Metal Gear Solid's Legacy [SPOILERS]

[Omniyoji]

Ok gents time to rate the series from one to six with one being your favorite.

This includes MGS1/2/3/4/PW/5 (5&GZ is counted as one game).

Now for me in no way does this mean #6 is a terrible game. There is no terrible MGS game. I love them all but some more than others. However if you feel there is, do say so and why.

Also this is a spoiler discussion. If you're not familiar with the series feel free to GTFO.

Ranking:

Spoiler: show

1) Sons of Liberty
2) Metal Gear Solid
3) Peace Walker
4) Snake Eater
5) Guns of the Patriots
6) Phantom Pain

For me rating #3 was the hardest decision. For all I care they could be swapped, flipped, or equal. TPP lacked a lot of what I've liked from the previous entries in the series (music,cut-scenes,WTF!?, and Ocelot).

[Null]

Funny, I had thought about asking the same question recently.


1: Metal Gear Solid Nostalgia has nothing to do with it, Metal Gear Solid is the greatest story every told. Full of twist and emotion at every turn. As a child I used to play this game so much that I honestly can recite most of the scenes off the top of my head. Gray Fox is actually in the game for all of 10 damn minutes but is a legend in gaming. Sniper Wolf's death scene hurt me to my core. The music for this game especially Enclosure and The Best is yet to Come are second to none.
I played this game as a child and I did not understand everything as it was said to me but it made me learn, more than most teachers ever did. I wanted to do research to find out about the Kurds, Rhodesia, and so on. I could ramble all day about this game.

2: Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater This game will follow me forever. It's funny that it rates so high on my list mostly because of the damn ending. But what an ending.... The Boss has to be the most badass character in fiction, loved everything about her. This is the only MGS game that I was not hyped about. MGS2 had let me down and I thought this game looked silly when I first heard the Snake Eater song. Later on I was singing the song aloud during the ladder scene and bawling my eyes out when it played as I fought The Boss.


3: Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns Of The Patriots I highly highly enjoyed this one when it first came out. But thinking back to the game only a few memories stand out. Sunny, The Microwave scene, Naomi, and dat ending. Have to give it up for that ending though. Here's to you Big Boss.

4: Metal Gear Solid 5 The Phantom Pain The story is quite a let down and the music is almost non existent. If we weren't counting Ground Zero's with this, then the game would actually rank lower. Truth is Ground Zero's alone evoked more emotion and had better music than this entire game. (I'm mostly thinking about that 10 second scene where you find Paz.) Phantom Pain isn't a bad game at all. Just did not live up to the hype. The trailers were a lie as far as story goes. They made you think we were in for one of the greatest stories ever told...

5: Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker



6: Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty Fuck you Raiden.


Edit: Also wanted to say personal top 10 characters.

1: The Boss

2: Big Boss

3: Gray Fox

4: Solid Snake

5: Quiet

6: Sniper Wolf

7: Naomi

8: Ocelot

9: Otacon

10: Sunny

[Elcura]

Overall:

MGS3

No need to explain why this is number 1. Best story in MGS, best characters and good gameplay. The best overall game with a great mix of serious shit, silly shit and weird shit. I thought MGS1 was classic, but this takes everything it did and made it 10x better while also being kinda the same. Snake Eater is the shit.

MGR:R

Don't give a shit what people think, this is a fun ass game and the story is more metal gear than even MGS5 and that's pretty impressive. Senator Armstrong is a badass and easily one of the best villains in MGS (and fits in perfectly). Raiden goes from zero to hero in this game. Probably my favourite overall music too. Fuck yeah Rules of Nature.

MGS5

In terms of gameplay I just can't ignore how fun this game is. Story is important too, but I really adore the open world free aspect that I wanted from MGS since replaying 2 over and over again hoping for Fortune's railgun (thanks MGS4) and wanting to use Raiden's sword the entire game. I'm pretty broad minded and while the story wasn't necessarily different from other MGS it is definitely less. Missing some MGS flavour from boss fights (Skulls are interesting enemies, but considering them bosses is too much). Lots of missed opportunities as well. However, I weigh good gameplay as well and this pushes it above a lot of other games. Great soundtrack too, from licensed songs to original stuff.

