Snake and Teliko.note
Metal Gear Acid (stylized as METAL GEAR AC!D on the logo) is a Metal Gear spinoff released for the PlayStation Portable in 2004. The first game in the franchise released for the PSP, rather than being a stealth-action game like its console counterparts, ACID (or MGA) is a turn-based strategy game featuring a Yu-Gi-Oh!-style card-based combat system in which the player's weapons, equipment and abilities are determined by the player's deck. While the story is set in an Alternate Continuity and has no bearing in the main Metal Gear Solid canon, the player's cards feature characters, items and other elements from the first three MGS games (and also from the preceding Metal Gear games), as well as other KCE Japan titles released at the time.
In 2016, a terrorist group has hijacked a plane using a chemical weapon, threatening the lives of its passengers, with U.S. Presidential candidate Viggo Hach among the hostages. The terrorist demand that the U.S. Government hand over the "Pythagoras", a top-secret project developed in the South African country of Moloni. With the Moloni government refusing to cooperate, the US sends FOXHOUND member Solid Snake to infiltrate the Lobito Physics and Chemistry Laboratory in Lobita, where the Pythagoras is being kept. With the help of Teliko Friedman, a member of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team that was sent to retrieve the Pythagoras, Snake learns about the true nature of the Pythagoras.
It's followed by a sequel, Metal Gear Ac!d 2.
Metal Gear AC!D provides examples of the following tropes:
- A.K.A.-47: Averted; most guns use their real-world names. (Although the Gun Del Sol remains, at present, a beautiful dream.)
- Alternate Continuity: The AC!D games go in a different direction than the parent Solid series, and have no bearing on its plot.
- Anti-Frustration Features: Nikita Missile and Stinger cards can be found during certain missions, rather than making you have to hope you get some in packs before you need them.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Snake isn't convinced Alice is actually psychic, even though such powers exist in the Metal Gear universe. He turns out to be right... at least partially. Alice was really just familiar with the layout of the base, but there was some sort of reincarnation of children involved. It's complicated.
- Art Shift: The in-game graphics in the first MGA were not that much of a departure from the mainline MGS games at the time, despite the use of anime-like character portraits.
- Auto-Revive: The Builder Bed card, giving you 50 health and another lease on life.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Many of the more cost-heavy cards, as is typical of a CCG. Granted, there are cost reduction cards in this game that can go as high as 20 and you can have four of each, so you can offset the impracticality somewhat.
- Big Bad Ensemble: Leone, William Flemming/Gary Murray Lena Arrow and Alice Hazel.
- Boom, Headshot!!: The Head Shot card, naturally. It makes critical hits fatal, although it confers a 30% penalty to your accuracy.
- Boring, but Practical: Stealth Camo and cost reduction cards, neither of which are very rare and can make most missions hassle-free. The sequel seemed to get wise to this by making you have to earn Stealth Camo via an unlock.
- Bulungi: The Moloni Republic
- Clear My Name: Leone's last words, "It wasn't me," are to clear his name.
- Continuity Nod: Nearly all of the card decks, for one. You can even shoot guns that were in the original Metal Gear games - in sprite form, no less.
- On a side note, some weapons (like the PTRS/PTRD, RPK, et cetera) made their way into Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. The XM8 and XM25 also made their way to Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
- The Tobidacid is referenced in MGS4 during a codec conversation with Otacon, where it is said to be one of Solid Snake's childhood toys.
- Venus and Teliko are recruitable, hidden soldiers in Portable Ops.
- Dr. Koppelthorn, the main antagonist in MGA2, was previously mentioned character in Ghost Babel (where his name was often mentioned by Mei-Ling), as well as in MGS2: Substance (where he is the inventor of a VR simulation machine in the Snake Tale "External Gazer").
- In Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, rations were used to replenish stamina, rather than to refill the health gauge as in the other games. However, in the Ac!d games, since there is no stamina, rations heal again. The description for the "Ration" card in the second game says that in the old days, soldiers used to think that rations restored stamina.
- Creepy Doll: Elsie & Frances, who do terrible things to the passengers of Flight 326. Unsurprisingly, they turn out to just be toys, owned by Evil Puppeteer Lena Arrow. Of course, this is a Metal Gear game, so sentient murder puppets weren't completely out of the question.
- Critical Existence Failure: While tricky to set-up, two guards cannot co-exist on the same space, if you knock a guard ontop of another, they'll get knocked back, if there's a wall blocking them, one of the guards will be knocked unconscious, however if a guard is knocked out on top of an already knocked out/tranquilized guard, it will instantly kill the knocked-out/tranquilized guard.
