Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

YMMV / Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Go To

  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation likened the relationship between Raiden and Blade Wolf to that of Shaggy and Scooby Doo. This paints the picture of them being partners who occasionally get involved in increasingly silly antics, which probably isn't too far from the truth.
    • Sundowner would like you to believe he's on top of the world, and it seems like he is. However, him being so eager to fight Raiden doesn't explain why he annihilated half the upper headquarters of World Marshal in an attempt to kill him, and put the brain operation in danger by doing so. A good explanation for all of the stuff he pits against Raiden is that he's terrified of him, and his bluster is just trying to keep his cool in the face of Raiden's unstoppable assault. If Raiden's insane bloody rage can instill panic and terror in Monsoon, why couldn't it do the same to Sundowner? And he was watching.
    • The soundtrack gets a ton of this. The lyrics for the boss battles are very personal statements about each of the bosses, and there's numerous ways to take them—one commenter noted that all of the themes reveal how each of the bosses have either been consumed by their "memes" or otherwise betray their ideals. In "Hot Wind Blowing," for example, the line about the "buffalo following the herd" could be Khamsin's contempt for his former fellow U.S. Marines not defying orders and devoting themselves fully to the liberation of others—quite ironic, when one considers his employer. However, a look at any upload of the songs will find in the comments that many interpretations of the music are as scathing diss tracks aimed at the real life United States, its people, its military, and its government, with the most obvious one being "Collective Consciousness".
    • After Jetstream Sam's DLC campaign — which shows that at one point, he was similar to Raiden — a lot of his actions in the base game become more ambiguous in hindsight. Was he genuinely trying to break Raiden's psyche, or was he taking on a Sink or Swim Mentor approach and counting on Raiden to snap so that he could destroy Desperado and World Marshall? And for that matter, was he actually trying to stop Raiden during the last fight, or was it a Thanatos Gambit, given that he instructed Blade Wolf to keep his blade in the event of his death and hand it over to Raiden afterwards? Seeing how his DLC campaign showed that he tried to take World Marshall by himself two years prior, and that he had a loathing for Senator Armstrong, it could be interpreted either way.
  • Aluminium Christmas Trees:
  • Anti-Climax Boss: The final boss of Bladewolf's campaign has slow moves that can be easily avoided by keeping Bladewolf in the air with a combo. His jump attack is also fairly easy to block, and doing so leaves the boss vulnerable to a highly-damaging stealth attack.
  • Awesome Music: Metal Gear Rising's soundtrack is highly praised, even by critics who didn't like the game. For more information, go to this page.
  • Best Boss Ever:
    • While any of the bosses in the game are all extremely awesome, special credit goes to the Final Boss, Senator Armstrong, who first fights you in a block-sized Metal Gear before absolutely thrashing Raiden in a fight, firmly solidifying his status as a complete and total badass. It takes Sam's sword and Wolf getting smashed by Armstrong for Raiden to even stand a chance. Moral support is also available thanks to "It Has to be This Way" and the encouragement from all of Raiden's codec comrades.
    • Metal Gear Ray may be the first boss in the game, but it's still very memorable, if only because of RULES OF NATURE!
    • Sam's boss fight becomes a complete cakewalk if using items or secondary weapons. However, thanks to his large fanbase, the fight's plot significance, and the showdown's Spaghetti Western framing, quite a few players insist on fighting him sword-to-sword only or even taking things a step further out of respect. Unlike every other villain in the game, Sam makes you feel like you're fighting an equal, akin to other rival battles from PlatinumGames. There are no Flunky Boss elements, no gimmicks, and no obvious differences in power — it's just you and your opponent: May the best man win. It also helps that Sam's battle is the only one with an entire chapter to itself, making it the easiest to access and replay.
  • Breather Boss:
    • Sundowner, and a possible Anti-Climax Boss at that, given that he's The Heavy and initially made out to be the Big Bad. Formidable as he is, he doesn't require nearly as much finesse and skill to keep up with as Monsoon, the previous boss. He also has disproportionately low health considering his physique and fighting style (some players poked through game files and found out that while Monsoon has 8000 health points, Sundowner has only 5000)note , you can also ignore his main gimmick (cutting through his shields with Blade Mode when prompted) pretty easily, and his attacks in his second phase are slow and heavy enough that parrying them should prove fairly easy even for someone struggling with the parry mechanics. "Fucking invincible" he is not.
    • Mistral, sandwiched between LQ-84i and the aforementioned Monsoon, is a cakewalk in comparison, with criminally low health compared to the other Winds and slow, highly telegraphed attacks. Most of the difficulty in her fight ends up being because of her Dwarf Gekkos, though these actually help the player in a way, due to being a readily and easily available source of health packs.
