Delta impressions thread

[Rising Shine]

I used to think that morality was relative. Then I discovered that someone not only put a film can soldier in the Eva escort section, but one that resists holdups. Now I know that true evil exists in this world.

Yeah that one sucked. Someone in a Discord server gave me the tip too aim a RPG point black at him, that even makes the tougest guys look like Otacon's first meeting with Snake XD

[starschwar]

I used to think that morality was relative.  Then I discovered that someone not only put a film can soldier in the Eva escort section, but one that resists holdups.  Now I know that true evil exists in this world.

Yeah that one sucked. Someone in  a Discord server gave me the tip too aim a RPG point black at him, that even makes the tougest guys look like Otacon's first meeting with Snake XD

Nice!  I had no idea weapon selection affected their fear level.  Is that new?

One must wonder what the thought process is for someone in that situation.


"I know that if he fires, we're both gonna explode.  Is HE stupid enough to not know that?  I can't take the chance!"

[Dirty Duck]

Just beat The End and The Ladder. It never really occurred to me before just how close together a lot of the bosses in this game are. Not loads happening in between a lot of them but I suppose it is quite a short game really. Very unimpressed that they somehow managed to mess up the new version of Snake Eater being timed properly to the ladder climb. Like, how hard could that be?

I really enjoyed infiltrating Graniny Gorki. Was a nice change of pace using the scientist disguise to sneak around. Searching for the Kerotan and GA-KO is really resulting in me scouring these maps.

I'm still noticing a sort of choppiness at points and there's a fair amount of that modern game "pop in" where something is loaded in a murky part-rendered way and then when you get close enough it changes. Most noticeable with trees and facepaints.

[NateDog]

I remembered The Fear and End being close but I thought it was The Fear - Graniny Gorki - The End, and not GG - Fear - End. Need to get back to this but I'm unfortunately back to my long hours in work now so I'll be back to taking months to get through everything once again. At least I got DS2 and up to The End in this done without rushing myself.

[starschwar]

Finished up my first playthrough. I have a lot of mixed feelings about the gameplay, but with the Kerotans and Gakos out of the way, I think maybe I'll really properly get a feel for sneaking next time through. I noticed a lot of little things with the gameplay - small quirks and bugs that were always there, replicated. Stuff like being able to open the item menu during Volgin's interrogation for no reason. I'm only just realizing how much of this game is likely literally running on the original code in some capacity. That's probably why the credits list the original programmers, etc. I think that might explain why there's so many performance issues across the board. I think this is less of a remake so much as a new graphics engine and a bunch of modern features grafted onto twenty year old code, or perhaps the other way around.


I adore the presentation. Over twenty years later, that ending still brings a tear to my eye. However, "You are above even The Boss. I hereby award you the title of Big Boss." - that might be the single worst line of dialogue in the entire series.

I had unlocked enough Secret Theater stuff to see two of the three new ones. The first feels right in place with the originals, this new team has the right sense of humor. The second one - it's hilarious, and so very dark. There's a point where I realized what was about to happen and just could not stop laughing. This one is on par with the very best of the original batch! I really hope this feature returns for all future remakes. Screwing around with cutscenes and pre-existing dialogue to create beautiful nonsense is delightful.


While I tolerated the sentence splicing for tutorial dialogue, I noticed one that made it into an actual story line. When Volgin lists countries, "Australia" is now chopped to "Austria". I assume this was to correct a translation error. It's better than using an AI, but I can't help but wonder if getting the voice actor back would have been better. Twenty years can wreck havoc on vocal cords, no doubt. One thing's for sure: If they remake MGS1 again, the coma line invented by the English translation is going away once and for all.


It's too early for me to give a definitive review/grade. I should have really just done a "play it as though I were doing a casual run" approach rather than trying to collect so much the first time through. Snake Eater is my favorite single player game of all time (The Matrix Online wins overall). The presentation and Quality of Life features added to Delta are top notch, and its faithfulness is certainly appreciated. I was only really getting over my decades-old muscle memory near the end. I'll say that, if fans are still on the fence about this, they should probably wait for a sale. It's a beautiful game, but it's still, at its core, still the same game. With the performance issues and so on, some patches will eventually come and smooth things out.

In a vacuum, would I recommend this to a newcomer over the previous versions? Probably. The PS2 Subsistence is mostly timeless, but playing a 480i game that demands pressure sensitive controls in 2025 is a tall order. The PS3 HD collection has too many compromises, and only for 720p. Master Collection on PC with fan fixes for graphics and audio - it's a great way to experience Snake Eater. But the way they made up for the lack of pressure sensitive buttons with the left stick feels really strange. Delta is probably the definitive version. I just need to bring my muscle memory kicking and screaming into the 2020s.



EDIT:

Wait. All the "old" secret theater videos are just the ones from Subsistence with ugly filters thrown over them?! I feel like my efforts have been wasted. I'm glad they came back, and remaking them probably would have been a huge drain on resources. But the difficulty in unlocking them... I feel a little cheated, here!

[Dirty Duck]

I should have really just done a "play it as though I were doing a casual run" approach rather than trying to collect so much the first time through. Snake Eater is my favorite single player game of all time (The Matrix Online wins overall).

I'm personally quite enjoying doing so much on my first playthrough. I think I would have been done very quickly if I wasn't doing non-lethal and Kerotan/GA-KO. I sort of believe in only doing fuller playthroughs of games as a second run for games like this, but...I've played Snake Eater before so why wait?

(Are you a big Matrix fan, then? Do you play on any of the private servers people have up? I have Enter the Matrix and that on my long list of games to get around to. Want to play both before I eventually see Matrix Resurrections which I'm hoping I can catch in a cinema one day, though thats most likely as a marathon of all of them I feel.)

[starschwar]

So as to not derail the thread, I will take Matrix chat to private messages.

[Dirty Duck]

Just got to where I get my equipment back.

I love that Guy Savage is in here for the first time since PS2 and I adore that they got Platinum on board for it but did anybody else feel that it felt a bit stylistically neutered?

Like I get that the dream is supposed to be spurred on by Para-Medic’s Dracula talk but the graveyard and enemies just feels a lot more run of the mill than the PS2 version’s carpark(?) and hook blade police. I thought it tied in better with the environments and situation Snake was in rather than just the vampire reference. The original felt like a real bizzaro thing whereas the new one feels more like the Castlevania PS3 games.

I’m still chuffed they put it in and with a lot of effort behind it, but besides the hookblades and moves it didn’t feel very much like it was the same world as what we played on the PS2.

[NateDog]

Just beat The End. Will enjoy it more next time and try to play it naturally as a sniper battle. In the end I had to rush to leave so I had to race him down a bit. Much easier to get up to him and hold him up this time around but I did actually find the glare from his lens wasn't as strong as in MGS3 which I liked.

[starschwar]

On my second playthrough, I disabled Legacy Filter.  I have mixed feelings about the look and feel of everything.  On the one hand, color is nice and realistic, but a lot of the personality is gone.  I think I'll probably go back to Legacy in the future, but it's nice to have the option.

I'm a fan of Hong Kong action movies, and this reminded me of something.  On uncut versions of Drunken Master II (top notch even by Jackie Chan standards!) released on VHS, Laserdisc, and DVD, all scenes taking place in a steel factory have a red tint, meant to embellish the heat.  When the uncut version finally got a Blu-Ray release a few years ago, the factory scenes were "color corrected" to remove the filter.  While this is probably how the set looked, it was certainly meant to have that filter and something was lost.  I feel this is the same situation with the Legacy filter in Delta.


My ancient VHS:



Blu-Ray: