Metal Gear retrospective: Metal Gear?! It can't be! (But it is.) | NES Works  

Thanks Phil, love your work. “Face Value” is still tremendous.

Not just covers. Kojima stole entire characters from popular films in Snatcher and Policenauts. The guy is a massive hack. The games that he has made that were more original and less IP theft are the ones that people don’t like.

Dracula on Castlevania 2's cover is basically traced from the cover to D&D's Ravenloft!

@@JazGalaxy big fucking deal, so many people rip shit off from other shit. If he's a hack then so be it as he's helped create some of the best games of all time whether you personally think so or not.

The artist for the Blades of Steel cover was sued by a Sports Illustrated photographer, since the box art was basically just a paiting of his photo.

@@MaidenHell1977 “he’s created some of the most POPULAR games of al time, whether you think so or not”. “Best” is subjective. And, no, I don’t think he’s created any of the best games of all time.

I only recently learned they were the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles in the UK.

@@absolutezeronow7928 And all because a sparse few gangs used stuff like nunchucks The funniest bit of that "ninja ban" is that the BBFC refused to give a rating to a movie starring Bruce Lee (rest his soul) for the longest time, thus it went unreleased. I think it was either The Game of Death or Fist of Fury but I'm probably wrong

Teenage Mutant Ninja Yurtles.

@@swirlingabyss Possibly the best game ever programmed on the subject of turtle stacking.

I agree, as someone who has completed both versions, NES is really fun but more actiony and does have a bit more problems. I think if the plot was better people would embrace it more.

I liked how the NES version actually organizes the menus vs the MSX where it puts it in any order. I think if you play the NES version with save states, it's much more enjoyable

It's not like any of us knew of the MSX when we were playing it. So the comparison, to me, is immaterial.

The soundtrack also bops metal gear 2 sits along side metal gear solid 2 as my favorite of the series Thiers also a place in there for metal gear rising

With Higharolla Kockamamie as an assist trophy? I'm sold!

His Final Smash would be summoning his 27 sisters.

Sir it clearly says Ultra Games on the box

@@JeremyParish The title screen lied to me!

Finally, I get to use this: twitter.com/gamespite/status/1425175874891100162

@@JeremyParish Anyone claiming that's not what VHS looks like, was probably confused by the oversaturated colors the 80's and early 90's were known for. It just doesn't look right without blues you can drown in, and red bleeding all over the place.

@@JeremyParish I think you’re choosing to be snarky rather than hear his point that he dislikes the effect. (Done practically or as processing.) it’s a weird choice. But, hey, you’re channel.

@@juststatedtheobvious9633 I don’t think anyone is claiming that it’s not what vhs looked like. And also, it’s a bit disingenuous to say that ANY particular display of VHS styling is “accurate” since the ultimate output of VHS display could be controlled by the display television, the VHS player itself, and the mechanical tape calibration.

@@JeremyParish I just saw this reply, touché! I respect the game, still don't love the artistic choice :)

Well... thanks for taking the time to be snide, I guess.

@@JeremyParish Heheh anytime. ;) Seriously, though, I know how much work must go into making all these videos, and you produce more than almost anyone else out there. You're doing an amazing service for gaming history, and while the few times I comment tend to just be me pulling that old internet chestnut -- the WELL ACTUALLY -- I hope you don't take offense to any of it. You're entirely entitled to think MSX Castlevania isn't superior to the NES one (even though it is), and to rank the NES Metal Gear music over the amazing Theme of Tara, and those rare few of us who are hipster enough to argue those finer points with you may raise a ruckus, but the fact is, we still watched your videos and loved them in the end, and we've got nothin' but respect for you and the amazing work you do. Just figured I should say that, as I know complaints and nitpicks tend to ring loudest when surveying one's comments and feedback, but as snide and snarky as your comments section may get from time to time (to which I have no doubt contributed on occasion), you wouldn't be getting comments at all if people didn't care about what you had to say. So don't ever give up the fight, man! You rock.