  • Breather Level: Level 5, Escape from Denver, is a short level that consists of a couple avoidable enemy encounters and, while the enemies are among the stronger types, a skilled player should be able to reduce them to mincemeat rather easily if they do end up fighting them. It's sandwiched in between Level 4, World Marshal HQ, which is a long level full of tons of enemies and ends with a Boss Rush and Level 6, which is the Boss-Only Level against Jetstream Sam.
  • Broken Base:
    • The game taking place chronologically after Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Some feel that it cheapens Metal Gear Solid 4's sense of a Grand Finale for the series, in addition to introducing a Happy Ending Override. Furthermore, they take issue with the fact that the (chronologically) final game in the series was developed by PlatinumGames rather than Kojima Productions. Others, however, have no problem with this because they feel that certain things in Metal Gear Solid 4 were left open for future story developments and Kojima personally chose Platinum to develop the game.
    • Raiden's Darker and Edgier Anti-Hero tendencies over the course of the game, particularly during his fight with Monsoon. Some like it because it shows just how awesome and ruthless his "Jack the Ripper" persona is after it had been alluded in the series. Others don't like it because they couldn't take it seriously.
  • Canon Fodder: The game references multiple events also mentioned in the Metal Gear Solid 4 Database regarding Raiden's transformation into a cyborg between Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 4, without going into the specifics of those events either. This is most likely due to Kojima wanting to explore this timeframe in a later game.
  • Common Knowledge: The name of Sam's sword is often assumed by players to be "Muramasa", with its spelling of Murasama being an in-game error or just glossed over since the only difference is two syllables being switched. However, dialogue from his story DLC indicates he truly named the blade "Murasama", as he says it aloud pondering how the cherry blossom garden suits it. In-game information shows that it was intentional: the sword’s name was written down incorrectly in the past, and it stuck.
  • Complacent Gaming Syndrome: L'Etranger, Mistral's Arm Pole, can be purchased as soon as you've beaten the first non-tutorial level; the next special weapon, the Dystopia sai, isn't made available until more than half the game is complete, and the Bloodlust machete-scissors after that. This can result in a lot of players just not bothering. Even worse, while Dystopia does have uses, there aren't enough to be a suitable reward for its boss, and Bloodlust is essentially a high-risk high-reward weapon; by contrast, L'Etranger's only weakness (relatively low damage) is entirely overshadowed by its huge range and ridiculous speed.
    • In NG+ and beyond, the Murasama is this (when ignoring the DLC Fox Blade). You COULD gold rank all the VR missions to unlock two weapons that have their pros and cons over the default sword (a rather challenging task). You COULD collect all 50 of the special severed arms to get a sword that after some heavy investment works like the default Fox Blade (a relatively tedious task, especially without a guide). Or you could just use the sword that the game gives you for beating it once on any difficulty that is a straight improvement over the default sword in basically every category with no real downsides. Other than for personal enjoyment, there is no real reason to use any non-DLC sword besides the Murasama.
  • Complete Monster: Sundowner led Desperado Enforcement LLC and Desperado's Winds of Destruction. Selling weapons and technology to terrorists, Sundowner instigates war, which he believes to be the natural state of man. Sundowner comes up with a project to create his own army by kidnapping hundreds of homeless children from third world countries and having all of their organs removed, keeping the brains, which he puts in a realistic VR simulation of war to brainwash them into becoming killing machines; he sells the rest on the black market. Sundowner starts the plot by gleefully murdering African Prime Minister, N'mani, and all his guards, while using the Metal Gear RAY unit to spread destruction all over the city, solely to ensure that Africa descends into war once again. Sundowner later assists Senator Steven Armstrong in trying to create widespread conflict.
  • Crazy Is Cool:
    • Many players considered part of what made Raiden badass in this game was his re-descent into being an Ax-Crazy Sociopath.
    • This applies to Senator Armstrong, who shows us that you don't fuck with senators. He's completely insane, but he's also a Visionary Villain. And there's at least some logic in what he says, even if it's twisted into a pretzel. It also helps that his boss fight is pretty good, too.
  • Crosses the Line Twice:
    • In the DLC, Mistral's Bad Boss tendencies towards Blade Wolf? Not funny and a bit of a Tear Jerker. Her Bad Boss tendencies towards the Dwarf Gekkos, which include her forcing them to act a seat for her and them straining under her weight? Very funny, and somewhat cathartic due to them being Mooks.