- Defog of War: There are multiple cards dedicated to this, though they all have certain drawbacks, like having a high cost draw.
- Double Agent: Almost everyone in the cast is suggested to be one at some point, including Snake himself. Alice Hazel turns out to be the infamous No. 16 while Minette turns out to be No. 104 AND Flemming's brainwashed daughter. Snake ISN'T one; his Hans Davis persona was imprinted on him by Alice. Teliko isn't either; La Clown is impersonating her and raising hell using her likeness. Charles Schmeiser turns out to be the real Hans Davis. It's... a lot.
- Downer Ending: You've got bodies everywhere, Neoteny on the loose, and the real Hans Davis gets away scot-free. Snake and Teliko agree to go mountain climbing together, which is kind of nice, but all the true villains and conspirators come out ahead in the end.
- Evil, Inc.: BEAGLE, which hides its corrupt machinations and arms dealing behind a charitable mask. Many of the game's characters, including Flemming, Schmeiser and Lena Arrow, turn out to have deep ties to it.
- Expy: Roger for Roy Campbell.
- Extra Turn: The, uh, Extra Turn card.
- Fight Like a Card Player: The cards are meant to be (somewhat) representative of the characters' arsenal of weapons and resources, given the fact that finding weapons in the levels actually gives you their card, for instance. But things like cards based on characters from past games are clearly not meant to be interpreted in this manner, so
try not to think about why Gray Fox suddenly appears to help you out when you use his card. - Final Boss: Metal Gear KODOQUE. Teliko attacks its components from the inside while Snake blasts away at it from the outside.
- Final Speech: Bosses will opine on their backstory and motives as they die, as per Metal Gear tradition. One of them even lampshades the trope.
- Fog of War: Some levels are in "Search Mode", which functions as this for the player. Even when it's not in effect, though, when the guards aren't on alert, they basically have their own Fog of War.
- Gaiden Game: These games don't have the "Solid" in their titles for a reason: They're totally not in continuity with the MGS titles, despite that they reference them constantly through the cards. Snake is still a legendary solider with a mysterious past, but there's no Liquid, no FOXHOUND, no Big Boss. This allows the creators to give Snake an entirely new mysterious past to mess with him. In addition, Snake apparently died in-between AC!D and AC!D2.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: Varies. The first rendered cutscene in the first game shows Teliko in a mission, with her movement and actions controlled by the same cards and grid that the player uses to play, and Roger later tells Snake about the cards, referring to them as, well, cards. But later, cutscenes are more conventional, and in the second game the cards are just referred to as "techniques" that the amnesiac Snake must relearn, as a form of nanotechnological data packets that are released into his brain.
- Gotta Catch 'Em All: There are a lot of cards to collect... or buy. Since you only get three cards at a time upon a purchase and they're randomly determined, trying to get all of them is an exercise in utter frustration.
- The game DOES allow you to buy individual cards after a while, but the three on offer are also randomly determined and the price can be as high as 500,000 points, which is an astronomical amount in this game.
- Hand Cannon: The Desert Eagle, which cuts an enemy's health in half with a single shot. It has mediocre accuracy, though, especially at range.
- Heroes Fight Barehanded: The game offers plenty of CQC cards once you unlock the Metal Gear Solid 3 packs, letting you play this way. You can also use a basic punch/kick combination as a default action once per turn.
- Infinity -1 Sword: The XM 8, which does ferocious damage and causes a wide variety of status effects. It's also easily obtainable despite being a golden card, since you get it via a password which you can input whenever. It has quite a few quirks, though. For one, the data on the card is incorrect. The XM 8 uses 5.56mm rounds instead of the 5.45mm it states. It also has comparatively poor accuracy for an assault rifle. Still, with a few support cards or some patience, it does serious damage.
- Invisibility Cloak: The Stealth Camo card, which has shockingly low rarity and cost-to-use given how potent it is. Even bloodthirsty players benefit from it, since attacking doesn't break stealth and enemies can't attack what they can't see. The one theoretical drawback - the card expiring after 20 cost has gone by - is handily offset by all of the cost reduction cards available and the ability to have four Camo cards in the same deck. Even if your Camo is about to die out, you've probably got a fresh one in your hand ready to go.
- Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: Between the somewhat-spotty localization and all of the bizarre backstories and plot twists, the game's story can be pretty difficult to decipher. It's also incredibly strange, even by Metal Gear standards, including conjuration rituals, hijacked planes full of surgical gas, psychotic ventriloquist dolls and vast conspiracies involving a silk manufacturer.