LJN really aren't that bad. There's far worse publishers for the NES. Don't believe that AVGN is a serious review show, it's never been that at any point, he exaggerates flaws for comedic effect, that's all. It was all about which developers made the game Remember, developers like _RARE_ made games for LJN. Good quality games. Like A Nightmare on Elm Street, one of my favourite Rare games for sure. James Rolfe says he loves the game, when he's out of character and just speaking as himself. He says the same for many LJN games LJN is a meme and all but they're not a bad publisher at all. Or take Bill and Ted's excellent adventure for game boy that LJN published, a great donkey Kong clone (and Donkey Kong for game boy is probably the best game boy game ever made, it's fantastic, it's easily the number 1 best donkey Kong game outside of the donkey Kong country series, so if you're gonna make a copy of anything, then donkey Kong 94 as it's commonly known, is a good one to rip off) And there's Alien 3 for super Nintendo which is a great example of that particular style of mid 90s platformer that you see a lot, with massive maze like levels. Some of those types of platformers were terrible, but Alien 3 is not one of them Or The Incredible Crash Dummies for SNES. And then the port of the game on the NES that came out a year later and was even better than the SNES version And the Spiderman beat em up Maximum Carnage is one of the best 16 bit beat em ups, probably the best beat em up on SNES, it's much better than the Final Fight snes ports. And Friday the 13th for NES is a great game once you learn the intricacies of it. That's another game where AVGN says it's crap, but James Rolfe says it's brilliant And True Lies for SNES and Genesis, is the number 1 licensed game from that era. Easily. It's an amazing quality top down shooter where you play as Arnie. It's really surprisingly great. There's more too but these are just some examples

@@duffman18 why would anyone care what james rolfe thinks? its a cool game. but like, why is that your measure of legitimacy lol

Nintendo Wii drove the point home, the Seal Of Quality was bullshit.

The floor traps were way worse in Snake's Revenge, to the point where the later parts of the game is filled with them, at least in the first Metal Gear you could kind of see them coming.

I would suggest save states and guides. I used to be a “no guide” guy but I realized that if it meant NOT playing games I wanted to play, it just makes sense to take a little help when you need it.

I recorded the script for this episode before the latest awfulness emerged from Activision Blizzard’s fetid bowels. I can’t believe this text aged poorly before it even went live.

You too, huh?

The importance of the Metal Gear comic book ad can’t be overstated. It ran in nearly every Marvel comic for about 6 months, and this is notable for being during Marvel’s period of incredibly high circulation. GI Joe, Uncanny X-Men, and Amazing Spider-Man were each clearing about 1,000,000 copies a month sold, and marvel had dozens and dozens of other titles. That’s a lot of eyeballs.

So good I cut it out of the comic and put it on my bulletin board!

Same here! It's actually what sold me on the NES, because I didn't yet have one, but wanted to play this so bad, I cajoled my mother until she got me one! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find Metal Gear in stores until over a month after I got an NES.

It's not like that was something they deliberately programmed into the game. It's just a coincidental strings of offensive text that some kids entered into their games and somehow passed the password checksum to load up a random situation. That happened a lot, which is why devs stopped including certain letters in password generators (usually vowels and the letter F).

Not to mention the insanity that was Metroid's password system, which allowed for passwords that could crash the console. (Or, most infamously, potentially brick a 3DS.)

F******** EEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEE Takes you to the final boss battle 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Ys III would be the first Ys game to be ported to a Nintendo console in the West (we never got the Famicom versions of Ys I or II). Of course, Master System and TurboGrafx-CD owners would know Ys from western releases. Interestingly enough, Ys 3 plays differently on each of the 3 consoles that got it at the time: SNES, Genesis, and TurboGrafx-CD.

@@absolutezeronow7928 Oh I know. I've played all those versions. Even made videos about all of them a few years ago.

@@Aboveup I even watched your Ys 3 review this year too (will watch the Ys 4 review soon). Enjoyed that too. Oath in Felghana as you know is a great remake, would love to be able to play that on Switch but Xseed/Marvelous would probably keep NIS America from being able to publish it to that. I know I could buy the Steam version but I'm not really a PC gamer.

@@absolutezeronow7928 Ah, Ys 4. Yet another one where there's the Tonkin House release and the better one. Yeah, the current state of Xseed and Ys is a shame really. I really worry about future availability for these games as things currently stand. I feel like they should've popped up on PS4/Xbox/Switch as is, and not just Ys Origin. But oh well, at least there's one platform they're all on still.

I loved the hell out of Metal Gear, but learning more about its origins helped me understand why it seemed so broken sometimes. I actually returned the game for a refund because the screwy radio/room relationships got me into a situation where I couldn't make progress and I thought it was defective. I gave it another chance a few months later and got the issue sorted, but this version has always been a mess.