    • Pretty much everything Sundowner does or says wouldn't be funny if it wasn't for him being such a large ham.
      "All we're saying is... GIVE WAR A CHANCE!"
      "Demand for PMCs is about to skyrocket, like the good ol' days after 9/11!"
  • Demonic Spiders:
    • The Mastiff enemies. They have a slow wind-up for their attacks, but they're durable and incredibly agile, which causes the camera to go berserk far more often than with any other enemy and can also easily leave Raiden vulnerable after a good pummeling. Their attacks often stun you on a successful hit, they can cling to surfaces to strike from multiple directions, they have multiple grab attacks that cannot be parried, and they can continue attacking with arguably just as much ferocity even if you chop off their limbs; one attack of note is when they dropkick Raiden, which has little warning and is the only move of theirs you can't outrun with Ninja Run. Not helping is the fact that you often face several at a time.
    • Raptors are fast, tough, do considerable damage, have an annoying EMP attack that can stun you, and aside from one occasion, they are always with others of their kind. Worse, when one is killed, the other nearby Raptors go into a berserk mode which makes them more aggressive and impossible to outrun (fortunately, once this mode ends, they're briefly stunned, allowing for an Execute kill).
  • Difficulty Spike: Both Sam and Wolf play drastically differently from Raiden, making them this until the player can get a grip on their playstyles.
  • Draco in Leather Pants:
    • A lot of people ended up agreeing with the ideology that Senator Armstrong spouts, with some arguing that he didn't specify what he meant by "weak" and could be talking about moral weakness (which is flat-out untrue, as his last words to Raiden involve him telling him to follow his own path even "if it costs a few lives"), even though his actions in controlling Desperado show that, while he does have points regarding the issues plaguing his nation, neither the ends nor the means are justified. Given how Armstrong's ideal society would be one where anyone could do whatever they so chose— good or bad— so long as they had the strength to do so, those who agree with Armstrong's ideals likely also assume that they would survive or even come out on top in such a world.
      Pat: I have a feeling there's like, thirty guys out there watching this going, "Oh my God, I would so vote this guy!"
    • Even on This Very Wiki, many people are enamored with Samuel "Jetstream Sam" Rodrigues. Yes, he's much preferable to the likes of Monsoon, Sundowner, or Armstrong — but he's by no means good. He too assaulted N'mani and participated in his capture and murder, and was party in the plot to cut brains out of children and turn them into war cyborgs. He also seems to enjoy carving people into bits, even before joining Desperado — which was when he was out for justice.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Ethnic Scrappy: Not many people seem too fond of George, partly due to his bizarre dialogue (which is half subtitled as phonetic reading of his accent) and lingo.
  • Evil Is Cool:
    • Senator Armstrong is extremely popular due to the ridiculously awesome last 35 minutes of the game where he goes on to show us that he's one of the biggest badasses in the entire series by throwing Raiden around like a ragdoll while spouting some of the most awesome and hilarious lines in the game. Between his boss battle, dialogue, and music, he's arguably the most remembered character in the game behind Sam and Blade Wolf.
    • Jetstream Sam and the Winds of Destruction (particularly Monsoon) have similarly found a place in the hearts of most fans.
  • Fan Nickname:
  • Fandom Rivalry: With DmC: Devil May Cry, although it's less a rivalry and more of an attack against those who criticized the DMC reboot but like this game.
  • Friendly Fandoms:
    • Fans of the classic Devil May Cry who are upset over the reboot due to its redesigns and use of gameplay mechanics more similar to that of Heavenly Sword as opposed to a sequel/prequel within the original continuity support this game instead of the reboot. The game's fast movements, Raiden's appearance, and PlatinumGames action-game pedigree also help. This also applies to Ninja Gaiden fans upset over Ninja Gaiden 3 (2012).
    • With Kill la Kill, due to both having two big things in common: Awesome Music and ridiculously over-the-top action.
    • With NieR: Automata, likely due to both games featuring cybernetic characters and also due to both of them being developed by PlatinumGames. Both games are also this with Platinum's Astral Chain, which incorporates gameplay elements and aesthetics from both Revengeance and Automata.
    • With Sonic Frontiers due to both having lyrical boss themes that not only fit both their games aesthetic's but are also very well received by their respective and contrasting fan bases. They both have also been used in countless memes to the point that Jetstream Sam has often overlapped with Super Sonic and Vergil from Devil May Cry 5 with his own theme and their own from their respective games out of appreciation.
