Delta impressions thread

[starschwar]

I made it past the battle with The Pain.

While I still find myself tripped up by muscle memory and the uncanny feeling of the game being a hybrid of both 3 and 5, I am having fun. I think there needed to be just a bit more polish in the gameplay mechanics. Holdups need to be a very, very specific distance to work that may have made sense with the original controls, but feel entirely arbitrary with the new style aiming and movement. The new CQC animations kick ass, but sometimes I miss the uncomplicated precision of the original. Enemy stun duration seems faster than it used to be. Since I'm hunting GAKOS and Kerotans, I might just opt for more lethality going forward.

Crouch walking is nice to have, but useless considering how 'noisy' it is when not using stalking mode. Enemy vision and AI is so much tougher from the original that camo is almost useless unless you're crawling or pressed flat against a wall.

Thanks to the modernized way combat works - especially third person aiming - alerts are almost a breeze now. Some well-placed semi-auto fire from an AK and most situations can be resolved easily.

Something I adore is the effort to improve MGS3's biggest flaw: too much clicking around in menus. Shortcuts for radio, context sensitive prompts for quick access to cure and backpack menus when it makes sense, and especially the quicklist of camo swaps are all great. Being able to sort food and camo in different ways - so convenient! The cure, backpack, and camo menus themselves have been streamlined and make more sense.

I need to spend more time with it - at least get to the ending - before I fully weigh in. As it stands, this is a beautiful version of MGS3 that offers a lot of improvements over the original/subsistence/HD collection versions. However, with the identity crisis of how actually interacting with the game feels - both weighed down by the "rules" of the original while simultaneously trying to give it some Phantom Pain levels of modernization I'm hesitant to say this is the definitive version just yet. Again, this isn't a Twin Snakes / Star Wars Special Edition scenario where the bad overshadows the good. But this isn't quite there yet.

One last word on performance: my heart goes out to anybody who is struggling to get the frame rate right, and the game probably should not have released in this state. On PC, ultra settings (Native DLSS), 1080p, I'm getting nearly perfect 60 FPS, with the occasional drop to the upper 50s. I've seen reports of people with better GPUs than mine getting worse performance, so I can only assume that it's a complete package - CPU, RAM, SSD access - everything's probably playing a role in potential bottle necks. I'm fortunate enough to say that my personal experience is running far better than the PS2 versions (often sub-30), the PS3 HD collection version (usually 60 with some slowdown), but not as good as Master Collection on my own setup.

[black king]

Bought Delta for myself as an early birthday present. Just finished the virtual virtuous mission. I do like it but it is taking some getting used to the controls and camera. I'll play more and let you know.

[Rising Shine]

Now that i played a good portion(Start to one area away from The End bossfight), loving it so far <3

[Aragorn]

I've gotten past Virtuous Mission.

This game's biggest advantage, and disadvantage is that it's Snake Eater.

I'll still stand by what I said in that this is the definitive version to enjoy the game. It is 1:1 in every way except in its controls and visuals; and these are day and night improvements over the original. You can still use the original control scheme and colour grading too if you like; so the experience is intact no matter which side of the fence you're on.

The disadvantage comes in the fact that since it's such a close replica to the original experience; there are a lot of areas that could have been improved but weren't. I understand Konami wanted to minimize backlash and inherent rejection because uwu kojima-san uwu isn't working on it or whatever; but Snake Eater was an imperfect game and these same issues still carry over here.

It's still so incredibly menu heavy. You spend so much time in menus between inventory management, cures and constantly flipping camos. The way levels are broken up by the black screen transitions could have been removed for a more seamless experience. The original VO has some charm to it; but rerecording lines would have added a lot to the experience since the direction is still a little spotty.

The game could have leverages the leaps and bounds in technology to change some of these core aspects. The camo system could have been revisited, same with the survival mechanics.

[big fake]

Kept you waiting huh?


Replayed the OG via PCSX2 recently, want to give a bit of a break before I dive into it again, price is also a doosy to be homest.

[Webbie2689]

I was excited when I first heard they were working on this, but knowing Kojima wasn't involved had me a bit skeptical and then seeing the first bit of gameplay that they dropped kinda caused me to lose interest and I didn't even really plan on buying the game at that point. Now, from what I've seen since the official release, I've completely changed my mind and realized I'll need to at least complete a playthrough at some point whenever I get settled in somewhere and can buy a PS5 and enjoy gaming again.

[Dirty Duck]

I was excited when I first heard they were working on this, but knowing Kojima wasn't involved had me a bit skeptical and then seeing the first bit of gameplay that they dropped kinda caused me to lose interest and I didn't even really plan on buying the game at that point. Now, from what I've seen since the official release, I've completely changed my mind and realized I'll need to at least complete a playthrough at some point whenever I get settled in somewhere and can buy a PS5 and enjoy gaming again.

What that you saw made you change your mind? Weirdly for me it was Fox Hunt. It just gave the impression that they were trying their best to give a new experience to fans for non-nefarious means in an area that, by rights, nobody expected them to do anything with.

