The Metal Gear franchise is in a difficult
position right now. Following the creator’s departure and a
product that was panned across the board, it’s likely that Konami is trying to think
of a way to capitalize on the series’ immense popularity. And in light of numerous Playstation classics
receiving successful makeovers, an obvious decision would be to remake the game that
might have been that console’s defining title; Metal Gear Solid. At this point it seems inevitable, but in
the midst of ongoing speculation many fans have rightfully pointed out that the game
has already been remade with 2004’s The Twin Snakes. Completely overhauling one of the industry’s
landmark achievements was no small feat however, and the Gamecube remake didn’t exactly live
up to its lofty ambitions. The Twin Snakes is a fascinating window into
remakes as a whole, and by dissecting the detrimental changes and analyzing the misguided
direction of the project, I’m going to highlight the significance of having an unwavering commitment
to a singular goal. But first, it’s vital to examine the work
that all of this discourse is based off of. METAL GEAR SOLID
Main Theme Metal Gear Solid has a lot of cutscenes. Just as famous as the cardboard box and exclamation
point is the series’ copious amount of dialogue, and diving into the history of the series’
creator clarifies this direction. As he was forced to watch a new film every
single day as a child, Hideo Kojima’s love of movies emanates through every creative
decision he’s ever made. From the original Metal Gear being based on
1963’s The Great Escape to Death Stranding featuring performances from Hollywood icons,
Kojima’s almost fanboy level of adoration for the silver screen has guided his maturation
and gives him a unique perspective within the video game industry. And at a time when three-dimensions and compact
disks provided game developers with even more possibilities than they likely knew what to
do with, Metal Gear Solid was astonishing because of its unrelenting focus on creating
a cinematic experience. It's obvious as soon as you start the game;
voices have gravity and realism, they convey complex emotions, provide depth to the characters,
instead of having sprites just stand around and look at each other the camera emphasizes
certain relationships, captures a feeling of claustrophobia, creates a tone of horror
and unease, lends the world a sense of scale, credits fade in and out during the opening
minutes of gameplay, the game has a director, the plot contains all sorts of twists, turns,
dramatic revelations, and climactic spectacles, the music is intense and further contributed
to the dynamism of the cutscenes… and that’s exactly why some people don’t like this
game. MGS2 Big Shell Music
Asking the player to idly hold the controller between their hands and watch during something
that’s meant to be interactive can come across as a rejection of the medium. In its attempt to be like a film, many people
believe that Metal Gear Solid fails to justify its existence as a game. And perhaps they’re on to something; after
all, I chose to open this section discussing the game’s presentation instead of its gameplay. While I understand this perspective, and I
most certainly believe that interactivity can strengthen the impact of certain moments
and ideas, I find this discussion to be unfairly constrained. To exemplify what I mean, I doubt any serious
critic could lay out a convincing argument as to why Blade Runner is better written than
Orwell’s 1984, but recenter that conversation around their value as experiences and you
suddenly have a far more interesting discussion. Reframing that idea, stripping Solid of its
gameplay and fully converting it into a film might not result in a drastic shift in the
quality of the plot, but you’d unquestionably lose a fundamental part of the experience. And that loss would include more than the
core gameplay, as time hasn’t favored MGS1’s stealth mechanics. Intruder 3
Guards have robotic search patterns and their vision is comically poor, playing on the harder
difficulties without the radar underscores how unfairly tight the camera is, and many
of the game’s combat options, such as choking guards, are rather clunky. This might be sounding quite negative, but
in spite of all of these flaws it can be surprising just how enjoyable sneaking around Shadow
Moses truly is. You never feel like more of a movie hero than
when you narrowly avoid detection, which is highlighted by some impressive cinematography. But beyond this, the game can be surprisingly
unnerving. Scavenging for supplies while listening to
the ominous score allows the player to really soak in Snake’s dire situation, further
enhancing the game’s tone of isolation and unease. Transitioning Metal Gear Solid into a film
would remove this depth, and fundamentally alter the suspense and ambience that the game
handles so well. And with exception to the reveal that Liquid
wanted to keep Snake alive so he could activate REX (which is more of a general story problem)
the cutscenes don’t actively contradict the gameplay and vice versa. All of this is to say that Metal Gear Solid
didn’t have to work within the framework of the medium to become a great game, it had
to be a great game by providing the player a thrilling experience, and it’s consistently
entertaining enough to succeed through that lens. (REX LAIR)
I actually think the area where gameplay and narrative overlap the most, that being the
interrogation sequence, is one of the game’s weakest moments because when you really step
back and think about what’s happening it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Ocelot doesn’t need any information out
of Snake besides the secret to the PAL key, but Snake doesn’t even know that at the
time and killing Meryl has nothing to do with his underlying goals. You can pick apart a lot of the individual
scenes within the game like this, but that’d be a disservice to the broader strokes of
the narrative which fare much better. Many people like to say that MGS1 is about