  • Fountain of Memes: The series is rife with character like these, from Raiden, to Jetstream Sam, Monsoon, Sundowner, Senator Armstrong and so much more. It's quite telling that even after many years since the game has released, new memes of the game are still being made.
  • Game-Breaker: Unlike all the other similar items in past games like the stealth camo or the bandana, there's no score penalty for using them:
    • The Fox Blade, once bought and upgraded will kill all non-boss enemies in 1-2 hits, even on Revengeance difficulty.
    • The Blue Wig gives Raiden infinite fuel cells for unlimited Bullet Time and Super Mode, which can also be combined to slow the game down to 1/10th normal speed. Though the wig can only be purchased after beating normal or above with 20/30 collectible data chips, it makes all but Revengeance Mode a walk through the bloody, eviscerated park.
    • Combining L'Etranger with Ripper Mode gives you a nigh-impenetrable "Instant Death" Radius that will kill normal enemies outright and shred the armor of tough enemies in seconds before killing them as soon as their armor is gone. Once you've unlocked the Cercle De L'ange technique, you can do this with a single held button press.
  • Genius Bonus: Operation Tecumseh is a fitting name for a plan to assassinate an American President.
  • Goddamned Bats:
    • The Dwarf Gekkos. The only purpose they serve is to Zerg Rush you, stun you, and leave you open for other enemy attacks.
    • Sliders serve only to pick at your health with their gun, occasionally swoop you while you're distracted, and have a tendency to hover just out of reach of jump attacks.
    • Mooks with rocket-propelled grenades. Not so bad on their own, but in groups, they'll rarely give you a second to rest, especially in wide-open areas. It's especially bad on higher difficulties with little to no health packs, making you move faster than your brain can comprehend just to avoid them.
  • Goddamned Boss: Mistral, since she fights alongside the aforementioned Dwarf Gekkos, which turns her fight into half fighting her and half dealing with the Gekkos.
    • Monsoon's magnetic invulnerability can only be knocked off him if the player manages to perfect parry one of his attacks and then Zandatsu his head, or if they wait long enough for him to become vulnerable again. The issue is that this means that unless the player plays flawlessly, they're going to be spending a lot of time waiting around to be able to hit him. The perfect parry bypass isn't a total solution either, since Monsoon loves to jump backwards the second he gets parried in any way. There's also the matter that unlike his body double, Monsoon has the ability to jump away and throw magnetized debris at Raiden, and while it's not super hard to avoid, he does it every single time he magnetizes himself.
  • Good Bad Bugs: In order to prevent the player carving up a civilian whilst trying to save them, they aren't harmed by sword attacks; as this Destructoid video shows, this unintentionally extends to explosion damage, meaning shooting the civilian himself with a rocket is the easiest way to save them.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Monsoon and Armstrong talk about the memes and how they'll be remembered because of said memes. Boy, are they right.
  • Ho Yay: Sam rasping "Pretty BOY!" every time he uses his dash attack on Raiden.
  • It's Short, So It Sucks!: The main campaign can be beaten in roughly 4 hours on normal, making it much shorter than any other installment from the Metal Gear series or even other Hack-and-Slash games of its era. The first four missions (outside of the prologue) are fairly lengthy, but not so long that they start to drag, striking a pretty good sweet spot in terms of length... And then you have R-05, which can be summed up as "Raiden walks down a street and fights a few mobs of enemies." Followed by R-06, which is just a boss fight, and then R-07, which is a relatively short fight through an air base followed by the Final Boss. All in all, the first four of the seven main missions take up about seventy-five to eighty percent of the game, leaving people who were expecting all the levels to be roughly the same length feeling somewhat shortchanged.
  • It Was His Sled: The vast majority of people who haven't played this game (even on This Very Wiki) probably know very little about the Final Boss except for the fact that he's the true main villain. The final boss is also a popular subject for internet list features, so there are probably a lot of people who not only know who the boss is, but also know nothing else about the game.
  • The Inverse Law of Fandom Levity: The game has Laughably Evil villains and a balls-to-the-wall plot, but otherwise is as serious a geopolitical techno-thriller you would expect a game set in the Metal Gear universe to be, with plenty of long diatribes on ethics, morality, the illusion of free will, mass media, etc. That doesn't stop the game from having a billion Interrupting Memes alone, let alone the dozens of other memes created from every aspect of the game and the generally wacky stuff the fandom likes to attach to it.
  • Les Yay: In R-01, after Mistral spots you from afar and you talk to your comrades in the Codec, everyone will compliment her looks... Courtney included.
