Believe it or not, I was actually a bit disappointed in the game when it came out. The version they showed in some long-forgotten E3 was basically a Metal Gear Solid game, but you were the Cyborg Ninja and could slice everything and everyone in half with a sword. The idea of being a hilariously OP cyborg just obliterating regular soldiers in the confines of a stealth game seemed really fun
I was let down when it eventually just morphed into a Devil May Cry :sicko-wistful:
I was also part of the same disappointed crowd then like a decade later the game pierced my brain and lives rent free on my head
Oh yeah, it's easily the best thing to come out of the franchise since MGS3. I'm a huge fan of Peace Walker's story and characters but the gameplay is unfortunately bogged down by it being a PSP game. I was really hoping MGSV was just going to be the fully realised version of Peace Walker, which in most ways it actually was but the story ended up being kinda nothing :sadness:
FWIW I still kinda think this, I get why people like it but the pre-release game looked like more my cup of tea
No video game where a U.S. Senator is the villain has ever won an award
This is a strong, incontrovertible fact that I came up with right now
Was Platinum well-known and renowned at that point by gameroids? MGS fanbase has always been pretty fickle, I'd say, and I don't know how many people who were character-action fans were playing it since it seems like the story would be heavily based on MGS' fairly complicated world.
It was after Bayonetta and Vanquish, and people knew of the ties to the team from God Hand so I'd say they were already pretty well-known by informed gamers.
The big names at Platinum were originally a part of internal Capcom studios, largely Capcom Production Studio 4, and they were incredibly well renown. They were the producers of what's typically regarded as modern Capcom stuff, like Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, even Phoenix Wright. Studio 4 eventually got reformed as Studio 9 by Capcom execs, who then renamed it Clover Studios. The name is a Japanese pun from Shinji Mikmi and Atsushi Inba's names. Mi-ba (three leaf) is clover in Japanese.
If Clover sounds familiar, it's because they developed Okami and God Hand, which are still regarded as some of the best games ever made. They didn't make a profit though, so Capcom shuttered the studio in 2006. Atsushi Inaba, Hideki Kamiya and Shinji Mikami all retired from Capcom after that. Those three would found a studio Seeds Inc, which then merged with another studio Odd Inc, renaming themselves PlatinumGames in the process. They got acquired by Sega in 2008.
Their first game was Madworld for the Wii in 2009. It was...ok. They'd go on to make Bayonetta, Vanquish, and Anarchy Reigns before Kojima himself apparently called Platinum directly with the offer for Metal Gear Rising. So they were renowned enough for Kojima to entrust a series with them, which he hadn't had a lot of luck with before.
Hell yeah the soundtrack rules
I'm a big dork who loves power metal and I am not ashamed
It reviewed fairly well and was generally positively received at the time, but at the end of the day there's not much reason it would stick around in the public consciousness. You play it once and then you're done, and you maybe tell some people about the bonkers story and kickass soundtrack, but that's it. It was also coming out in the shadows of GTA V, Bioshock Infinite, the yearly CoD and Battlefield 4, etc etc.
It absolutely fucking slaps and the game is a powerful expression of style as a means of capturing a particular mood. It's not just the soundtrack, it's the animations, the ridiculous characters, the absolutely bonkers set-pieces. It's that same shit that makes JoJo so good. Just reveling in audacity.
I think its some of platinums best work, it both understands and loves the metal gear world while also being somewhat of a parody of it. Captures the absurdity and audacity of Kojimas work and turns it up to a million. Every single song being tailored for the boss and hinting at their back story and made to fit the exact mood of the fight. And the simple yet satisfying attack focused combat. Oh and they actually made Raiden cool.
The game actually made me go and play bayo, vanquish, dmc etc but nothing ever hit the spot the same way as good as those games are. Hifi rush comes close
Hi-Fi Rush pretty clearly draws a lot of influence from MGR. IIRC there's even a moment where Chai cracks open a big robot like the MG Ray in the intro to Rising.
I never really liked the gameplay tbh.
The directed sword attacks were more gimmicky than fun, parries never felt right even when they landed, and by god the FUCKING camera sucked ass.