the horrors of war or how nuclear weapons are bad, and while that’s definitely true
viewing the game this way limits its applicability to everyday life. Metal Gear Solid retroactively works within
the larger theme of the series, that being the subjugation of individuality at the hands
of external powers. From the ever-changing relationships between
countries forcing soldiers to abandon their personal connections to information being
manipulated in an effort to suppress free will, the Solid games are all centered around
a Man v. Machine conflict; machines that aren't the titular weapons but instead systems designed
to carry out the ideologies of people that have no regard for those that are grinded
down and left to bleed out in the process. As I see it, Metal Gear Solid explores this
idea in two key ways; the first and most obvious of which is the game’s commentary on genetics. This is a slight subversion of the franchise’s
overarching message as genetics aren’t a result of human intervention, but this theme
similarly challenges our sense of control within life. The game’s message is that we can’t let
our genes restrict and steer our personal decisions; that’s why Liquid’s the bad
guy. (show clip) This theme pervades the entire narrative in fairly clever ways; Naomi’s
a geneticist, the genome soldiers were strengthened through gene therapy, FoxDie specifically
targets people by identifying their DNA, both the protagonist and antagonist are genetically
related, and the recessive clone of Big Boss is the one who ends up victorious, furthering
the idea that genes don’t have to dictate our outcome. How this idea is expressed through dialogue
leaves a little to be desired however. (THINK)
Naomi flat out telling the audience what the game was going for robs them of the ability
to really interpret the game’s message, which would have been sufficient given how
well portrayed the ideas are. This is why I think that the game’s other
view on the individuality theme, that being the government’s manipulation of soldiers,
is handled far better. Its representation is similarly extensive,
but feels more powerful because it’s far less direct. Gray Fox’s final words are both brief and
within characters so they don’t take the player out of the experience, and Snake being
kept in the dark about the true nature of his mission is a dramatic way to connect this
idea to the player. While the themes are given an adequate amount
of time to develop, many of the relationships aren’t. To be clear, I think Snake and Otacon’s
connection is an exception. The transition from what’s essentially a
jock bullying a nerd to two vastly different men that both respect and compliment each
other feels earned because the script provides numerous opportunities for these characters
to interact and grow. But the romantic relationships that both go
through are pretty feeble. Wolf and Otacon’s especially, these arcs
fall flat because an insufficient amount of time is put into understanding what these
characters feel about each other and why. I know I’m not alone in believing that Sniper
Wolf’s death is the emotional apex of the game, but it could have been even more powerful
had her relationship with Hal been shown to us instead of expressed entirely through dialogue. Again, these flaws seem glaring when approaching
the game with a critical eye, but Metal Gear Solid is often able to overcome its deficiencies
through remarkable presentation. This is in large part because of its staggering
focus on producing a cinematic experience that pierces through the entire game with
astounding clarity. And its status as a classic is in no small
part due to its success at achieving that goal. THE TWIN SNAKES: GAMEPLAY As I mentioned earlier though, time hasn’t
been kind to many of the game’s assets. Its mechanics are dwarfed by the stealth games
of today, animations are stiff, character models frequently clip inside of themselves
and so on. The appeal in remaking Metal Gear Solid is
obvious; instead of a game that’s got great presentation in spite of it’s more outdated
elements, a remake could renew those same elements to enhance what’s already there,
which is saying a lot given the quality of the source material. It was for these reasons, along with Nintendo’s
desire for a Metal Gear game to appear on the Gamecube, that Silicon Knights completely
overhauled the classic, resulting in The Twin Snakes. I only wish that it was considered a classic
as well. (MGS2 GAMEPLAY MUSIC)
The most apparent alteration is the gameplay, where the controls of MGS2 have been imported
into Shadow Moses. Before exploring this design decision as it
is in The Twin Snakes, I want to first establish that I think 2 has some great stealth mechanics
that massively improved upon MGS1’s foundation. First person aiming adds an additional layer
of challenge that more accurately represents the abilities you would have during an infiltration. Hanging over ledges and peeking around corners
feel so natural that you can often forget that they’re new additions. Most importantly though, these player buffs
are balanced out by significantly improved enemy AI. The vision of the guards is far more extensive
this time, and they’re more adept at noticing when something is wrong with the environment. Throwing good mechanics into completely different
levels isn’t necessarily going to work though; Silicon Knights’ president at the time,
Denis Dyack, had this to say about emulating Sons of Liberty’s systems… Dyack raises some great points here. I just wish the team actually followed their
own advice. I’ve advocated for presenting players with
choices before, so you’d think that having more ways to tackle any given area is a great
change, but this can be undermined by the presence of a dominant strategy that makes
all other options obsolete. This issue plagues The Twin Snakes. Take the upper entrance of the tank hangar’s
first floor as an example; in the original, it required the player to traverse a catwalk
until they went downstairs to find the elevator. The challenge escalated from running past