  • Love to Hate: Sundowner stands out for being a vicious and sadistic Blood Knight, and one of the only pure evil villains in the entire Metal Gear Solid franchise. He is also beloved as a villain for being so over the top, hammy and hilarious. His awesome boss theme is also worthy of a mention.
  • Magnificent Bastard:
    • The Big Bad Senator Steven Armstrong seeks to get elected US President using war as a business so he can end war as a business. Having manipulated the political system to give his company more power in his state of Colorado and getting elected, Armstrong forms the group Desperado Enforcement LLC to initiate more conflicts so he can raise his approval ratings. Armstrong decides to have the President assassinated in Pakistan to capitalize and start a war to restart the war economy to pull America from its economic slump. When Raiden interferes, Armstrong just works his involvement into his plans and decides the damage already done is enough for his plans. While defeated by Raiden, Armstrong reveals that he truly believes in creating a world of the strong surviving for the sake of freedom and happily acknowledges Raiden as his successor, telling him to carve his own path while letting nothing stand in his way.
    • Samuel "Jetstream Sam" Rodrigues is an exceptionally skilled samurai and a top lieutenant of Desperado Enforcement, having joined after its leader, Steven Armstrong, defeated him in a fight. Believing that Might Makes Right, Sam first duels Raiden on a train during an assassination mission, easily defeating him and making him question his ideals. Later mentally breaking Raiden into returning to his "Jack the Ripper" persona with a brutal speech and insight into the minds of his foes, Sam finally meets with Raiden in the Colorado Desert for a final showdown, in which he fights Raiden. After his defeat, it is revealed via a last recording on Sam's sword that he, in questioning his own actions, arranged for his sword, Murasama, to fall into Raiden's hands, allowing Raiden to defeat Armstrong and prove his philosophy alongside stopping Armstrong's plans from beyond the grave.
  • Memetic Badass: Matrix/Ninja Cat, a normal cat that is programmed not to be killed by Raiden's attacks, gained the reputation of being the most powerful being in the game.
  • Memetic Molester: Sundowner had earned a reputation for this due to his heavy fixation and involvement of using the brains of children as war computers and shoving the rest in a small glass cage. The combination of this plus his awkward looking facial reactions does not help one bit when Max0r dialed it up to eleven by adding an additional phrase "And I loooove minors!".
  • Memetic Mutation: This game is such an avalanche of memes that nearly everyone of them has reached legendary status. For more info on the laundry list of memes, see here:
  • Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales:
    • George is usually considered as an Ethnic Scrappy, but he's a lot more popular with actual Guyanese, since Guyana is highly unrepresented in media outside the country and they're happy to have a character who's a fairly accurate portrayal.
    • Senator Armstrong has become such a Fountain of Memes that American fans love the character, even though (or precisely because) he is one of the most surreal and insane bosses ever presented in a Metal Gear game. Some even agree with his points and ideals (but not his methods).
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • Most anything Desperado and World Marshall are allowed to do is this, but what really sets them up is kidnapping kids off the street, removing their brains, and putting them through horrific VR training to turn them into cyborg supersoldiers. Though Armstrong and Sam might be exempt from this.
    • Sundowner's Establishing Character Moment with his brutal murder of N'mani and gloating about it.
  • Most Wonderful Sound: Though it isn't heard very often in the game, Jason Miller's triumphant scream of "RULES OF NATURE!" is a delight to listen to every time it plays. Luckily, it's also Memetic Mutation. Same for any other boss song when it suddenly gains vocals.
  • Narm: See here.
  • Narm Charm:
    • "Go Raiden! Cut up that... watermelon!"
    • Raiden's mariachi outfit, a disguise that consists of nothing but a sombrero and a poncho. It's oddly endearing to see him sneaking around in it while keeping a completely straight face.
    • Senator Armstrong delivering a Curb-Stomp Battle to Raiden intercut with a political speech, petty insults, and awkward butt shots. The biggest moment is when he kicks Raiden only to cue inexplicable cheers and clapping to like he scored a field goal.
    • Monsoon shouting, "LORENTZ FORCE! GO!" and "LEFT HAND RULE!" as he uses his magnetic powers.
    • The musical howl that plays at the end when Blade Wolf steps up to give Raiden Sam's sword.
  • Older Than They Think: During the 2016 US presidential election campaigns, Donald Trump's campaign slogan prominently used the phrase "make America great again", which many players likened to Rising: Revengance's own main villain saying that exact thing. The phrase predates the game, as Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both used that sentence, and Trump himself said it a year and two months before the release of MGR:R, so whenever Trump says "make America great again", he's probably quoting himself or a previous president, not Metal Gear.
