this post is about remakes and mgs. i am also completely disregarding gameplay, because i am not a gamer and have not touched a playstation in over 10 years. and also opinionated
some time ago some thoughts bubbled up and im gonna be for real: delta did not need to exist, nor does a mgs1 movie, whether or not it's actually a fever dream hoax. i'm over regurgitating the same thing over and over in new packages and we just need to let a Thing exist with all of its flaws and quirks and acknowledge the good things it has in spite of them. what i am all about is: accessibility. ports are the way. they did not need to remake peace walker and just ported it. i think that's good.
mgs3 is, to my knowledge, fairly accessible, as are all the previous mainline games. its graphics are nothing to scoff at, if not a bit dated, there's still an artistic vision in the tacky piss filter. it gives it character. delta, with its modern realism trendjerk not only makes the game look bleak and forgettable, but also botches the character models completely. snake and ocelot are the worst offenders, along with boss who got even more aged down and looks even younger than snake who is, notably, her apprentice. worst thing: zero effort in the animations. they piss me the fuck off. the motion capture with weird directing choices didn't get changed to make it more believable with updated graphics, therefore making the movement even more uncanny. if you weren't even gonna put effort into adjusting anything to adapt it to the new artstyle, then don't fucking make it, because what's the point other than profit.
same thing goes for an mgs movie, and any video jame movie in general - if you're not gonna make an original plotline, don't bother, because it's just a plot recap which you can find plenty of on youtube. a regular playthrough (no commentary) can bring you the same experience. another thing is - kojima IS trying to make a movie within a game. he is trying to be a movie director without making an actual movie, but an interactive experience in a movie box. what's the point of trying to flatten it down into something less interesting? i don't really care if it comes out good, i just think it doesn't really need to exist when the start product is already, i think, good enough for what it's trying to do. i'm not saying games are better than movies, because not every story that could have been a movie needs to be a game, but the same way not every story that works fine as a game needs to be a movie. book adaptations exist because they are transformed from a textual into a visual medium - so what does mgs gain from being a movie, exactly?
remakes, in my eyes, ideally should be about making a second pass, about an author, whether limited by technology of the time or their own skill, trying to bring a flawed thing to its full potential with the new knowledge. what i think would, hypothetically, justify a remake, are mg1 and mg2. they are important to the main plot, because they include one of THE key moments in solid snake's story: his actual battle with his father. also frank jaeger. gray fox's appearance in mgs WOULD be leagues more meaningful if people didn't skip the first games and knew what the fuck was up with him. but they do often get disregarded and skipped, because they are pixelated and ancient. because they were made for consoles that didn't have the horsepower to include more than a set number of words. also they were the first mgs games, ones that still haven't has their lore figured out - venom snake didn't exist back in the 80's. that much of an important chapter in david's life, the one that started it all, i think, should be given a proper reimagining, one that didn't require you to be a fairly invested fan and be a real starting off point for getting into the story. with proper designs and enemies and a minor plot rewrite. it could be given the justice it deserves.
alas, it would take effort. new concept art, 3d models, animations, voice acting, etc. etc., meaning just too much effort for a little weeny indie game studio. even aside from that, i wouldn't trust konami with it, especially with the og team off the board. no one can really glimpse whatever the fuck they were thinking when they named a guy machinegun kid. if remakes are about an author giving their own work justice, they shouldn't be done without the author's presence in it. still, i can't help but imagine a world with meaningful remakes. if i truly knew of any person that kojima or his team would have trusted with such an undertaking still left at konami, i would have vouched for a proper modern take on the first two metal gear games.
i get that delta was, maybe, made to revive the mgs hype and get the franchise off its knees. but if you're just gonna coat a dead horse with a new color of paint, i'm not bying it man