slow-moving cameras to navigating around more complex guards. Now, I’m going to play through this section
in The Twin Snakes; see if you can spot the difference. By luring the guard from a different floor
and throwing myself over the ledge, I’m able to completely breeze through this room
without actually demonstrating any skill in the game’s stealth mechanics. The escalation of challenge that was necessitated
by the original’s limitations has now become trivial. Neither of these two changes break the level
design as frequently as first person aiming does, however. It becomes all too easy to headshot guards
like they’re targets in a shooting gallery, reducing the amount of time where you’re
genuinely sneaking around them. Snake Eater had a somewhat similar problem,
but that was largely negated by enemies that were well camouflaged with the environment,
an obscene amount of trees obscuring the player’s vision, and the lack of a traditional radar. Such accommodations aren’t made in The Twin
Snakes, which, in tandem with an extended health bar from the start, cheapens much of
the game’s tension. All of these problems are truly exposed by
the bosses, where retaining the original boss patterns and arenas causes the core mechanics
to collapse in on themselves. (DUEL)
The original Ocelot encounter was a fast paced back-and-forth affair where both characters
frantically tried to overwhelm the other. The Twin Snakes boss, well… Headshots knock off such a huge chunk of Ocelot’s
health that the player is incentivized to just stand in one spot and repeatedly shoot
him in the face. But even if you don’t utilize the first
person aiming, Ocelot’s decreased speed and reluctance to shoot while running saps
any and all excitement from the duel. The fight is now an anti-climax and the whole
point, that the player has to capitalize on the revolver’s limited capacity, never even
gets off the ground. Both Sniper Wolf fights are made easier by
Snake’s ability to aim the sniper rifle while standing up which devalues positioning. Removing such a fundamental limitation also
removes the challenge, and you can practically see the code running as Wolf pathetically
jogs between positions because of it. However, neither of these encounters come
close to the tragedy of Vulcan Raven. Raven was the best fight in the original. While other bosses emphasized shooting and
combat, which were the control’s biggest weaknesses, Vulcan Raven played to the game’s
strengths by entirely focusing on stealth. His immense vision and strength encouraged
the player to stay hidden and use their various gadgets to gain the upper hand. And as players whittled down his health, he
grew significantly faster and more aggressive, turning what started as a battle of attrition
into a frenzied attempt to stay alive. The Twin Snakes once again largely maintains
the design of the original while completely disregarding the altered gameplay. Now that players can shoot Raven across the
entire room they never have to risk getting close to him or bother setting traps, and
using the tranquilizer doesn’t lead to Vulcan Raven increasing his speed. The fight now settles into a brainless loop
of shooting him in the head, taking cover, and then popping back out to repeat the process. Turning the original’s highlight boss into
a monotonous slog would have been bad enough, but one final change makes it a clown show. When taking damage in the original, Snake
would completely fall to the ground and he didn’t have many invincibility frames, which
led players to quickly seek cover after getting hit and avoid head-on confrontations. Now, Snake just flinches a bit, making this
a viable strategy. Enjoy. (YELL DEAD CELL)
This, right here, is rock bottom. To be fair, not every boss encounter is a
downgrade; for example, the first person aiming is actually put to good use in the tank fight. The original battle consisted of blindly chucking
grenades, and while you can still do that in The Twin Snakes the ability to shoot the
gunners is a welcome addition. I think the fight’s a little dragged out
because both soldiers have too much health but it’s a more fitting test of the player’s
skill. Mantis requiring the player to use 4 controller
ports instead of 2 is also a nifty use of the hardware. It’s a logical and creative extension of
the original fight. But even with these improvements, the new
bosses are a hard pill to swallow when so many others are completely broken by the new
mechanics. The cutscenes following these fights also
showcase a new problem that has serious ramifications on the narrative’s message. (Hind D THINK)
I spent a considerable amount of time discussing the relationship between story and gameplay
in MGS1, but this connection is tarnished in The Twin Snakes by the inclusion of one
singular weapon; the tranquilizer. It would go on to be a series staple, but
I really question the decision to include it here given its implications within the
plot. Liquid chastising Snake for enjoying murder
makes absolutely no sense now if the player chooses to take out guards non-lethally. You could perhaps argue that you still kill
the bosses, but that ignores the fact that they can be beaten with tranq rounds too,
even if their death scenes would suggest otherwise. For example, having Snake fatally shoot Sniper
Wolf with a weapon that I don’t even have is an overtly contrived sequence that only
disconnects the player from the protagonist. Sons of Liberty and Snake Eater were also
flawed in this regard, but they never took it this far; the problem is especially bad
here given Otacon’s desperate plea to Snake that he doesn’t kill Wolf because that decision
is now out of the players hands even if they decide to take her out non-lethally. Kinda ruins this moment, doesn’t it? A last ditch argument could be that the tranq
reinforces the theme of free will, as the player has the choice to subvert the fate
that the plot has laid out for them, but any potential for that reading is immediately
snuffed out when the game shows Snake shooting guards with a rifle that many players never