MGS1

Classic as fuck, nostalgia wise this places highly but practically it's probably one of my least favourite MGS games. There's a lot of cool shit but I can barely stand to play the original anymore considering how far the series has gone. Twin Snakes makes this place higher because it's basically MGS2 gameplay, which is why this is higher. I don't need to mention this but it has the most memorable characters in any MGS game.

MGS:PW

Love this as a game, best classic formula hands down and while the story is kinda stupid and weird it gets points for those weird ass singing robots and The Boss AI which, while cheap worked pretty well on me. Paz was stupid, Chico was stupid, and generally I didn't like anyone other than Kaz. But it's a fun game, so that's alright. Heaven's Divide is the shit too.

MGS2

Despite what most people say, MGS2 is a fucking great game and Raiden is a good character. The attention to details start in this game (like getting pooped on by birds, slipping on poop and staring at women too long) and it has a good cast of weirdos. Fortune is awesome, Ocelot still crazy, Vamp is creepy and Fatman is funny as fuck.

MGS4

Fun gameplay and very fluid but goddamn was it rigid and on the rails for level design. Story was long and while it wasn't that interesting for the most part it was very...detailed. I actually don't like this game much until Chapter 4, but after that it's all aboard the nostalgia/feels train.

[Karbuncle]

I've only played Peace Walker, 3, and the PS1 one. With that said, of those three.... its 3 > Peace Walker > 1.

I liked 3 a lot, loved it, played it over and over trying to get the different completion "Animals"... on my 3DS lol. Peace Walker I got to enjoy in the MGS collection thing on the Xbox Arcade. 1 I played on Gamecube.

All great games, watched 4 to completion with my brother, same with 2.

[Myrrh_Quetz]

Huge MGS fan. Everytime a new MGS comes out, I marathon play through the old ones.

MGS1 will always be my favorite but MGS3 is a very close second.

I'm trying to debate on which female char I should get as my next tattoo in a 50s pin up style. I'm torn between Wolf and Quiet.

Oh, I played Peace Walker so much that I broke 3 PSPs and a Ps3.

[solracht]

In terms of story/dialog/characters/setting and overall impact/enjoyment:

1) Metal Gear Solid
2) Peacewalker
3) Snake Eater
4) Sons of Liberty
5) Guns of the Patriots
6) The Phantom Pain

Might edit the post later with actual thoughts of each game but probably not.

[Omniyoji]

My friend's reason for MGS4 was nanomachines and reminded me of this old but still lol video

[Myrrh_Quetz]

Nano machines ain't nothing on some college ball through

[shidobu]

1. Snake Eater
2. MGS
3. Phantom Pain
4. PeaceWalker
5. Guns of The Patriots
6. Sons of Liberty Mainly cuz ocelot/liquid crazyness started in this chapter lol.. O

Story of The Boss and her mission makes me sad.

Spoiler: show

Did The Boss know that Adam/Ocelot was her son? Im still not clear on this lol

[ronin sparthos]

Ranking:

1. Metal Gear Solid. It's Die Hard, if Die Hard were on the PSX. An instant classic and genre defining game.

2. Metal Gear Solid 3 takes what MGS did right and sets it to the backdrop of a James Bond movie and again succeeds on the strength of its supporting cast and pitting Snake as an amateur fresh in the field to save the world. Russia, nukes, a guy with lightning bolt powers and fan favorite Ocelot before the revolvers. What more could you ask for?

3. Metal Gear Solid 4 is a clunky ride and a product of Kojima becoming a bit too self aware about the series but where it fails on trying to be more complex than it needed to be it makes up with setpieces and scenes that evoke emotional responses in anyone mildly invested in the series. It struggles over the finish line but manages to do it with some semblance of pride.

4. Metal Gear Solid 2 catches alot of flak for not being what fans wanted but where MGS was a straight adaptation of an action movie, MGS2 tries to be a bit more thought evoking and derivative from its wildly successful predecessor. Suffers from being sandwiched between MGS and MGS2. Raiden was divisive but......

5. Metal Gear Rising makes up for it. Want to see a relatively disliked character go from meh to 'holy shit'? Play Metal Gear Rising. Certainly not your typical MG experience but the games fun and Armstrong is a walking ham.

