapons, for instance. Imagine if Snake tried that in MGS1?
There was an option to automatically generate the ‘best’ deck possible which perhaps would include adding any necessary equipment for the next stage but I never used this so I’m unaware if that’s what it does.
The boss battles all stood out from one another and did manage to mix up the mechanics. Though really there are only three bosses-Leone, La Clown, and Metal Gear KODOQUE. You fight the former two twice but the fights are differentiated (La Clown's more so). All the fights require good use of the game's team dynamic to win. Leone's for instance has one character draw him away with noise as he can only be damaged from behind. La Clown's second fight somewhat falls apart mechanically-story wise you're meant to be unaware of which target is her but since you can see how much life and equipment enemies have you can easily figure out which one is her. I couldn't quite tell if this was an oversight or if it was just a moment of ludonarrative dissonance and you were always meant to know which one she was. In the end it was probably one of the weaker boss fights in the game despite the fact Leone's second fight was much the same as the first but with some enemy soldiers and new moves thrown in. The Metal Gear boss fight separates your characters and has one sabotaging the mech from inside and the other fighting it from outside. It was a cool setup and made the fight feel suitably desperate as both characters did everything they could to take it down.
One critique is that the game isn't very easy to do non-lethally. There's only a handful of non-lethal cards with even CQC and the Mosin-Nagant being lethal in this game. The game does encourage non-lethal play as you are rewarded with cards for completing missions without any kills, but in execution your options are quite limited. Still, it does feel rewarding when things fall into place and you do manage to get through without resorting to lethal force.
STORY
The game’s continuity is completely divorced from the main MGS canon and in all honesty it really works. Solid Snake is the only familiar character. New accompanying characters include: Roger, a not-Campbell who works for the CIA and is Snake's codec contact, Alice, a young girl with PSI who assists Snake with her abilities, and Teliko, the last remaining operative from the squad sent in to infiltrate prior to Snake. They all fill their roles effectively enough and are well designed. Alice was the highlight for me. Her and Snake butt heads a bit and it does a lot for Snake's early characterisation.
The setup isn't too dissimilar to other Metal Gear games: Terrorists have hijacked a plane on which the likely candidate for the next president of the USA is a passenger. Their demands are a research project being conducted on foreign soil and Snake has to infiltrate the lab to obtain it and avert a disaster. For most of the game I found the story really compelling! Things were being set up and distrust was being sown amongst characters with some interesting reveals and plot developments unfolding. Unfortunately, I found it all kind of fell apart in the final act. This may be because I thought I’d figured out what was going on and in some ways preferred the version in my head to what ended up going down, but even with that aside the finale feels very rushed and as if stuff sort of just…happens to wrap the story up. There is no satisfying conclusion to the story's many threads despite attempts at resolutions throughout. It almost feels like the story shied away at the final hurdle which was very underwhelming.
PRESENTATION
I think the game has a lot of style! While it's character models make use of MGS2's as a base they get the job done well enough and the art is very distinct from Shinkawa's or Wood's rendering of characters which helps give AC!D its own identity. The designs throughout are well done. Snake's is just different enough from MGS to differentiate, looking like MGS1 and MGS2 Snake were mashed together. Teliko's design has a lot to love with her camouflaged chaps and big puffy sleeves but I do feel it's held back by the thonged bodysuit being a bit much and wish she just had a sneaking suit base instead.
The UI, graphics, and sound design throughout help make the game feel exciting when in reality the action is quite slow-moving, with a lot of pizzaz being injected through visuals and jingles when triggering card effects or completing a mission. When triggering a character card a short clip of said character will play along with a song snippet from their game of origin. This is cool at first but I found I was skipping this every time after a while as it just served to slow down the pace of things in a game that can already feel a little sluggish. The graphic design itself almost evokes the Designer's Republic: lots of block colours, bold text with smaller fine print dotted around, and basic shapes intermingling. It works really well and contributes to the game's cool yet functional feel.
The music hits. The whole soundtrack is great but the alert theme is one of the best in the franchise and Alice's theme has this eery quality to it that I find so cool, just to highlight a few: Alert Theme, Alice's Theme.
One thing I found a bit strange were the card pack "adverts" that played upon a new type of pack becoming available. Made to feel like a shopping channel advert or something it just felt a little left field when stacked against the rest of the game's vibe. But I suppose it's no weirder than MGS4's install shows.
I didn't collect anywhere near all of the cards in the game and with many cards being complete game changers there's a lot of replayability. The game does have an AD-HOC mode called Link Battle that I didn't get to try for obvious reasons where you face off against another player and try to collect items on the map without being spotted by your opponent. This would be a great chance to flex your rare cards to another human and it's a shame that it's not something I'm likely to be able to do in this day and age as I'm sure it would be a real motivator for going back to the game and trying to collect as many cards as I can the same way MPO's multiplayer motivated me to find great soldiers to show off. Maybe one day we can all spoof AD-HOC lobbies on our PSPs to give it a go...right guys?....right?