used. This is what a true rejection of the medium
looks like: characters talking about gameplay events that not only didn’t happen but completely
contradict intentional decisions that I made while playing. A lot of the game’s commentary on war and
violence is now lost; so, why include the tranquilizer to begin with? Just because it was in Sons of Liberty? Hopefully you’re beginning to see a trend
with these changes; the new design decisions not only clash with the old, they often run
in complete opposition to it. That “growing snowball of change” didn’t
seem to really accumulate into anything. THE TWIN SNAKES: PRESENTATION Drastically altering the gameplay would have
already made The Twin Snakes a significant departure from its source material, but it
is far more ambitious than that. Along with the mechanics are new visuals,
a mostly different score, completely reworked cutscenes, and a rerecording of the lengthy
script from the original cast. Had The Twin Snakes only implemented 2’s
gameplay, I wouldn’t have made this video. It’d be a cautionary tale of haphazardly
throwing ideas together, but at its core it would have still maintained the spirit of
the original. That isn’t what we got though. The main appeal of Metal Gear Solid was its
cinematic elements, and changing all of it while upholding the original’s quality is
a difficult task, one that The Twin Snakes didn’t exactly accomplish. (Armory TTS)
Obvious at a first glance, the game has received a complete visual makeover. I’m not going to question the necessity
for this change; the original features some indisputably muddy textures and low-poly models
that would have been unacceptable in 2004. What I am going to push back on are the stylistic
decisions made with these graphics, but before continuing I want to make something clear. I think that Metal Gear Solid is the better
looking game, not because it’s a more accurate representation of reality, but because it
better utilizes its visuals to more effectively immerse the player into the world. As somebody who’s played a lot of 8-bit
and 16-bit games, I’ve noticed that it’s easy to stop seeing pixels and sprites and
begin viewing the game as its own unique entity. You start to understand the visual language,
and it’s easier for your brain to accept what’s on screen as it isn’t competing
with your preconceived image of how something is supposed to look. Metal Gear Solid is very similar; people mock
the faceless characters merely nodding their heads when speaking but it’s surprisingly
easy for your brain to fill in the gaps and let the voice acting carry the scenes. Now that less of the visuals are up to the
player’s imagination, it’s hard not to feel underwhelmed by the lifeless facial animations
and subpar character models, with Otacon and Meryl being the biggest offenders of the latter. This is where technological advancements can
actually become a hindrance because the closer something is meant to imitate the world around
us the easier it is to pick it apart. With all that said, I’m willing to forgive
The Twin Snakes on this front because it does feel a little unfair to criticize the graphics
by holding them to a higher standard. But a more unambiguously negative change is
the remake’s usage of colors and lighting, which doesn’t capture the frigid nighttime
air as well as MGS1 did. A great example of this is the sky; what was
once a sea of black punctuated with deep gray clouds is now a bluish-green or pale gray. Some dimmer areas in Metal Gear Solid also
used intense vignettes to emulate a lack of light. Removing them really alleviates the darkness
that once enveloped the player, and stripping the world of its ambience makes retracing
your steps less engaging. (Intruder 2)
Another element diluting these more quiet stretches of gameplay is the new music. I wouldn’t say that the original’s soundtrack
was as integral to the experience as a game like Ocarina of Time but it was still a massive
contributor to MGS1’s tone. All of the tracks emphasized lower frequencies
through piano, kick drum, or synthesizer stabs, which were often contrasted with steady hi-hats
and reverberating percussion fluttering in and out of the stereoscopic field. This nicely captured both the swiftness required
to evade detection and the gravity of the narrative. And I’ll avoid going too far into the weeds
here, but with exception to the Cavern theme and Mantis’ hymn, every song the player
heard during gameplay was in the key of A minor. If you don’t understand what that means,
just think about every song focusing on the same few notes. Whether this was intentional or not is irrelevant;
it wonderfully imparted the facility with a sense of cohesion. By comparison, the individual tracks within
The Twin Snakes feel far more detached from each other and never quite capture the same
sense of weight. The score is generally less focused on chord
progressions and melodies than the original and instead emphasizes rhythm and ambience,
which really waters down the character of Shadow Moses. Just compare the amount of emotion flowing
out of these tracks. (cavern and furnace) The Twin Snakes’ music
often lacks soul, and it chooses to largely forgo the choir that was the original score’s
backbone. (nuclear warhead storage) Another change is
found during combat; every single area now has an Intruder, Battle, Evasion, and Caution
theme, and each Boss gets their own track as well. I appreciate the level of dedication, but
this direction is ill-advised because it puts emphasis on the micro while ignoring the macro,
and that missing holistic cohesion is something that Metal Gear Solid realized incredibly
well. To clarify what I’m referencing, the encounter,
duel, and escape themes were all variations of one another that differed in intensity
to match the given situation. Boss battles were of greater importance than
basic alerts, and escaping the facility right before it gets bombed was the climax of the
game. The theme’s rising intensity strengthened