@@JeremyParish I'm definitely not going to argue that point. It suffered, badly at times, but the sort of "Engrish" that plagued a lot of games back then and had some "hints" that felt as useful as those in Castlevania II. I've yet to play the MSX version, though I do have it on GOG. You did mention the radio room conversations being off and that fascinated me. I look forward to playing the MSX version and seeing how something said might actually make sense in the right place!

You can find a breakdown of the misaligned call settings here: tcrf.net/Metal_Gear_(NES)

@@JeremyParish TCRF, I should have known. Many thanks. This will come in handy!

Ah, I don't think it was a secret-the title screen has a Konami copyright. Ultra was basically just paperwork and a physical mailing address. I'm sure Nintendo knew what was up and let Konami fudge the rules, because Konami brought a huge amount of value to the console and made Nintendo tons of money.

@@JeremyParish _maybe_ Nintendo chose to ignore it, but hindsight makes it puzzling that other publishers didn't expressly do the same thing en masse. It retroactively seems like an easy loophole other companies could've exploited instead of subcontracting work to to other publishers with varying results or outright "going rogue" like Tengen or Camerica.

That was the thing about those earlier games and why they where often superior to modern games. The progress wasn’t the point. Being fun to play, moment to moment, was the point.

@@JazGalaxy new games are also fun to play moment to moment. sometimes moreso. don’t let your nostalgia turn you into a deluded crank. and i’m not some biased young buck. i’m 37 and mostly play old stuff i grew up with because i have an ancient, weak pc. but modern stuff is insanely fun

B-but I was told by reliable sources (sheltered white boys who get angry about racial diversity in cartoons) that Metal Gear ISN’T political?!

@@JeremyParish As a sheltered white boy myself, I can tell you that Metal Gear in no way makes any political statements, just like Deus Ex, Fallout, and, uh, Campaign '84 for the Colecovision?

What effect?

Thoughts and prayers :(

Read your Seuss, Yertle WAS a turtle

Only if a patron requests it

It is one of three games I'm considering for a future request but there is another game (a Super Famicom one) that may need a retrospective first.

@@JeremyParish Becoming a patron... hmm...

Looks like Acclaim bought LJN in 1990.

@@JeremyParish So it's more than likely that Acclaim saw what Konami was doing with Ultra & thought "Hey, we can do that, too!". Sounds exactly like something Acclaim would do, too.

To be honest, I think Acclaim was motivated more by the massive array of licenses LJN had access to. Properties like WWF were a license to print money.

As a kid, I was absolutely baffled by it. I never even made it to the base, despite renting it a few times. Everything about it was so obtuse, compared to games at the time - and the terrible translation was basically the last straw. "I feel asleep"!?!? What does that even mean? I never actually played and enjoyed a Metal Gear game until the first MGS.

@@jasonblalock4429 really? I’m not sure I agree. Specifically about the idea that it was different than standard nes games. There are TONS of games that are tricky to make it even a few screens into. But people mostly managed.

@@JazGalaxy Well, congratulations on being a better player than me as a 7 year old, I guess?

@@jasonblalock4429 I was seven too. But that’s not my point. I’m just saying I don’t think Metal Gear was necessarily more convoluted than other NES games at the time. Zelda 1 for example had many of the same things in it. And let’s not forget castlevania 2.

Good call on Kee. As for Ultra and brand dilution, they specifically used Ultra as a brand for games specifically catering to the US market-either American properties (TMNT, Mission Inpossible), licensed Western titles (Pirates, QBert), or original games specifically for the U.S. (Snake’s Revenge). It was not a 100% hard rule, as you’d see stuff like Carmen Sandiego in silver cladding, but is generally accurate.

​@@JeremyParish I don't doubt that, but I do wonder about Contra, which is what one might assume is a very American-oriented game (it's about military intervention in South America after all, although against an alien force) but still got the Konami branding. I'm certain you're right though.

You're both correct

I sure hope there are future societies

You might have made the connection because every Ultra game has a Konami copyright credit on the title screen! That was how I sorted it.

@@JeremyParish Oh, hah, you're right!

Thanks, I'm gonna use it in the demo reel for my Micro Machines spokesperson tryout