Overall Metal Gear Acid is an incredibly unique spin-off that adapts the series' stealth gameplay and feel really well. I had a lot of fun playing it and felt it never let its loop go stale, frequently throwing something into a map to mix it up just enough to keep things fresh. If the story went anywhere instead of just backtracking on itself it could have been a great blend of classic MGS tropes and its own new thing, but as it stands I'd say it's the biggest mark against Acid. It definitely has some teething problems and elements that were a bit clunky and awkward but for the first Metal Gear entry on PSP I feel it was very strong and really fit the system and its aesthetic to a tee...maybe even more than Portable Ops-if only because of Acid's bolder design choices. I can't imagine a franchise as big as MGS making a tactical RPG deck-builder spin-off today. I do miss the era where these stranger spin-offs were more prevalent. It's sad how even by the time of the Vita this sort of thing was so much rarer; I always lamented the never-realised BioShock Vita game that Levine described as a "Final Fantasy Tactics style thing set in pre-fall Rapture." Give us BIOSHOCK AC!D, coward!
Regardless, it's super cool that we got two of these games. Acid² is supposed to trump Acid in every way, I started it immediately after finishing Acid and it seems to have taken quite a departure visually and added a lot gameplay wise. I'm super excited to play more of it.
This post may have ended up a bit rambley but I wanted to put down what I thought about Acid and hopefully get some discussion started. What did you guys think of Acid if you played it back in the day? And if you didn't, do you think you'll check it out at some point? Will you rise to the challenge of the inevitable MGF-MGA Ad-Hoc Link Battle global tournament hosted at your local pizza parlour after school?
GAMEPLAY
I found MGA's gameplay to be very effective. Due to the random nature of the cards you are constantly reassessing what you should do based on the hand at your disposal. Partnered with the (mostly) turn based nature every round can feel like a rush against the clock to execute your plan before the enemy can get in the way. Each card and action has an added COST that correlates to its power meaning it's not just a case of using the best cards as soon as they come up-the more you do the more time after your turn the enemy has to spot you or stop you. Sometimes it's best to do less and let the guards rack up a higher COST of their own.
In a strange way Acid is the originator of the deployment system seen in Peace Walker and MGSV. You can buy card packs and individual cards to bolster your collection and edit your deck in-between stages. This is vital as certain sections of the game need you to have certain cards equipped. This is one area where the game loses some points as you often aren’t aware of which equipment is needed. Obviously for secrets and collectables this is fine, but there are stages where a NIKITA is needed for instance and you won’t be aware until you’ve loaded in. A small briefing before deployment to let you know the most important equipment wouldn’t have gone amiss. I deployed against Metal Gear with nothing but non-lethal weapons, for instance. Imagine if Snake tried that in MGS1?
There was an option to automatically generate the ‘best’ deck possible which perhaps would include adding any necessary equipment for the next stage but I never used this so I’m unaware if that’s what it does.
The boss battles all stood out from one another and did manage to mix up the mechanics. Though really there are only three bosses-Leone, La Clown, and Metal Gear KODOQUE. You fight the former two twice but the fights are differentiated (La Clown's more so). All the fights require good use of the game's team dynamic to win. Leone's for instance has one character draw him away with noise as he can only be damaged from behind. La Clown's second fight somewhat falls apart mechanically-story wise you're meant to be unaware of which target is her but since you can see how much life and equipment enemies have you can easily figure out which one is her. I couldn't quite tell if this was an oversight or if it was just a moment of ludonarrative dissonance and you were always meant to know which one she was. In the end it was probably one of the weaker boss fights in the game despite the fact Leone's second fight was much the same as the first but with some enemy soldiers and new moves thrown in. The Metal Gear boss fight separates your characters and has one sabotaging the mech from inside and the other fighting it from outside. It was a cool setup and made the fight feel suitably desperate as both characters did everything they could to take it down.
One critique is that the game isn't very easy to do non-lethally. There's only a handful of non-lethal cards with even CQC and the Mosin-Nagant being lethal in this game. The game does encourage non-lethal play as you are rewarded with cards for completing missions without any kills, but in execution your options are quite limited. Still, it does feel rewarding when things fall into place and you do manage to get through without resorting to lethal force.
STORY
The game’s continuity is completely divorced from the main MGS canon and in all honesty it really works. Solid Snake is the only familiar character. New accompanying characters include: Roger, a not-Campbell who works for the CIA and is Snake's codec contact, Alice, a young girl with PSI who assists Snake with her abilities, and Teliko, the last remaining operative from the squad sent in to infiltrate prior to Snake. They all fill their roles effectively enough and are well designed. Alice was the highlight for me. Her and Snake butt heads a bit and it does a lot for Snake's early characterisation.