the story's more thrilling sequences to a great effect. (142 - 149) Bringing this concept to every
single area comes across as a wasteful endeavor that robs the climax of its potency. (Hint at TBIYTC)
But if there’s any one song that needs to be in this story, it has to be The Best is
Yet to Come. Outside of the beginning and end, The Twin
Snakes uses melodramatic piano or guitar music in its place, which seriously undersells some
of the game’s more emotional moments. A lot of these cutscenes feel thin now and
it’s hard not to notice the track’s absence. (Meryl Mirror) Most of the time, however,
the cutscenes are… eccentric. (Yell Dead Cell)
Before beating this dead horse into oblivion, I’d like to point out that there are some
positives. Action filmmaker Ryuhei Kitamura used his
position as cutscene director to inject some flair into Shadow Moses, and if these setpieces
were in something different I think the sheer creativity on display could be put to great
use. And even within this story, some of these
action scenes, however dated, are pretty impressive. Most applicably, Gray Fox’s antics are within
reason and fit the tone of such an unapologetically Japanese character. Unfortunately, that’s the exception and
not the rule, as a majority of these cutscenes run in opposition to what the narrative is
trying to do. For example, ask anybody who’s played Metal
Gear Solid what some of the most memorable scenes were and they’ll likely recall the
first appearance of Psycho Mantis. (Mantis’ Hymn)
In a game that both was advertised as and at first felt like a gritty military story,
seeing a guy in a gas mask and trench coat teleport after telepathically showing Snake
a flashback while levitating served two functions. It was the tonal equivalent of getting ice
water thrown down your back and it highlighted the surrealness of Mantis as a villain. The intrigue spurred by this moment is completely
gone in The Twin Snakes because at this point we’ve already been shown a bunch of nonsensical,
over-the-top cutscenes. After seeing this… and this… and having
the camera produce obnoxious sound effects ad nauseum, this is no longer a subversion
of the player’s expectations but an expectation unto itself. Who cares if someone can float through the
ceiling? After all, this is just some wacky cartoon
adventure full of outlandish shenanigans. And it’s not like Metal Gear is a series
that can’t or shouldn’t be campy; Snake Eater has some goofy ass moments and is still
unquestionably the greatest game ever made. But both 3 and 2 use their more supernatural
elements to create a tone that serves their narratives. By contrast, even with Mantis and the Cyborg
Ninja and Japanese anime, MGS1 is far more grounded than its sequels, and forcing these
theatrics into the preexisting story creates a tonal clash between the plot and its presentation. What was once a game that selectively used
oddities to underscore certain pieces of its narrative is now a tone-deaf circus, with
many of the original’s standout moments getting lost in the vast array of absurdity. And even by Metal Gear standards, some of
this is way too stupid. Here are some of my favorite examples. (Snake jumping on REX, Vulcan Raven, Ocelot
Hand) But all of these pale in comparison to the singular funniest scene in any game
I’ve ever played. Beyond their consequences on the game’s
tone, the new cutscenes also undermine one of the game’s better characters: Otacon. Most of his scenes in The Twin Snakes are
played for laughs, which seems like an ignorant decision given his arc and placement within
the story. Hal Emmerich is the anti-Solid Snake; he completely
opposes violence, often lets his emotions control his decisions, couldn’t lift 10
pounds, and probably struggles with talking to women. (Anime Otaku MGS4) But he and Snake are alike
in that they’ve been manipulated by larger forces for nefarious reasons, it’s that
whole individuality theme again, and Otacon uses his experiences in Alaska to accept more
personal responsibility and use his skills for good. By taking wildly different characters and
putting them in similar circumstances the game is broadening its themes and creating
an unlikely yet satisfying bond. I bring all this up to highlight that Otacon’s
frailty isn’t a problem, but a fundamental part of his character; this is the reason
we always see him limping with a twisted ankle, which isn’t exactly the most macho of injuries. The Twin Snakes gets the meekness right, but
completely mishandles it. The game is so obsessed with shoving something
crazy in the player’s face every chance it has that many of the scenes meant to develop
his character and relationship with Snake instead portray him as the dorkiest person
alive. Snake pushing him around during the conversation
in the Communications Tower and having him fall, not once, not twice, but three times
during melancholic moments is blatant character assassination that damages the narrative’s
best relationship. Earlier I likened the beginning of their connection
to a jock bullying a nerd, but in The Twin Snakes this isn’t really true because it
never develops past that. After playing MGS1 I understood why these
two would go on to be friends; in the remake, it seems like Snake would try to get rid of
this bum as fast as possible. I can laugh off most of the changes in the
cutscenes but seeing a good character get treated like this genuinely irritates me. Was completely ruining Otacon’s character
really worth it for a few gags? All of this absurdity could be compensation
for the underwhelming voice acting, which might just be The Twin Snake’s biggest blunder. I didn’t spend much time on this because
it’s all stuff you’ve heard before, but the voice acting in Metal Gear Solid is superb,
especially given the time of its release. It isn’t a stretch to say that the voice
acting is MGS1’s defining feature and its greatest success in feeling like a cinematic
experience, so replacing the original recording is a massive risk that I’m not convinced
was necessary. The justification for this decision is normally