That and I love GA-KO 🥰

[starschwar]

I was excited when I first heard they were working on this, but knowing Kojima wasn't involved had me a bit skeptical and then seeing the first bit of gameplay that they dropped kinda caused me to lose interest and I didn't even really plan on buying the game at that point. Now, from what I've seen since the official release, I've completely changed my mind and realized I'll need to at least complete a playthrough at some point whenever I get settled in somewhere and can buy a PS5 and enjoy gaming again.

Because performance is considered poor on consoles (apparently the PS5 Pro has a lower framerate than base PS5?!), I would recommend on waiting to see if Konami does some serious patching first.  I got a PS3 for MGS4 and it served me very well for numerous other things in the years that followed - absolutely worth it.

Having spent a decent amount of time with the game on PC - I'm on my way to Granin's lab - I cannot say that I would recommend buying a new system to play just Delta.   And for the same money, you could probably get a PC that might run the game better than a console, possibly.   Whatever hardware you do decide to invest in, please make sure it has enough of a library to justify that kind of investment.   Delta is a good game - but it's still mostly a fresh coat of paint and some other polish applied to the same game you've had access to for over twenty years.

[Webbie2689]

I was excited when I first heard they were working on this, but knowing Kojima wasn't involved had me a bit skeptical and then seeing the first bit of gameplay that they dropped kinda caused me to lose interest and I didn't even really plan on buying the game at that point. Now, from what I've seen since the official release, I've completely changed my mind and realized I'll need to at least complete a playthrough at some point whenever I get settled in somewhere and can buy a PS5 and enjoy gaming again.

What that you saw made you change your mind? Weirdly for me it was Fox Hunt. It just gave the impression that they were trying their best to give a new experience to fans for non-nefarious means in an area that, by rights, nobody expected them to do anything with.

That and I love GA-KO 🥰

I actually just had to look up Fox Hunt because I was just in boot camp when it was announced and I had heard about it but had no idea what it was, and honestly it looks like it could be fun af and just adds to my desire to play the game.

For me, despite all the problems people are talking about with the game's performance, just seeing it, seeing how pretty it looks, seeing how smoothly it appears to play (at least to me), and being reminded of how much I loved the original was really all it took for me to change my mind and want to play it. I know that's not much of a reason, but it was enough for me. MGS games have always been my favorite to play by far, and I've wanted something like this, an updated and re-polished version of any of the first 3 MGS games for so long, that it really wasn't gonna take much to sell me on it in the first place. The nostalgia alone is big for me with these games.

Some of the other complaints I'm seeing about the game is that it's exactly like the original and Konami didn't change anything, yet that's something I'm actually happy about. I'm sure when I play it I'll find a few things I wish they had updated or improved, but keeping it mostly the same is what I was hoping for personally. I basically just want the same game with more modern graphics and gameplay.

I was excited when I first heard they were working on this, but knowing Kojima wasn't involved had me a bit skeptical and then seeing the first bit of gameplay that they dropped kinda caused me to lose interest and I didn't even really plan on buying the game at that point. Now, from what I've seen since the official release, I've completely changed my mind and realized I'll need to at least complete a playthrough at some point whenever I get settled in somewhere and can buy a PS5 and enjoy gaming again.

Because performance is considered poor on consoles (apparently the PS5 Pro has a lower framerate than base PS5?!), I would recommend on waiting to see if Konami does some serious patching first.  I got a PS3 for MGS4 and it served me very well for numerous other things in the years that followed - absolutely worth it.

Having spent a decent amount of time with the game on PC - I'm on my way to Granin's lab - I cannot say that I would recommend buying a new system to play just Delta.   And for the same money, you could probably get a PC that might run the game better than a console, possibly.   Whatever hardware you do decide to invest in, please make sure it has enough of a library to justify that kind of investment.   Delta is a good game - but it's still mostly a fresh coat of paint and some other polish applied to the same game you've had access to for over twenty years.

Oh I won't be buying a console strictly for Delta. DS2 is the biggest reason I want a console right now, and there's a few others I'd really like to check out, such as Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, potentially Ghost of Yotei and maybe AC: Shadows eventually.

Also, waiting won't be an issue. It'll be a while before I get a console, if I do. I just finished Navy boot camp and am currently in San Diego at my A/tech school about to start learning the job I'll be doing for the Navy, not to mention having a wedding like 99% of the way planned for November 1st, so needless to say gaming has been put on the back burner for a bit.

As far as PCs go, I've just never been a PC gamer. I'm a big PlayStation guy. I appreciate the advice, though. Are you an original from MGSF using a different name these days? Wondering if you're someone I'd know from the old forums.

[starschwar]

Best of luck to you.

I was on the old forums at some point, with this handle, summoned back via e-mail. I probably didn't post too often? I honestly cannot remember. The years have not been kind to my memory.


That said, I think I may walk back my "It's not a Twin Snakes" comments. On Normal difficulty, I've been able to Stamina-defeat Ocelot, The Pain, and The Fear, without having to use continues or LF Meds once. Sure, I have the advantage of experience, but the movement and shooting controls... I think they might actually be too good for their own good. The biggest challenge I had so far was holding up a guard with a film reel in the warehouse stairs (resorted to a fake death pill).