History YMMV / MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots

** Thanks to the passing of Creator/ChikaoOhtsuka who passed away in early 2015, [[spoiler:Big Boss]]'s final line is hit hard with this.

** Metal Gear REX defeating Metal Gear RAY. By all logic, REX shouldn't even be functional, having had its sensors destroyed, being blown up, and being left exposed to arctic conditions for years. Yet it goes toe-to-toe with RAY, which was explicitly designed to destroy REX units. Not to mention the fact that Solid Snake had never piloted a Metal Gear before, while Liquid Ocelot had spent time in the VR and had been piloting a RAY for years. [[AwesomeBosses/MetalGear Few people seem to mind this particular ass pull, though.]]

* AuthorsSavingThrow: Two. The main one was Creator/HideoKojima's attempt to turn the much-ridiculed "magic hand" plotline into something remotely sensible (though that was pretty contentious in its own right. See BrokenBase below), but a lesser one was a bone of contention from ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'': it was believed by ''[[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty Metal Gear Solid 2]]''[='=]s non-direct mention of Meryl Silverburgh that Snake had cracked under Ocelot's torture, the "Otacon" ending was canon and Meryl was dead, which fans thought hugely out of character for Snake.[[note]]Although it should be noted that the in-game book ''In the Darkness of Shadow Moses: The Unofficial Truth'' mentioned that Meryl survived the events of Shadow Moses, and the two references to the book in the game itself implies that it was actually the Meryl ending that was canon, as well as the nod to the Infinity Bandana.[[/note]]

** Thanks to the passing of Creator/ChikaoOhtsuka, [[spoiler:Big Boss]]'s final line is hit hard with this.

** With Creator/HiromiTsuru's [[https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2017-11-16/voice-actress-hiromi-tsuru-passes-away-at-57/.124141 death]], [[spoiler:Naomi]] dying in the game makes it more sad.

* SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct: Many fans complained when it was revealed Cam Clarke wouldn't reprise his role as Liquid Ocelot, but they were unanimously impressed with Patric Zimmerman's portrayal of the character.

** An episode of ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' titled "Only Human" featured a character heavily implied to be Cobra Commander, of ''Franchise/GIJoe''. As that episode was set in the future, he went by a different name - ''Old Snake''.

** In the ending, Drebin remarks that The Patriots played Snake and Otacon "like a violin." Come ''Ground Zeroes''...

* MagnificentBastard: Do you even need to ask? Ocelot was already a MagnificentBastard in ''Metal Gear Solid 2'' and ''Metal Gear Solid 3'' but with this game, he became one of the most magnificent bastards in all of fiction.

* {{Narm}}: See [[Narm/MetalGear here]].

** The Patriots' use of [[spoiler:a quadruple amputee - namely Big Boss - with nanomachine-induced Locked-In Syndrome as the key to their network. Who is then thrown into a fire when he has served Ocelot's purpose. The fact that it is actually revealed later to be Solidus in the fire does little to ease the creeps.]]

** Rosemary. Most fans didn't care for her overly dramatic and annoying moments over the Codec in the second game. In the fourth game, fans didn't like the fact that she was [[spoiler:married to Colonel Campbell, although once it was revealed she did it to protect Raiden and their child, fans warmed up to her.]] Her conversations with Snake about psychology were also very well written, not to mention they weren't forced on the player every hour or so like her conversations with Raiden regarding their anniversary in ''2''.
* RetroactiveRecognition: In the English version, Sunny's voice is provided by Cristina Purcell, who would later go on to voice Luan Loud in ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse''.

* ShockingSwerve: [[spoiler:Liquid never came back from the dead; Ocelot was using a combination of nanomachines and hypnotherapy to make himself think he was Liquid]].