pinned on audio quality; the studio where MGS1’s dialogue was recorded wasn’t professional
and various noises from outside bled into the recording. Just like with the gameplay and character
models however, this limitation might have actually improved the experience; I’m not
entirely sure if this was a creative decision or a way to mask the bad quality, but the
voices in the original are soaked in reverb during cutscenes. This lent the setting a great sense of physical
space and can make the newer dialogue sound flat in comparison. Whatever the reason, the original cast came
back to reprise their roles, with one major exception: Gray Fox. I get why this change is made; after all,
Greg Eagles voiced both the DARPA Chief and the Cyborg Ninja, which was a little hard
to unhear once you noticed it. Newcomer Rob Paulsen has a completely different
tone of voice than Eagles, but with this first comparison that’s not what I want you to
listen out for; instead, listen to the amount of passion and intensity in Frank’s voice
during both battles. You can really feel Fox’s pain in the original,
and it’s believable that his dying wish is to fight Snake. In the remake, he just sounds kinda bored. It’d be easy to criticize Paulsen for turning
in a mediocre performance, but I’m not going to because just about every voice actor does
a noticeably worse job this time. A great example is the codec call following
the Ninja fight; in the original you can practically hear the memories and emotions rushing through
Snake’s mind, while he only sounds mildly surprised in The Twin Snakes. Roy Campbell now comes across as apathetic
and often lacks urgency when the scene calls for it. (Miller Twist) However, the real victim of
the downgraded voice acting is Naomi Hunter. It is genuinely painful to hear so much life
and emotion drained out of one of the game’s better characters and a lot of the story’s
most emotional moments ring hollow as a result. Take the explanation of her family and backstory,
which is a pivotal scene for understanding her motivations. Here are some more quick examples that don’t
require much elaboration. (Otacon Elevator, What’re you waiting for,
stay the hell out of my way, Meryl Death) I think the point is clear by now; whenever
The Twin Snakes tackles a surprising revelation, a scene meant to humanize the characters,
or an emotional disclosure, it’s completely watered down and lifeless. The question is, why is this so much worse
than what we already had? Jennifer Hale was great in the original and
went on to give amazing performances in other games. Paul Eiding and David Hayter provided significantly
better interpretations of their characters preceding and following this one. Kris Zimmerman was the voice director for
both versions, and she does an amazing job with every other game in the series. So, again, what happened here? After some reflection and speculation, I feel
like The Twin Snakes fundamentally doesn’t understand Metal Gear Solid’s narrative. Now (hurriedly) that might seem like a hot
take, but think about it: why is exposition constantly interrupted by goofy bullshit that
doesn’t advance anything? The game seems to view these verbose conversations
as boring and uses super epic action-packed cutscenes to hold the player’s interest
instead. Indulgences like these only derail and distract
from the plot though, and treating the dialogue like its secondary to the action in a game
that has such a complicated narrative is horribly misguided. And as dialogue is delivered through voice
acting, less care was put into it. As the carrier boy for said dialogue, the
voice acting then has less care put into it. The result is that, even with the completely
insane cutscenes, exposition and codec calls are boring disasters because the game doesn’t
respect the enjoyability and utility of these scenes. The result is that codec calls, which can’t
fall back on cinematography, are now a boring mess because the game doesn’t respect the
enjoyability and utility of these scenes. (Enclosure, maybe wolf crying before)
Before moving on, I want to sit here for a moment and focus on the one scene that encapsulates
all of The Twin Snakes’ problems; the death of Sniper Wolf. For the sake of brevity I’m not going to
show both in their entirety which does cheapen them a bit, but even without that context
pay attention to how sound editing and music are used to underscore this tragic moment. In the Twin Snakes, after Snake epicly 360
no scopes her, we get this. The aforementioned dissonance created by the
tranquilizer takes the player out of the experience. Reduced darkness makes it harder to be immersed
in the moment. Awkward character models and animations don’t
properly convey the emotions they’re meant to. The music, or lack thereof, fails to accentuate
the scene’s sentimentality. If there’s ever a place to use The Best
is Yet to Come, it is right here. The once grounded voice acting feels stilted. Goofy antics completely shatter the sombre
tone. A word I’ve avoided using throughout this
entire video is atmosphere because it’s an umbrella term that fosters every single
component of any work of art. By now, I hope you can feel what I’m talking
about. I and many other fans return to Metal Gear
Solid for this very reason; the series would go on to have tighter stealth gameplay, stories
that were more emotional, themes that were more complex, but that feeling, that sense
of reality rapidly disintegrating around you on a cold winter night is something that shines
through all of the outdated mechanics and murky visuals to this day. The problem with The Twin Snakes is obvious;
almost every change it makes comes at the expense of the game's atmosphere, with each
decision further chipping away at the experience’s tone until it’s this empty husk of ambiguity. On top of generally being inferior to the
original when directly comparing the two’s assets, The Twin Snakes is a bad remake because
it fails to uphold, respect, and amplify the true appeal of the classic it’s based off
of. (Blackout) A NEW PERSPECTIVE