  • One-Scene Wonder:
    • Monsoon is introduced to Raiden and the player at the end of a stage and killed before he leaves Raiden's presence, but his lecture and Raiden's reaction to it make his screen time quite memorable.
    • The Otaku guard at Sunny's space program headquarters has left quite an amusing impression on the fans.
    • Armstrong only appears on-screen at the climax (well, except for a very brief appearance beforehand), but boy, does he sure steal it.
  • Nausea Fuel: At one point, Raiden is stabbed through the stomach, has his pain inhibitors turned off, and pulls the sword out of his stomach with copious amounts of blood dripping out of him.
  • Player Punch: When Sam pulls the "Not So Different" Remark card between Raiden and the Denver policemen you've been fighting up to this point. You hear their thoughts on how they're afraid of Raiden and they fight because it's the only thing keeping them alive. Then you have to fight them while still hearing this. Followed by the remaining policeman lamenting on how he was the only one spared.
  • Polished Port: The long-awaited PC port of the game was met with positive reception. Especially since Japanese developers are not known for putting out PC ports very often, and the times they do, they often tend to be a Porting Disaster. While the port isn't amazing, it's very well optimized (though it doesn't have the option for better textures than the console version), and despite some issues (including a 1080p resolution limit and a bug that would close the game when there is no internet connection, the latter of which has been fixed with an official patch), it is a rather solid port, and people from Platinum and Konami are getting active feedback from PC players, as well. The fact that it comes with every piece of DLC, all for half the original cost of the console version, is icing on the cake.
  • Pop Culture Holiday: September 12th has been memetically referred to as Sundowner Day thanks to him pining for "the good ol' days after 9/11".
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
    • Sunny was seen as The Scrappy in Metal Gear Solid 4 due to her awkward fascination with eggs, her shy personality, and being a genius for her age who surprisingly outclasses Naomi and Otacon. In this game, she's a bit older and is more talkative and expressive with Raiden. Furthermore, as one of the few returning characters, her dialogues were looked forward to by fans since she brought up information about Otacon.
    • If anyone still considered Raiden to be a Scrappy after Metal Gear Solid 4, they promptly changed their minds after the sheer badassery that he displays in this game. His Sociopathic Hero tendencies that separate Raiden from Snake really help, giving Raiden his own characterization besides being a Snake fanboy. Also, the story shows a decent character arc which emphasizes Raiden's more unique and interesting traits while downplaying (but not completely ignoring) the parts of his character that made him a Scrappy in the first place.
  • Rooting for the Empire: Many players sympathize with and even agree with some of Armstrong's anarchistic goals. Reasons for this may be due in part to his reminiscence of Big Boss's ideals and the moral nuance of striving for peace but paradoxically using violence to achieve this goal, making him give off the vibe of a well-intentioned revolutionary. And the fact that Armstrong has several similarities to Raiden in ideology. It certainly helps that his character lampshades the absurdities of American politics, and that unlike most politician villains, he really does believe what he says, even congratulating Raiden upon defeat, because his defeat fit his stated philosophical worldview.
  • The Scrappy: Boris' team can invoke this when playing the Harder Than Hard VR Missions or Revengeance difficulty. Dying repeatedly at the same checkpoint makes their "RAIDEN?! ANSWER ME! RAAAAIDEEEEEEEN?!?!?!" game over shtick wear very thin. Doktor can also be very annoying in this regard since his death quote involves lamenting over how Raiden should be "stronger than this"... when all the VR missions force you to do them with no life or fuel upgrades, and on harder missions, this means that 95% of all enemy attacks are One-Hit Kills.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • Unique weapons replacing the High Frequency Blade's heavy attack when equipped instead of having their own dedicated button.
    • The inability to swap between sub-weapons on the fly. Trying to do a No-Damage Run after hitting a checkpoint with the wrong weapon equipped means spending precious seconds standing still to swap the weapon out, potentially ruining your chances before you can even start. This was fixed in a later patch; you can now change weapons while running, but not in the middle of Combos. (Apparently this is mostly due to the memory-intensive procedural cutting engine: there simply isn't enough RAM available on either console to run it with all 3 secondary weapons being usable at the same time.)
    • The use of an auto save (instead of the manual save found in the Metal Gear Solid games). Getting hit right before a checkpoint during a perfect run or missing a collectible often means having to restart the entire level to get back to it.
    • The camera system, as it can feel sluggish, is awkwardly positioned in Blade Mode, and in certain instances re-positions itself while you're attempting to perform a parry or see an enemy.