- Karma Houdini: Charles Schmeiser, who pins all of the crimes he committed as Hans Davis and/or Emilio on Viggo Hach.
- Kudzu Plot: Not on quite the same level as the canon games, but considering how many of those there are, this game grows an impressive amount of kudzu to try and catch up.
- Large Ham: The Kerotan who advertises new card packs.
- CHRONICLE CHRONICLE CUH-RONICLE!!!! ...PACK!
- Life Drain: Granted by the Vamp card.
- Long Song, Short Scene: The main theme from the original MGS by TAPPY is played all-too-briefly during an advertisement for the MGS1 Pack in MGA2. The theme has been absent in subsequent Metal Gear games since then (starting with MPO) due accusations of plagiarism, making MGA2 the only PSP game in the series where it is played.
- Luck-Based Mission: Every stage to some degree, given the 'luck of the draw' element common to card games. A stage taking place in a minefield becomes much trickier when the mine detector cards you brought all wind up towards the bottom of your deck.
- Mad Scientist: Flemming, although given that BEAGLE kidnapped and brainwashed his daughter, it's not entirely without justification.
- Master of Disguise: La Clown, who can impersonate anyone down to the smallest detail. Metal Gear fans will be instantly reminded of Decoy Octopus. (Which is nice for Octopus, since he didn't get a card in this game despite the rest of his crew having one.)
- Ms. Fanservice: Generally averted with Teliko, who is a beautiful woman but is fully clad (admittedly in a snug Spy Catsuit, like any good Metal Gear hero) and strictly business. Not averted in the slightest with the four model cards you can unlock via the Password menu.
- No Fourth Wall:Snake... er, Hans: Hey, come on! Don't change my name in the text box!
- Older Than They Think: Invoked. The in-game commercial for the Chronicle Pack in the first Acid has the announcer reminding viewers that "Metal Gear wasn't always in 3D."
- One Dose Fits All: Any tranquilizer weapon will be equally effective on any guard, regardless of their size.
- Only Mostly Dead: Characters can take a lot of punishment, even being run over by trains, and still be revived on their own as long as there's another party member still alive.
- Mooks, on the other hand...
- Pacifist Run: Encouraged by the game's scoring system, which gives you more points and bonus cards for stealth and non-violence unless the mission specifically requires combat. It's also the easiest strategy for most levels provided you've farmed enough cards, as a deck full of Stealth Camo, cost reduction and longer movement cards will turn many missions into invisible jogging sessions with no risk to the player.
- Player-Guided Missile: The Nikita and Remote Control Missiles.
- Punctuation Shaker: An exclaimation point within a word is pronounced as a tongue click. Just you try pronouncing "metal gear ac*click*d.
- Revolvers Are Just Better: An Ocelot-themed deck is very doable, including Colt Single-Actions (and some USP sidearms to provide ammunition for them) and multiple cards of the man himself. With Ocelot's 'Gunplay' power in effect, you can let iron fly on the cheap for good damage and bleed effects for everyone.
- Score Multiplier: The Big Boss card, which doubles your score at the end of a successful mission. It's essential for anyone intent on farming cards and completing the set. It says it gives a -40 attack penalty to Snake and his allies, but it doesn't seem to effect Teliko and explosive and universal attacks are exempt.
- Shown Their Work: Regading Teliko's background with the Hostage Rescue Team in the FBI that yes, the HRT does get deployed overseas.
- Starter Gear Staying Power: The trusty FAMAS card, which remains evergreen even as you find tons of new gear. It does solid damage, is instant-use and doesn't require a second card as ammunition or take up an inventory slot, has good accuracy and fires six rounds, and every hit adds one cost to the target, even bosses.
- Status Effects: There's Bleed and Burn, which cause damage over time. Faint and Sleep knock someone down and/or out for a while. And then there's Confuse, conferred by the Psycho Mantis card onto the target of your choice.
- Tranquilizer Dart: Fired by the M9, bringing Instant Sedation.
- Trick Bomb: The classic Chaff Grenade, which renders all enemy electronics (including cameras and Patrol Bots) useless for a while.
- Unlockable Content: Beating the game once grants you a specific Solid Snake card; beating it twice (regardless of difficulty) gives you a Raiden card. Other unique cards can be gained by entering specific names into the Password system.
- Unlockable Difficulty Levels: Expert difficulty is available after clearing the game, which fills each level with extra enemies and makes them all tougher and better-equipped. This will have negligible impact on players running Stealth Camo decks, since it just means more goons to invisibly run past, but those who prefer combat will have a lot more on their plate. Expert also significantly increases the score payout at the end of a successful mission, making it ideal for farming points for cards.