** Snake's comments about Samus Aran in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Brawl'' -- namely, that he's attracted to her -- become this upon the introduction of the Beauty and Beast Unit; an entire group of women who wear "sneaking suits" and big power armor, just like Samus does. Not only could he not tell that they were women at first (unlike with Samus), but he seems mildly repelled by them. Guess they're not "your kind of woman" after all, eh Snake? He also has a line, while discussing Meta Knight with Mei Ling, that foreshadows the infamous "Mt. Snakemore", and the fact that the writers were making fun of it well before any fans did is absolutely amazing:

* RetroactiveRecognition: The shy, stuttering [[ChildProdigy child prodigy]] Sunny Emmerich is dubbed by the future voice of [[WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse Luan Loud]], a character which couldn't be [[TheTrickster fur]][[PungeonMaster ther]] from the former in terms of personality.

* AccidentalAesop: Thanks to certain retcons in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'', ''Metal Gear Solid 4'' retroactively gained an aesop about [[spoiler:not trusting big reveals from just a handful of sources, especially when [[UnreliableExpositor both of your informants are former friends of the subject in question who would have all the reason in the world to hold a grudge against him]], and the man in question is a vegetable unable to tell his side of the story]].

** In Act 1 she sings [[http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi digits of pi]].
** In Act 2 she sings [[http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number the Fibonacci Sequence]].
** In Act 3 she sings [[http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table the Periodic Table]].
** In Act 4 she sings [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nose_Electric_Railway Nose Electric Railway stations]].[[note]]the same [[CallBack recited previously]] by [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid Grey Fox]] and the [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty AI Colonel]][[/note]]

* ThatOneAchievement: "Sounds of the Battlefield" requires you to get every song in the game for your iPod. The "Snake Eater" song requires you to get all 40 Emblems in the game, which range from the difficult ("Big Boss" requires that you beat the game on [[HarderThanHard The Boss Extreme]] difficulty [[NoDamageRun without dying]], getting caught, [[PacifistRun killing anyone]], and without using recovery and special items, [[{{Speedrun}} all in under 5 hours]], making it That One Achievement within That One Achievement), to the [[ViolationOfCommonSense unintuitive]] ("Puma" asks you to get ''more'' than 75 alerts, 250 kills, and 25 continues), to the weird ("Gecko" requires you to press against walls for an hour total, "Tortoise" wants an hour inside the drum and/or cardboard box, and "Giant Panda" requires you to spend 30 or more hours ingame before you complete it).

* EarWorm: The tune being whistled by the guy you have to trail in Act 3.

** Depending on one's opinions, there's a lot of story moments, but one stands out due to how it plays out: [[spoiler: Raiden stopping ''Outer Haven'' from crushing Snake at Shadow Moses, only for himself to be crushed and seemingly killed. Despite all the posturing of the cutscenes involved that would signify death for pretty much any other character in the franchise, he's back and only missing his arms and put in extreme care afterwards, and even returns to kick ass with brand new lightning powers for the final act.]] It's almost like [[spoiler: [[KilledOffForReal Raiden was supposed to die]], only for the writers to revise and save him from the brink]].

** Having it turn out that Liquid's spirit was [[spoiler:DeadAllAlong, with Ocelot cutting off his arm and only pretending to still be possessed via nanomachines and hypnotherapy]]. Some fans consider it an AuthorsSavingThrow for one of the franchise's most ludicrous plot twists, while others think it cheapened the conflict between Snake and Liquid by [[spoiler: having him be exorcised offscreen and be forced to fight a cheap imitation throughout the game]].

** Two for the price of one: [[spoiler: Psycho Mantis]] returns from the grave to torment you, and the equally dead [[spoiler: The Sorrow]] returns in the same scene to put him down once and for all.

** Rosemary. Most fans didn't care for her overly dramatic and annoying moments over the Codec in the second game. In the fourth game, fans didn't like the fact that she was [[spoiler: married to Colonel Campbell, although once it was revealed she did it to protect Raiden and their child, fans warmed up to her.]] Her conversations with Snake about psychology were also very well written, not to mention they weren't forced on the player every hour or so like her conversations with Raiden regarding their anniversary in ''2''.

