Metal Gear Rising Revengeance Review

Just beat Metal Gear Rising Revengeance on Normal mode and here's what I think about this game.

This new Metal Gear game ditches long time hero Solid Snake in favor of the MGS2 co-star Raiden. While it carries the Metal Gear name, it's anything but. This new game focuses more on action rather than stealth and the gameplay gets a major overhaul as well.

In this new game Raiden is hot on the heels of a rival PMC (Private Military Company) which did something terrible to Raiden. Basically, this is a revenge story. Scratch that it actually sets out as a revenge story but then ends up as an entirely different tale. That being said, the story is catchy and brings about some subplots that were mentioned back when players had the chance to control Raiden back in Sons of Liberty such as Raiden repressing his other persona, the dreaded "Jack the Ripper".

Anyway, in this new movie game, the old stealth mechanics is thrown out the window thanks to Platinum Studios stepping up to the plate. Yup, apparently this project was already this close to getting scrapped but thanks to the 11th hour save by Platinum, we can now enjoy this game in the comfort of our homes.  Revengeance spells ACTION and not STEALTH. I'd really want to do a more in-depth review, but what the heck, here's bullet points! YAY!

(Also starting this point, mostly everything goes ALL CAPS).

• OHMYGODRAIDENISBACKASABADASS! Yes Raiden managed to rescue his already tarnished career with Revengeance. Thanks to his HF Blade and a totally revamped demeanor, we're seeing a better Raiden. And I'm not even talking about 'the devil within'. 
• ZAN-DATSU. ZAN-DATSU IS FRUIT NINJA ON STEROIDS. IT'S ALSO REVENGEANCE'S VERSION OF A FIRST PERSON POV ATTACK. Zan-Datsu is also a helpful move to collect more of the in-game currency which comes from those spinal cord looking things Raiden is shown clutching in promotional materials. 

• MUSIC IS OVER THE TOP. Nothing beats slicing and dicing cyborg baddies to some heavy metal riffs. Also I'll give it to the guys who chose the music, they certainly made boss fights 50x more appealing.When battling Sundowner, you get to listen to the track "Red Sun" which is a song that's sung in context to what Sundowner's been spewing all throughout the game. 
• BOSSES THAT ARE NICE TO LOOK AT. Jetstream Sam together with the three Winds of Destruction (Sundowner, Monsoon and Mistral) all have their moments here. And since we're on the subject of bosses, can I just say that the boss fights are pretty amazing; from the first unmanned Metal Gear Ray fight all the way to the final boss fight which I shall not spoil.

Here's Mistral getting ready to take the fight to Raiden...

• A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT STORY. I find that spinning a new story around Raiden was the best way to flesh out Metal Gear Rising Revengeance. Its still set in the world after the events of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots however aside from a few easter eggs and references, this is a completely new beast in the series. 

 

• SUNNY IS HERE! Olga's baby daughter Sunny also returns to the series. She's now grown up (not so much like Sherry Birkin from RE6 though) and works at a developmental space travel company called "SOLIS". 

 

• THE ACTION CAN BE PRETTY! No other game out in the market today can go and beat the beauty of combat in Metal Gear Rising Revengeance. Cutting down hapless enemies look so great that you'll sometimes catch yourself gazing at the 'cut scenes'. 

• WOLF. No wonder Revengeance gets a lot of Strider references, its an adventure featuring a swordsman together with his fateful, robotic animal partner. Anyway, Wolf is a pretty cool character. While we never see him really play the support card for Raiden, he still look badass for a secondary character. There's even some clamor and rumor that Wolf will have his own scenario in an upcoming DLC for Revengeance. Hope that's true and hope that'll be available for the Xbox 360 as well. 

 

• RAIDEN AND HIS ARMORS. Another option that people can thoroughly dig for Revengeance is the ability to change Raiden's body armor. I'm not a big fan of DLCs so at the moment I only have three different armors. One is the original black armor which was given to him after being beaten by Jetstream Sam in Africa. The second is the Mariachi skin which we see him wear in the opening of the Mexico mission and the third is theInferno/ Blood armor. 

•  RIPPER MODE IS A BEAST TO MASTER. Much like other adventure games which features a 'hyper mode', Raiden goes on to call his inner Battousai the Slasher in the form of "Jack the Ripper" persona. In this one mode, the fuel cells go bust and for a limited time only, you can do one hit slashes on opponents. If you're fighting a boss, this'll come in handy as each slash that connects takes out a significant amount of damage. One problem though is that this little mode becomes obsolete the minute you decide to play the game in REVENGEANCE mode. 

•  CREATIVE STEALTH GAMEPLAY. I might have exaggerated a bit when I said stealth gameplay was out of the picture. The truth is that stealth can still be employed here. In fact, it can be used in a number of creative ways. One way of doing stealth kills here is to tiptoe or ninja run to an opponent and quickly pressing the "B" button before the enemy can react. Successful stealth kills done this way can also open a clean ZANDATSU kill. 

People might be bitching about the overall time that can be spent playing METAL GEAR RISING REVENGEANCE but I can assure you that although the game tops up at around 6 hours max, the replay value is incredible. Plus people tend to forget that VR Missions can be one helluva fun option and this doubles because you're playing the role of a muthafucking cyborg ninja.  

Overall I think Revengeance deserves the generally good stuff gamers are saying about it. It's a one-two punch for gamers who are looking for something great and something worth their hard earned dollar (or peso). 

VERDICT: 10/10