10-09-2025, 06:26 AM
I've beaten it today morning. Being so removed from the series for so long, it's interesting how I felt about the game. In certain ways, I feel I was too harsh on Snake Eater, in others - I feel like my feelings have been validated. I haven't completed a playthrough of this game since around the time MGS V was coming out.
Story wise - certain things that used to bother me back then don't bother me as much, because they're only a problem when you look at Snake Eater's place in the canon rather than an individual game - and since that canon feels like a distant memory now, I was able to see things more on the scale of SE as a standalone experience.
For example, The Boss having this great deal of importance and how we're constantly told how incredible she is without seeing it; it works in Snake Eater because lens of the story is very personal between her and Snake. It only becomes a problem when suddenly everyone wants to fulfil her will (why the fuck does Sigint care about what The Boss wanted?! or Zero?! or Para-Medic?!) - she's clearly meant to be a messianic presence in the story, ethereal and almost mystical - maybe I'm on to something with the messianic allegories, and it's not something I have thought about before. Snake who is her disciple, and apostle, is named John after all - who in biblical history was the youngest of Jesus' disciples (in this case, Snake is the youngest son of the boss) and one of the primary figures who carried Jesus' teachings after his passing. The Boss' death pose looks like a crucifix too - Jesus died for our sins, and The Joy died for the sins of her country. I'm getting side tracked - but maybe something worth revisiting later.
Snake eater in general is actively hurt by the games that come after it.
If these characters that became so pivotal to the story had the ground work laid in MGS3, if we could see them slowly coming around to seeing The Boss' the same way Snake sees them in these codec calls, etc - it might have made for a more concrete story. But that requires foresight, and Kojima never cared much for planning.
The same applies to Big Boss' arc, in general. Snake as a character is decent - he's memorable, has his light hearted quirks, and he does have an arc with his relationship with Eva and how he expands his thinking beyond just ''the mission'' - I would have liked a little more introspection, but he's fine. The ending is poignant and honestly they could have stopped there; I do think there is something genuinely brilliant about reframing Big Boss' legendary status as nothing more than a politicized scam. It would have been easy to just have Snake succeed because he's so cool and badass and strong; and while he's still a borderline supernatural soldier - what he did would not have been possible without the whole mission being effectively rigged in the first place - but as a lot of other parts of the game, it's impact is retrospectively reduced by further game that tried to retroactively fit to this story.
Thematically speaking the game doesn't resonate with me as much but that's not because it's not thematically rich, just that my views on the world in general and specially on soldiers and where they sit in terms of moral and ethical accountability has changed a lot over the years. I'm cognizant that it's probably more poignant in 2004 hot off the heels of the Iraq War & Afghanistan war, but all in all it still holds up I suppose.
Gameplay wise - a lot of the issues I felt back then still stand tbh. The game is very menu heavy, which i'm not a fan of. The boss fights are a little less impressive in hindsight; The End is an absolute stand out, and I really like The Fear & The Boss. The Sorrow is a decently creative way of giving your lethality some weight, but the others are just kind of meh - The Shagohad is still a fucking nightmare. I'll always respect that MGS has constantly tried to do more with its boss fights; which can be relatively difficult in a military shooter like this.
I'm a big fan of almost all the changes they've made across the board with the gameplay - net improvement.
Overall, i'm gonna play through a few more times. Probably going for the platinum.
Story wise - certain things that used to bother me back then don't bother me as much, because they're only a problem when you look at Snake Eater's place in the canon rather than an individual game - and since that canon feels like a distant memory now, I was able to see things more on the scale of SE as a standalone experience.
For example, The Boss having this great deal of importance and how we're constantly told how incredible she is without seeing it; it works in Snake Eater because lens of the story is very personal between her and Snake. It only becomes a problem when suddenly everyone wants to fulfil her will (why the fuck does Sigint care about what The Boss wanted?! or Zero?! or Para-Medic?!) - she's clearly meant to be a messianic presence in the story, ethereal and almost mystical - maybe I'm on to something with the messianic allegories, and it's not something I have thought about before. Snake who is her disciple, and apostle, is named John after all - who in biblical history was the youngest of Jesus' disciples (in this case, Snake is the youngest son of the boss) and one of the primary figures who carried Jesus' teachings after his passing. The Boss' death pose looks like a crucifix too - Jesus died for our sins, and The Joy died for the sins of her country. I'm getting side tracked - but maybe something worth revisiting later.
Snake eater in general is actively hurt by the games that come after it.
If these characters that became so pivotal to the story had the ground work laid in MGS3, if we could see them slowly coming around to seeing The Boss' the same way Snake sees them in these codec calls, etc - it might have made for a more concrete story. But that requires foresight, and Kojima never cared much for planning.
The same applies to Big Boss' arc, in general. Snake as a character is decent - he's memorable, has his light hearted quirks, and he does have an arc with his relationship with Eva and how he expands his thinking beyond just ''the mission'' - I would have liked a little more introspection, but he's fine. The ending is poignant and honestly they could have stopped there; I do think there is something genuinely brilliant about reframing Big Boss' legendary status as nothing more than a politicized scam. It would have been easy to just have Snake succeed because he's so cool and badass and strong; and while he's still a borderline supernatural soldier - what he did would not have been possible without the whole mission being effectively rigged in the first place - but as a lot of other parts of the game, it's impact is retrospectively reduced by further game that tried to retroactively fit to this story.
Thematically speaking the game doesn't resonate with me as much but that's not because it's not thematically rich, just that my views on the world in general and specially on soldiers and where they sit in terms of moral and ethical accountability has changed a lot over the years. I'm cognizant that it's probably more poignant in 2004 hot off the heels of the Iraq War & Afghanistan war, but all in all it still holds up I suppose.
Gameplay wise - a lot of the issues I felt back then still stand tbh. The game is very menu heavy, which i'm not a fan of. The boss fights are a little less impressive in hindsight; The End is an absolute stand out, and I really like The Fear & The Boss. The Sorrow is a decently creative way of giving your lethality some weight, but the others are just kind of meh - The Shagohad is still a fucking nightmare. I'll always respect that MGS has constantly tried to do more with its boss fights; which can be relatively difficult in a military shooter like this.
I'm a big fan of almost all the changes they've made across the board with the gameplay - net improvement.
Overall, i'm gonna play through a few more times. Probably going for the platinum.
![[Image: exzwhnW.png]](https://i.imgur.com/exzwhnW.png)
