Now Playing: Metal Gear Rising - Revengeance

 Not completely sold on it yet.

 Did you know? At one point in time, Metal Gear Solid 2 was my favorite game of all time. Having played Metal Gear Solid 1 beforehand, I immediately fell in love with the new protagonist, Raiden. There was a particular part of the game that I adored, the moment you get the sword, I actually got a separate file at the start of that segment so that I could replay the bit with the sword over and over again. For whatever reason, I abandoned the franchise at that point, and would later find out that Raiden was actually disliked in no small part due to the bait and switch. Because games have to be kept from evolving right? Always follow the same formula, because screw surprises and go with what is safe, right? But I digress, which is something I tend to do a lot.

 The game starts with a bunch of cyborgs, cyborgs everywhere and... and this is certainly not the Metal Gear Solid that I used to know. For whatever reason Raiden is wearing yellow butt armor on each butt cheek. And the characters' faces look really weird. And Jack now speaks trying to sound ruff, which threw me off a bit since it felt forced. And there's no sidestepping. And there seems to be no tangible rewards for exploration, besides a few subweapons.

 But then you have the very smooth combat. And my problem with the lack of sidestepping was only at the start, until I remember that I had a parry. As a matter of fact, the first sub-boss, the dogbot, was wrecking me. I was hating the game, I was about to die at times. My mashing was getting me nowhere fast, and I hated the fact that there was no sidestepping, like, seriously, who makes an action hack and slash game without any dodge of any kind? And then it hit me, there was a parry right? And then I started parrying, and the game made sense and it got a helluva lot easier. I went from absolutely hating the game to actually having fun with it, I think the tutorial should've stressed a bit harder just how important parrying is, because the game is built around it. Enemies will telegraph their attacks, and you have to react according to the direction the attack is coming from.

 The soundtrack is absolutely amazing, particularly when the battles get heated and the lyrics begin. The game is also filled with cool and badass moments in equal measure. And y'know what? Cutting stuff is fun, you can cut a ton of different structures, like metal stairs, trees or fences. It's fun.

 Overall, I'm having mixed feelings with the game. The combat is fast and smooth, and while I can get behind the reliance on parrying over dodging, it's still not my cup of tea(which is hilarious considering how much I love parrying in fighting games). Also, the targeting system isn't optimal, I'm having a hard time pulling moves like the Thunder Fist, while I had no trouble performing moves in the different Devil May Cry games.