(Arsenal) Over the last 30 or so minutes, I’ve been
slightly disingenuous. Not to say that my comparisons weren’t apt,
but my analysis has hinged on a presupposition that The Twin Snakes was aiming to become
the definitive version of Metal Gear Solid instead of an intentional deviation. Even the game’s most staunch defenders won’t
describe the remake as a replacement of the original, but an alternate telling. And for a series that so heavily focuses on
individuality, who am I to say that The Twin Snakes shouldn’t have an identity of its
own? Evaluating the quality of art through the
lens of something else can be unfairly limiting. Tropes or cliches that we call “objectively
bad” can be put to great use if they’re used correctly, and one game might choose
to push aside successful elements of other games to further focus on a specific goal. Comparisons can be enlightening, but shouldn’t
dictate something’s value. To really drive this idea home, I’m going
to flip this entire video on its head because we’ve been staring at a perfect example
the whole time. (Theme of Tara)
Metal Gear released for the MSX2 in 1987. Due to the computer’s technical limitations,
Konami newcomer Hideo Kojima envisioned a game about avoiding combat instead of high-octane
action. A novel concept at the time, Metal Gear is
a great game for two reasons; the admittedly simple stealth mechanics are surprisingly
tense, and, more importantly, the game has a great sense of progression. For example, within the enemy fortress, Outer
Heaven, there are various POWs that the player can find and rescue by exploring. The greatness behind this mechanic is twofold:
firstly, rescuing enough prisoners awards the player with increased health and a larger
inventory, and, secondly, saving allies is completely up to your discretion. This creates a strong bond between the player
and rookie soldier Solid Snake because the rise of his heroism, a direct result of the
player’s actions, is adequately met by an increase in player strength. This focus on progression is also expressed
through intuitive level design. Starting out with nothing but bare hands and
cigarettes, players gradually find new weapons and tools by utilizing both their knowledge
of the base and their extensive inventory. Take the sequence where the player acquires
the RC missile; it’s frustrating to not have the necessary key to open this door,
but that irritation leads you to naturally go back to it once you quickly find card key
2. After some backtracking a new weapon awaits
you and that tool then allows you to continue forward. If it isn’t clear by now, Metal Gear is
basically an early stealth interpretation of Metroid, ending self-destruct sequence
and all, but its progression is bogged down by a few crucial oversights. Most infamously, doors have no indication
as to what card key opens them. Because cards don’t stack you can end up
wasting a lot of time sifting through the inventory, an especially annoying process
if you don’t have the correct card. The way forward can also be needlessly cryptic,
items can be farmed by exiting and reentering rooms which weakens the difficulty, and there
are plenty of segments reliant upon trial and error that seem designed to piss the player
off. Metal Gear is a pretty rocky experience, but
it’s still a satisfying blend of exploration and espionage that could be greatly improved
by a sequel. (Theme SS)
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake was released 3 years later, and in many ways it’s a monumental
leap forward. The vision of guards is now conic instead
of linear. Snake can crawl along the ground to avoid
detection. Players have to be attentive of guards off
screen, embedding Zanzibar with more tension and a greater sense of life. But beyond these improvements, 2 places far
more weight on the narrative than its modest predecessor ever did. The game tackles war with surprising maturity
and gives characters fairly complex motivations. Big Boss is a great example of the latter;
the once one-dimensional twist villain returns to provide the game with themes of individuality
and society’s failure to care for those that protect it. Given how I’ve described it thus far, Metal
Gear 2 sounds like a clear improvement over its predecessor, but there’s a catch; the
original’s sense of progression is compromised. To be clear level design still requires an
intricate understanding of the facility. Backtracking is once again encouraged by numerous
locked doors, and cards have been improved by the inclusion of a few skeleton keys, but
the true issue is in what it takes: the prisoner system. Instead of having to earn strength by deliberately
going out of your way to be a hero, 2 hands out upgrades after every boss fight which
feels forced. It’s technically still the byproduct of
gameplay, but largely revoking this responsibility from the player makes them feel like an observer
rather than a participant. And that’s indicative of Metal Gear 2 as
a whole: it still resembles Metal Gear and is probably the better game, but it seems
to prioritize narrative over progression to the gameplay’s detriment. (Weapons VR)
After the rise of 3-dimensional games in the mid 1990s, Kojima returned to the franchise
again, releasing Metal Gear Solid for the playstation 8 years after Metal Gear 2. Most notably, Solid uses significantly more
powerful hardware to fully realize the narrative ambitions of its predecessor. This is achieved through extremely lengthy
cutscenes that are fully voice acted, with a significantly greater emphasis on presentation
than just about every game that had preceded it. Also taking heavy inspiration from 2’s story,
Metal Gear Solid deeply explores themes of identity and agency while presenting players
with a thrilling sequence of events. Just about every other aspect of the game
is a downgrade though. Stealth is far less engaging because of shortened
guard vision, and it didn’t even seem to be as large of a focus. Compare the amount of enemies found within
Metal Gear 2 and MGS1: Zanzibar Land has around 50 guards in its first building; Shadow Moses