    • Sam's and Blade Wolf's VR Missions from their respective Downloadable Content campaigns can only be accessed from terminals you find in the levels themselves, and not from a separate VR menu like Raiden's.
    • While understandable for balancing reasons, the inability to block bullets while stationary becomes this if you try to go for the S-ranks. Bullets don't deal enough damage to be a real threat in normal gameplay, but are infamous for ruining S-ranks because they still deal some damage, which void the No-Damage Run most S-ranks require. As such, the best way to avoid bullets is to ninja run, turning enemy encounters from "Badass swordplay" to "Running around like an idiot and hoping you can get a few hits in without getting shot off-screen in the progress".
    • While assigning both light melee and parry to the same button generally works fine, it's still completely possible for the game to choose the wrong action for the situation.
      • The stun system slows down battles for little reason and the game's method to shake it off (shaking the left stick/rapidly tapping the WASD keys) can be very finnicky with actually sensing your inputs.
  • Self-Imposed Challenge: The HF Wooden Sword has buyable upgrades that lets you remove attack power, allowing you to cherry tap enemies to death. As mentioned in the game description, "Only master swordsmen looking to truly test their abilities would enable this." note 
  • Signature Scene:
  • Signature Song:
    • "Rules of Nature", of course. It's half the reason the goddamn tutorial boss ends up being so memorable.
    • "It Has to Be This Way" has similarly become very emblematic of the game, particularly due to its association with Senator Armstrong.
  • Special Effect Failure: The free-cutting mechanic is impressive, allowing Raiden to slice up objects and enemies into a million pieces while rarely ever dropping in framerate. It's not perfect, though: cuts at some angles can cause pieces that appear removed from the bodies of enemies and disjointed objects to move as though they were still connected.
  • Spiritual Adaptation:
    • This review points out that Rising is as close we are going to get to a modern Strider game. Or it would be the closest thing, until Capcom decided to reboot Strider.
    • The character designs and subject matter seem to bring to mind old Koichi Ohata animes, even if only accidental.
    • This forum post explains how Revengeance is a 3D Mega Man Zero game.
    • Many Kill la Kill fans also think Revengeance is the closest thing to a KLK game.
  • Suspiciously Similar Song: The song Armstrong 1 has been noticed to sound like the main Terminator theme.note 
  • That One Achievement:
    • Stormbringer/Becoming a Lightning God, which requires you to beat Revengeance difficulty with all S ranks. Considering that there are certain encounters that give you ranks which are easily missed, and trying to get the bonuses for taking no damage and not killing anyone, you can see that this will take multiple tries. Made worse by the fact that, should you miss a single grading on an otherwise perfect S-Rank run, obtaining it means going back and doing a full perfect run of the level again. If you S-rank the levels out of order, you also need to beat the last level again with an S-rank for the achievement to count, and it's extremely easy to screw up the second part of the Armstrong battle since getting hit gives you no time to restart the battle as the game autosaves instantly if you've hit him enough times beforehand and forces you into a QTE that ends the battle, and if you haven't reduced his life enough for the QTE to trigger, you die instead which also makes the game autosave and disqualify you from a No-Damage Run: while it's still possible to get an S-rank if you get hit, you need to fulfill every other criteria perfectly and you can't restart the battle if you don't do well enough.
    • Truly Human, which requires defeating Sundowner without taking any damage. This would actually be a pretty easy achievement to get, as Sundowner's attacks are all pretty heavy telegraphed in phase 1, and you can beat him without even taking off his shields. His health is also pretty low for a boss so he goes down pretty fast no matter how you tackle him. No, the reasons his fight is obnoxious for the zero damage achievement is there are helicopters that are constantly firing at you with machine guns. In normal gameplay they aren't really a big deal as the damage is pitiful, but it is damage, meaning you cannot get hit at all by them to get the achievement. This means you will likely have to shoot them down (repeatedly, new ones eventually show up to replace the destroyed ones) with a rather wonky aiming system, while also dealing with Sundowner who isn't going to just sit around doing nothing as you shoot down the choppers. Altogether, it can be rather frustrating, especially since without the choppers, he'd probably be the easiest boss to clear with no damage taken.
    • Amateur Radio Operator, which requires you to listen to most of the Codec conversations. This means that you have to constantly call everyone whenever you reach a checkpoint, get into a fight, reach a new area, see a civilian, when fighting a boss, whenever a boss changes phases, and some other optional requirements. Thankfully, each conversation carries over whenever you start a New Game Plus, and you can skip convos you've already seen if you want to get the trophy quicker.
