Overview:
The adventures of Solid Snake continue as you take your adventure to the depths of Africa to find the stolen Metal Gear prototype. In what is a nice blend of the original Metal Gear for the MSX and Metal Gear Solid for the PlayStation, Metal Gear Solid (GBC) brings a unique take to the Game Boy Color. You control the game from a top down/isometric view utilizing all the tricks you’ve learned from every game. You will also fight crazy bosses, escape life and death situations, and deadly traps. Along the way you will also meet a crazy crew of characters to help you on your path. Above all, though, this is a sneaking mission so try not to get caught!
Visuals:
Man this game looks so fucking good for it being on the Game Boy Color. Not only is the animation of Solid Snake super fluid but the cutscenes are super detailed for what they’re able to show. The screen also gives you all the necessary information needed to complete your mission. Your HUD includes your life, a soliton radar, and two items. The environments, while sparse, can be super detailed depending on the situation with Snake being a nice scale figure to show how open the world is. I really can’t get over how this game looks. I think it looks incredible. Especially for being a GBC game. I would have loved this back in 2000.
Audio:
Here is where the game takes a little bit of a hit. Gone is the voice acting done in the last game, obviously, but you do get some pretty nice music. You also get the typical “dubadubaduba” when people are talking but it gets kind of annoying with how much talking is in the game. Back to the music, while there are some pretty cool beats they do get repetitive after a while. Luckily there is enough variety to not make it entirely monotonous but some of them are quite a lot to take in.
Completion:
I FINISHED THIS GAME! This game was so cool for being on the GBC. It’s a shame it is looked at as the black sheep of the franchise because it doesn’t deserve it. It was doing something highly ambitious for the system and could have added more to the fiction of Metal Gear but that isn’t the case. The design of the characters also look super cool and completely different…kind of more anime. It’s nice to see that the GBC got this game but it was stuck on the system for a quarter of a century. It really is nice to see it will be getting its roses when it comes out for the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2.