* AccidentalAesop: Thanks to certain revelations in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'', ''Metal Gear Solid 4'' retroactively gained an aesop about [[spoiler:not trusting big reveals from just a handful of sources, especially when [[UnreliableExpositor both of your informants are former friends of the subject in question who would have all the reason in the world to hold a grudge against him]], and the man in question is a vegetable unable to tell his side of the story]].

** The battle with RAY at the end of Act 4.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: [[AwesomeMusic/MetalGear See here.]]

* HolyShitQuotient:
** The battle between Metal Gear REX and RAY. It's literally two HumongousMecha pounding away at each other, and it's ''awesome''.
** Raiden's fights. He is so skilled and powerful that it gets ridiculous sometimes.
** If you didn't gasp out loud when [[spoiler: Psycho Mantis]] returned to torment you one last time, you certainly did when [[spoiler: The Sorrow]] dropped in to save you.

* VindicatedByHistory: Inverted, see HypeBacklash above.

* GameBreaker:
** In the third stage, you're supposed to be disguised as Young Snake and sneak past the guards while tailing your mark. If you switch your [=FaceCamo=] to anyone else, though, ''everyone in the entire level ignores you''.
** Stay close to the resistance fighter when he's disguised as a PMC soldier. Not only does he ignore you, but the mercs in the area do, too - especially since there's a Humvee in the area that makes rounds every so often. It also depends on whether or not you've got a gun equipped.
** When fighting Crying Wolf, [[spoiler:hiding under the truck directly in front of Snake as the fight starts will make Snake impossible to damage except from directly in front, give him a fixed 99% camo index, protect him completely from stress or stamina loss due to the blizzard, and make the whole battle a matter of waiting for Wolf to wander into view and blasting her with the biggest, meanest gun at Snake's disposal when she does (unless you [[NewGamePlus already have her rail gun]], which is too bulky to use while prone but will pretty consistently kill her in one shot).]]
** A major oversight occurred when prize matches for Automatching first came out in ''Metal Gear Online''. It made automatching much more attractive, with the potential to receive up to 400 reward points (points which you can spend on in-game gear for your character) for winning a deathmatch game. However, in the case of a tie, both teams won the points. Players quickly realized that if everyone agreed to not do ''anything'' for the whole five minute match, everyone would get 400 points. Players farmed for thousands of points for a week until the next update, which lowered the amount of points earned to 200 points and awarded nothing for ties.
** One gun towers over all others: the M14 EBR. Breaking tradition, not every gun in the game insta-kills with a headshot, but this one still does. It has a very large magazine (20 rounds, which goes quite a ways in semi-auto), uses common ammo (since almost every PMC guy you find uses a gun with the same ammo), and can be silenced (the only sniper rifle in the game that can take one, save for another integrally-suppressed one with much rarer ammo). It also features both full-auto semi-auto modes, so you can still use it in close combat, with slightly more power than the M4. The scope means that those long-range headshots you used to be so proud of with the pistol in ''Metal Gear Solid 2'' and ''Metal Gear Solid 3'' are now ridiculously easy, so you can pop off a few headshots and immediately remove whatever "sneaking" you might've had to do. The real kicker though? It's a DiscOneNuke. It's so early that you can often buy it ''immediately after meeting Drebin with the points you earn retroactively from everything before meeting him because it's so damn cheap'' - or, if you want to save those points for more suppressors, just steal and unlock one from the snipers in the ''very next map area after meeting Drebin''.
** Act 4 has at least one area that easily allows you to farm Drebin Points: simply equip as many healing items as you can, let the Dwarf Gekko in the tank hangar spot you, and then let one of them knock you over. They'll begin pulling out guns and shooting at you at this point. The thing is, though, Dwarf Gekko have three hands, but are using two of them just to stand up, so they can't reload - once the mag is empty, they [[ThrowAwayGuns toss the gun away and pull out a new one]]. ''[[BottomlessMagazines Endlessly.]]'' Most of them have the GSR, but a few will also drop the Desert Eagle, which is otherwise unobtainable except by buying it from Drebin (thus saving points if you plan to use it later) and worth ten-thousand points afterwards. In about thirty minutes you can make a million points by simply not killing the swarming Dwarf Gekko.
** Overlapping with LethalJokeItem, the Mk 2 tranquilizer gun can be this if one is going for a StealthRun. It puts the target to sleep with just a single shot, instantly if it's a headshot and a few moments longer if it isn't. The kicker though, is how stealthy it is. It's integrally silenced, so firing it doesn't alert anyone except the person you shot with it. An enemy that gets instantly put to sleep by a headshot raises no alarm, which is pretty good. What makes it better is that, unlike a lethal firearm, an enemy getting shot in the limb by it doesn't have any reaction beyond looking in the direction you shot them from, so that only raises the alarm if they can see you. And if another enemy sees one of their buddies drop from being tranquilized, they don't immediately raise the alarm either - they go to investigate and wake him back up, allowing you a chance to tranquilize him while he's standing in place as well. The best part, however - whereas knocking an enemy out by bashing him over the head, strangling him to unconsciousness, or whatnot will have him call it in and make the other guards more cautious when he wakes back up, an enemy that wakes up from being tranquilized will simply shrug off the fact that they'd fallen asleep and get back to their patrol route as if nothing happened.