has less than 25 throughout the entire facility. But while stealth has been largely relegated
in favor of action setpieces, progression is mostly stripped out. Health and inventory are once again expanded
after bosses, but unlike Solid Snake MGS1’s backtracking doesn’t amount to much of anything. Keys stacking and doors being marked are welcome
changes and the way forward is consistently more clear, but exploring Shadow Moses is
hardly ever mandatory, with locked doors usually leading to nothing more than rations, ammo,
or situational gadgets that aren’t necessary for progression. An exception arises when hunting down the
sniper rifle but this is facilitated by cutscenes rather than level design. You no longer have to learn the ins and outs
of the base, you’re just led to wherever the plot needs you to be. The core appeal of Metal Gear, that being
its tense stealth and progression, has been completely sidelined to make room for a story
that doesn't improve the gameplay. Therefore, Metal Gear Solid is a bad Metal
Gear game because it fails to uphold, respect, and amplify the core appeal of the games that
preceded it. The analogy should be clear by now, so I’ll
drop the facade. Just as The Twin Snakes is unsatisfactory
when looking at it through the lens of Metal Gear Solid, MGS1 is surprisingly weak when
you compare it head to head with its prequels. But looking at it for what it’s trying to
achieve gives us a greater appreciation of it because, while divergent from the series
up until that point, the game has a clear commitment to creating a cinematic experience
that it executes masterfully. That gap created by the loss of exploration
and progression is successfully filled in by the presentation; the appeal has shifted,
but it’s still the better of the three games. If you’ve been hoping over the last few
minutes that this is my way of explaining why The Twin Snakes is a misunderstood gem
then I’m sorry to disappoint you, because all of this highlights the true reason that
The Twin Snakes fails as a remake; it doesn’t commit to anything. At the very beginning I exemplified both Final
Fantasy 7 and N Sane Trilogy as successful remakes even though they have wildly different
goals. Along with its new combat, Final Fantasy 7
remake liberally changes the story and brings intensive focus to once unimportant gameplay
segments. It can be enjoyed as its own unique experience. Meanwhile, the N Sane Trilogy is an incredibly
conservative attempt to update the original games with newer content being entirely ignorable. Many fans believe that this collection can
replace the originals. The problem with The Twin Snakes is that it
tries to have it both ways; it wants to breathe new life into the mechanics and presentation
while also rigidly conforming to the original in an attempt to remain faithful. These jumbled priorities are evident when
looking behind the game’s production; the back of the box claims that The Twin Snakes
is the definitive Metal Gear Solid experience and Denis Dyack stated in interviews that
the remake is a sufficient replacement of MGS1, while conversely Kitamura was intentionally
changing the tone of the cutscenes at the request of Kojima himself. You could argue that the former is just cheap
advertising but this schism permeates the entire experience. Enhanced stealth mechanics completely trivialize
the old level design. First person aiming dismantles the unaltered
boss patterns. The new tranquilizer contradicts Liquid’s
unchanged monologue. Different lighting and music fail to capture
the original setting. Wackier cutscenes set a tone that undermines
the preexisting characters. This might sound overly restrictive for a
video where I’ve criticized a one size fits all approach but a remake’s goals should
be to either preserve and update the original or completely reimagine it. I don’t see any value in this ambiguous
middle ground The Twin Snakes resides in because getting pulled in antithetical directions
invites a host of antithetical mechanics. Had the team reined in ambitious by only tightening
the controls and streamlining some occasional inconveniences we would have a safe but worthwhile
remake that unquestionably preserves the original’s appeal. The Twin Snakes actually contains some smart
examples of this, like doors automatically opening without having to equip the PAN card
and optional ways to cut down on backtracking, but they’re buried under a litany of dubious
design decisions. On the other end of that spectrum, a total
upheaval of MGS1 could have merit as its own thing. What needs to stay the same? I’d say the story, but nothing else is so
sacred that it can’t be revised. Let’s briefly imagine a hypothetical remake
using The Phantom Pain’s mechanics; what if Shadow Moses was expanded to have far more
rooms and each area was completely redesigned? Creating more levels would show off the great
stealth mechanics and the underwritten relationships that I criticized would have more time to
naturally develop. Sniper Wolf’s second battle could be reimagined
to resemble encounters with The End or Quiet. Slightly rewriting Ocelot’s interrogation
could clarify his intentions. The game could check the player’s kill count
and alter Liquid’s monologue to more accurately reflect the decisions made by Snake. Some of these differences might not result
in a satisfactory experience but at this point a remake clearly starts to stand on its own. What we instead got with The Twin Snakes is,
ironically, a game chained by its faithfulness, and its reluctance to choose what it wants
to be prohibits it from breaking out of those shackles. Metal Gear Solid is the better game not just
because it has superior voice acting, stronger atmosphere, and more consistent gameplay,
but because of its unwavering focus on presenting a cinematic experience that still shines just
as magnificently as it did over two decades ago.
I actually LOVE video SA’s about Metal Gear.
It allows me to experience the games in a new way, and the series is rife for analysis