    • Virtually Flawless/Virtually a God, which requires you to beat every VR Mission with a 1st Place Rank. The time requirements for some missions are simply insane and annoyingly many of them rely too much on enemy randomness to be able to beat them in the required amount of time, and the last 4 are generally considered to be That One Sidequest, making the trophy harder than necessary. On top of all this comes the fact that you need to beat every VR mission with a gold rank in order to buy the last sword for the "Ich Liebe Kapitalismus!" achievement, meaning that one is basically locked behind this one as well.
  • That One Boss:
    • The LQ-84i/Blade Wolf in Chapter 1 is a Wake-Up Call Boss, who is much faster than any foe seen before, uses wide-reaching attacks that come from multiple directions, and actively tries to disorient you with its erratic movements (particularly during one attack which leads into a unblockable grab unless dodged), demanding that you master the combat mechanics (especially the parry system) if you haven't already. While the soldiers it summons are relatively benign even for a newer player, the GEKKO it calls in at low health can be problematic if one hasn't learned how to deal with them yet.
    • Monsoon uses extremely fast multi-hit combos from multiple directions that'll regularly daze Raiden and leave you open for an additional hit if they connect. He can also use smoke grenades that make you unable to lock onto him while he attacks from multiple directions, and below 70% HP he'll start activating his magnetic powers to make himself invulnerable to all attacks, whuch can only be disrupted by a perfect parry counter or EM grenade followed by a Zandatsu prompt where missing will usually make you do it all over again.note  Not helping is the fact that while his powers are active, Monsoon gains access to a variety of attacks with disturbingly long range from his disjointed hitboxes, some of which can hit from across the map or from multiple directions. Even when you disrupt his invincibility, he has an annoying tendency to get it back not long after, forcing you to spam EM grenades to reliably keep him tangible. Even after you get the hang of his fight and can S-Rank him reliably, he remains a Goddamned Boss due to his habit of frequently jumping out of range to hurl projectiles at you, which gets repetitive and drags the fight on for far longer than it has to.
    • Metal Gear RAY in Very Hard or above, due to the lack of healing items and the massive damage it causes, with many of its attacks dealing lethal or near-lethal damage. Not helping is the fact that since it's a part of the tutorial stage, you don't have access to any of your usual weapons or skills even if you've already run through the game.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
    • Mistral is set up to be a threatening villain, but is killed after a single boss fight. What's more, despite having an extremely interesting character and motives, Mistral's connections to the other Winds and their plan with the cyborg-ified children's brains are never brought up, even though that plot point is introduced in the very next chapter.note  The Bladewolf DLC tries to compensate by bringing back her character and making her mission control but even still Mistral feels underutilized.
    • What is Khamsin doing with the Desperadoes? Who is Khamsin, really? His motivations make him seem like a pretty admirable fighter for freedom, but then why would a group of amoral Private Military Contractors who are using war as a means to an end hire a guy like him? What did he do to earn the ire of Mistral that she would want to bump him off under the radar of her teammates? The Bladewolf DLC is really more focused on its titular character.
  • Too Cool to Live: All of the villains could qualify in some way or another, but this is especially the case for Senator Armstrong and Jetstream Sam. However, in Sam’s case, his death somehow made him even cooler, because we then find out that unlike Raiden and the other villains of the game, he was 90% flesh and blood and he barely had any cybernetics, yet somehow, he was keeping up with Raiden by sheer skill and awesomeness alone.
  • Ugly Cute:
    • When Sunny calls Blade Wolf cute, Raiden responds that Blade Wolf isn't the "cuddling type." As far as weapons of war are concerned, Blade Wolf is certainly a sweetheart, but Raiden is right in his assessment that Wolf wasn't designed to be a pet.
    • When Raiden encounters the Raptors, which are basically robotic dinosaurs, Doktor calls them "adorable." Raiden is less than enthusiastic about agreeing with Doktor's sentiment.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome:
    • Monsoon's magnetic separation. His animations are absolutely seamless, transitioning from a whole piece of his model to physics-affected segments, and even moving completely independent of him without a single hiccup.
    • Raiden using the Ninja Run to close the distant to Metal Gear RAY or the helicopters. They might look like a standard scene scripted to look awesome... until you notice that it's not the same each time and Raiden will pause if you stop pressing forward, the whole scene is happening in game.
  • The Woobie: Blade Wolf needs plenty of hugs after being fooled by Mistral into thinking that he'll achieve freedom (see his DLC episode for more details) and to be forced to work for Desperado Enforcement to avoid having its memory erased. Plus he's really a kind dog (provided that you don't piss him off) who's very loyal to Raiden after their first encounter.

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top