* MemeticMutation:
** "''Metal Gear Solid 4'' is [[StoryToGameplayRatio the best movie I've ever seen]]!"
** "Wow, I bet you could make a cool video game out of this cutscene!"
** The tagline "War has changed" being [[http://coolman229.deviantart.com/gallery/32625991#/d49u77o directly contentious]] to ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'''s "War never changes". Starting around the time of the UsefulNotes/XboxOne reveal, Snake's "War has changed" monologue has been adapted to "Gaming has changed" to reflect the state of the gaming industry. [[http://patterninterrupt.tumblr.com/post/51142092459/i-hate-posting-screencaps-from-4chan-but-this-was This 4chan post is a good example.]]
** Raiden's "I am lightning, the rain transformed". While famous for the badassery behind Raiden, it resulted in fans trying to come up with similar phrases like "I am hamburger, the cow transformed."
** "NINE AND A HALF HOURS OF CUTSCENES"
** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kNrIn8H32c NANOMACHINES!]]," in reference to how it's used to explain almost everything in the game.

* HypeBacklash: At the time of its release, the game received acclaim for being an overall fantastic wrap-up up for the series. Over the years, however, many who revisited it became more critical of the game, citing the cutscenes-to-gameplay ratio and narrative flaws that made the series unnecessarily convoluted, alongside the aforementioned contentions.

* HypeBacklash: The game at its time of release received acclaim as an overall fantastic wrap-up up the series. Over the years, however, many who revisited it became more critical of the game, citing the cutscenes-to-gameplay ratio and narrative flaws that made the series unecessarily convoluted, alongside contentions mentioned above.

* HypeBacklash: The game at its time of release received acclaim as an overall fantastic wrap-up up the series. Over the years, however, many became more critical of the game, citing the cutscenes-to-gameplay ratio and narrative flaws that made the series unecessarily convoluted, alongside contentions mentioned above.

*** Debatable, as [[spoiler:Snake mentions he had "that dream again," indicating the events of Shadow Moses still weigh heavily on his mind as well as refreshing the player on the layout of the island base.]]

** The mid-credits epilogue where [[spoiler:Big Boss turns out to still be alive. Either it ruined a perfect ending with what was essentially a 20 minute rant filled with retcons, DeusExMachina and strained metaphors about Zero's name, or it was a beautiful if somewhat flawed resolvement of Snake and Big Boss' relationship]].

* UncannyValley: For non-humanoid machines, the Gekkos are just ''freaky.'' Their bizarrely organic legs are incredibly unsettling, and you'd never think a cow's mooing could sound so ''[[HellIsThatNoise terrifying.]]''

* HypeBacklash: The game at its time of release received acclaim as an overall fantastic wrap-up up the series. Over the years however, many became more critical of the game, citing the cutscenes-to-gameplay ratio and narrative flaws that made the series unecessarily convoluted, alongside contentions mentioned above.