Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater

Konami

Video game remakes are a tricky business. If the game you're remaking is famous or popular enough, there's always the risk that you're going to alienate your built-in audience by making your version too different. But you're also trying to bring in new people, and sometimes the game you're remaking is, to put it diplomatically, a product of its time. It can be difficult to thread that needle. Sometimes developers pull it off: the Resident Evil remake was a genuine improvement over the original while still keeping most of what made the original so charming. And sometimes you're left with a perfectly competent game that still leaves you thinking, "why?"And that's Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater: a perfectly fine game, in some ways even an improvement over the original Metal Gear Solid 3, but I'm just left wondering what the point was.

This, by the way, is why there's not much point to talking about the game's plot; if you want a rundown on what Metal Gear Solid 3 even is, I got you covered. 

The Metal Gear series is not new to remakes. The NES version of Metal Gear 1 was pretty much a remixing of the MSX classic; Metal Gear Solid got an entire GameCube-exclusive remake in Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. The Twin Snakes was controversial for its easier gameplay (as it used the mechanics and engine from Metal Gear Solid 2) and especially its redone cutscenes, but it also had a new dub with the same cast, recorded in a proper recording studio this time. I personally liked it, but I also understand why it doesn't have the same pull on fans as the original does. It's one of those things that are perfectly fine in and of themselves but you have to wonder who it's for.

So where do we start with Metal Gear Solid Δ? I suppose it's worth starting with its obvious differences: it's much, much prettier, taking full advantage of Unreal Engine 5 to recreate familiar locations from the 2004 classic. It also gives you the strange option of "New Style" vs "Legacy Style," with New Style taking more after recent Metal Gear titles and other contemporary games (over-the-shoulder, bullet drop, that sort of thing) and "Legacy Style" attempting to more directly emulate the 2004 original, with gameplay differences (including the Boss behaving differently in the final fight), a color filter more akin to the classic look, and, oddly, a lack of Subsistence-style movable camera: it's almost totally fixed overhead as in the original original version. While the previous two Metal Gear Solid titles (that is, the 1998 classic and its 2001 sequel) took place in mostly small, indoor areas, and so the top-down camera (itself a holdover from the MSX days) isn't that big a deal and arguably is part of the charm, the naturalistic settings and large areas of Metal Gear Solid 3 pretty much demand a more responsive, usable camera, so I don't really understand the decision to make the "Legacy Style" of Δ go all the way back to 2004 when the Subsistence re-release had a perfectly serviceable third person camera that's since been used in the HD Edition and Master Collection versions. For what it's worth, I played with "New Style," not just for the camera, but because I feel like remakes should reflect the times in which they are made.

What else...? Oh, they brought back the Guy Savage nightmare Easter egg. In the original and Subsistance versions of the game, if you call Para-Medic to save in the prison cell after the torture sequence, she starts talking about vampire movies. If you then reload that save, the game will switch into an entirely different game, a short horror-themed hack and slash thing with pretty basic controls that apparently had roots in early plans for a third mainline Zone of the Enders game that never materialized. After a few minutes, the game will end, and Snake will wake up as if from a nightmare. (You can then call your support team for some funny radio conversations.) For whatever reason, the minigame (and subsequent wake-up scene and codec conversations) were removed from the game in HD Edition and Master Collection; Metal Gear Solid Δ brings it back in an entirely new implementation, with slightly fancier controls, a new arena (a cemetery instead of an abandoned warehouse) and even some vampire boss enemies. It's also unlocked as a minigame after finishing the main game.

Some other stuff... we also get an auto-save system (the game saves upon loading every new area, though you can still call Para-Medic any time and save the traditional way.) The classic jokey "Secret Theater" scenes (basically comedic parodies of scenes from the game) that never made it into any official release of the game are now part of the game proper, rather than being confined to YouTube. You unlock them by shaking down guards and stealing the film they drop. There's also a new recording of the iconic "Snake Eater" theme, though still sung by Cynthia Harrell; it may be heretical, but I think I kinda like the new version a little better. Both are unimpeachable, though.

There's also a quick menu for both the radio and the camouflage system, allowing you to swap camo on the fly (it remembers your uniform/makeup combos for you for easy recall) or call someone without having to bring up the radio screen. Handy! My favorite part is that if you get one of those one-time use frequencies (to cancel alerts or call for an airstrike) from interrogating enemies, the radio dial will remember it for you as well.

The game also keeps track of your wounds. You still have to do field surgery on yourself just like in the original, but it leaves behind scars, and your clothes can get torn or worn out as you take hits or crawl through the underbrush This is the kind of level of detail that Konami ran Kojima out on a rail for a decade ago; now they're pulling out his old notebooks and doing Kojima shit themselves. Well, it's giving what the fans want, I guess.

Oh, there's a photo mode too, so that's nice. I used it for one or two of the screenshots here.

What's the same? The voice track is identical, straight from the original. I think fans would have rioted if it had been any other way. Thankfully Konami kept the masters, so it's not compressed to oblivion for PlayStation 2 hardware anymore. Some of the cast came back to record a few new lines, nothing major, just a few updates to reflect the time that has passed since the original game, such as updated discussion of the game controls (yes, this is your reminder that the fourth wall does not exist in Metal Gear) or having Para-Medic suggest Toho would still be making Godzilla movies by 2024 (which they did) as opposed to 2004 in the original (which they also did.)

Oh, they brought back "Snake vs. Monkey," the Ape Escape-themed crossover mode that was removed in HD Collection. There's also a new online mode called "Fox Hunt," which seems to be a Prop Hunt-style take on the traditional Metal Gear Online experience. I haven't personally played it, though.

The world design is basically the same; oh sure, it's prettier, more detailed, but the actual playable space, the obstacles you face, the layouts, are all identical. While the game is obviously several generations ahead of the original, graphically speaking, they seem to have kept all the original mocap data so cutscenes are all functionally identical to the originals. (People who were mad about Twin Snakes' over-the-top cutscenes can rejoice.) As far as I can tell, most items and equipment are all in the same places they were in the original. It's as pure a remake as can be.

I guess if I had to compare it to anything, it's to Wasteland Remastered. It's not an exact comparison, to be clear; Wasteland Remastered so perfectly mimics the original DOS game in everything except graphics, controls, and certain important bug fixes that map data from the original still applies to the remake. I tell people, unless you really like the crunchy DOS-era EGA graphics, go with the remake. Metal Gear Solid Δ isn't totally 1:1 with Metal Gear Solid 3, but it's close enough that you could probably use a walkthrough from 2004 and it'd still be mostly good for the new version. I would probably still tell people that the PlayStation 2 classic is still very much worth playing, but if you really want totally modern graphics and controls, Metal Gear Solid Δ is a solid choice. 

-june❤