The setup isn't too dissimilar to other Metal Gear games: Terrorists have hijacked a plane on which the likely candidate for the next president of the USA is a passenger. Their demands are a research project being conducted on foreign soil and Snake has to infiltrate the lab to obtain it and avert a disaster. For most of the game I found the story really compelling! Things were being set up and distrust was being sown amongst characters with some interesting reveals and plot developments unfolding. Unfortunately, I found it all kind of fell apart in the final act. This may be because I thought I’d figured out what was going on and in some ways preferred the version in my head to what ended up going down, but even with that aside the finale feels very rushed and as if stuff sort of just…happens to wrap the story up. There is no satisfying conclusion to the story's many threads despite attempts at resolutions throughout. It almost feels like the story shied away at the final hurdle which was very underwhelming.
PRESENTATION
I think the game has a lot of style! While it's character models make use of MGS2's as a base they get the job done well enough and the art is very distinct from Shinkawa's or Wood's rendering of characters which helps give AC!D its own identity. The designs throughout are well done. Snake's is just different enough from MGS to differentiate, looking like MGS1 and MGS2 Snake were mashed together. Teliko's design has a lot to love with her camouflaged chaps and big puffy sleeves but I do feel it's held back by the thonged bodysuit being a bit much and wish she just had a sneaking suit base instead.
The UI, graphics, and sound design throughout help make the game feel exciting when in reality the action is quite slow-moving, with a lot of pizzaz being injected through visuals and jingles when triggering card effects or completing a mission. When triggering a character card a short clip of said character will play along with a song snippet from their game of origin. This is cool at first but I found I was skipping this every time after a while as it just served to slow down the pace of things in a game that can already feel a little sluggish. The graphic design itself almost evokes the Designer's Republic: lots of block colours, bold text with smaller fine print dotted around, and basic shapes intermingling. It works really well and contributes to the game's cool yet functional feel.
The music hits. The whole soundtrack is great but the alert theme is one of the best in the franchise and Alice's theme has this eery quality to it that I find so cool, just to highlight a few: Alert Theme, Alice's Theme.
One thing I found a bit strange were the card pack "adverts" that played upon a new type of pack becoming available. Made to feel like a shopping channel advert or something it just felt a little left field when stacked against the rest of the game's vibe. But I suppose it's no weirder than MGS4's install shows.
I didn't collect anywhere near all of the cards in the game and with many cards being complete game changers there's a lot of replayability. The game does have an AD-HOC mode called Link Battle that I didn't get to try for obvious reasons where you face off against another player and try to collect items on the map without being spotted by your opponent. This would be a great chance to flex your rare cards to another human and it's a shame that it's not something I'm likely to be able to do in this day and age as I'm sure it would be a real motivator for going back to the game and trying to collect as many cards as I can the same way MPO's multiplayer motivated me to find great soldiers to show off. Maybe one day we can all spoof AD-HOC lobbies on our PSPs to give it a go...right guys?....right?
Overall Metal Gear Acid is an incredibly unique spin-off that adapts the series' stealth gameplay and feel really well. I had a lot of fun playing it and felt it never let its loop go stale, frequently throwing something into a map to mix it up just enough to keep things fresh. If the story went anywhere instead of just backtracking on itself it could have been a great blend of classic MGS tropes and its own new thing, but as it stands I'd say it's the biggest mark against Acid. It definitely has some teething problems and elements that were a bit clunky and awkward but for the first Metal Gear entry on PSP I feel it was very strong and really fit the system and its aesthetic to a tee...maybe even more than Portable Ops-if only because of Acid's bolder design choices. I can't imagine a franchise as big as MGS making a tactical RPG deck-builder spin-off today. I do miss the era where these stranger spin-offs were more prevalent. It's sad how even by the time of the Vita this sort of thing was so much rarer; I always lamented the never-realised BioShock Vita game that Levine described as a "Final Fantasy Tactics style thing set in pre-fall Rapture." Give us BIOSHOCK AC!D, coward!
Regardless, it's super cool that we got two of these games. Acid² is supposed to trump Acid in every way, I started it immediately after finishing Acid and it seems to have taken quite a departure visually and added a lot gameplay wise. I'm super excited to play more of it.
This post may have ended up a bit rambley but I wanted to put down what I thought about Acid and hopefully get some discussion started. What did you guys think of Acid if you played it back in the day? And if you didn't, do you think you'll check it out at some point? Will you rise to the challenge of the inevitable MGF-MGA Ad-Hoc Link Battle global tournament hosted at your local pizza parlour after school?
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