Storywise:
MGS > MGS3 > MGS4 > MGS2 > MGR > MGS: PW > MGSV > MGS: PO

[ronin sparthos]

Spoiler: show

Did The Boss know that Adam/Ocelot was her son? Im still not clear on this lol

Spoiler: show

Nope. She mentions her son was taken from her during that grand speech in the field of flowers at the end which wouldn't exactly make sense if she knew Ocelot was her son. She does treat him like a kid throughout the game though.

[Corrderio]

My ranking:

MGSV
Maybe it's because I haven't finished it and the "new" factor is still affecting me, but I feel like this game took everything that made the other games great and bundled it together. Yes it gets repetitive with side ops, but overall it's still an amazing game.

MGS4
While I can see the complaints people have about the game, I still enjoyed the hell out of this game for the excellent controls and having some of the most memorable moments in the series. To this day the ending still makes me cry.

MGS PW
I honestly didn't know what to expect since this was originally a portable game, but holy hell did it do a great job. I loved the mission/equipment selections and the style of the hand drawn cutscenes.

MGS1
What can be said about this classic that hasn't been? Had the best cast of villains in the game, a good story, and did an amazing job with the 3D environments.

MGS3
While I loved the game's story and leaps it made from MGS2, I feel like the controls were the worst of the series.

MGS2
While a fun game, it just seemed like a weaker clone of MGS. Fatman was the only villain I liked, Raiden/Rose relation got annoying, and it had the biggest troll moment of the series. Fuck you, Emma... fuck you...

[Akiyama]

1. MGS3
2. MGS
3. MGS5
4. Peacewalker
5. MGS2
6. MGS4

To me, MGS5 is #3 because I take more than the story into account for the game even if Metal Gear is heavily story driven. The gameplay, the openness of what you can do as Big Boss, and overall scope of the game put it up there with me, though it's a ways behind 1 and 3.

I have MGS4 last because.. I like measuring whether or not I like a game by how much fun it is as well. The story's epic as shit, sure, but I dunno.. for the time, I just felt sort of bored with the game. That and the game's interrupted so often by cutscenes, so it's like ._.

The older MGS's controls were awful, but at least based on when I played em, it was fine enough for me and the story was good enough to carry. That and outside of codecs, at least the cutscenes didn't kill the drive of the game for me.

[brozy]

Mine would have to be:

1. MGS & MGS 3:
I honestly cannot give either of those anything less, 1 for introducing my child brain into this crazy universe and just the sheer awesomeness of it for its time and 3 is effectively the same execpt i could make more sense of the overall story now i had grown up a bit more and dem feels.

2. MGS 5
Since it's still pretty fresh and it was the one i was most hyped for, while it was lacking in some of the usual MGS stuff, namely an engaging story and music to go with it, The Phantom Pain was pretty damn epic to me, 140 hours on PS4 and just got the PC version aswell kinda attests to how much i enjoyed it but it could of been so much more (Fuck you Konami).

3. MGS4
Dem feels, seriously the first time i seen the ending with Snake with the gun in his mouth and goes black when you hear the gun shot i was like 'Holy fuck did he really just do that?!?!' and mixed emotions of sadness, rage and shock then the final cutscene played, i'm not a person that really cries but there were definitely tears there. Gameplay was decent for the time if memory serves but really could of done with a bit more of it (TPP is the total opposite of MGS4, just hit me while writing this)

4. PW
Was late playing Peace Walker since only got it with the HD collection but didn't stop me playing the shit out of it, i felt the story wasn't too bad but for me at the start the lack of actual cutscenes put me off a bit so it didn't instantly click for me like other Metal Gears but i've since learnt to appreciate them now.

5.MGS2
Never really read anything about it when it released other than it was coming out so imagine my surprise with what happened after the tanker, while it still think its a good game and decent story just the inital playthrough and the change kinda tainted it, i can appreciate what Kojima was trying to do now but back then i was all like 'Man wtf, who's this complete dickweed' so sadly because of that it goes hear.

Got to have honorable mentions to MG 1 and 2 aswell though played them with the HD collection and enjoyed them just as much as any other Metal Gear game and Revengance also but i was pretty much drunk the entire time i was playing though it so i don't really remember much about it other than i enjoyed it.