I’ve always been quite vocal about how much I hate Raiden as a character in the Metal Gear Solid games. To me, he represents a character that has FAR outlived his purpose in the series, but he keeps returning like a terrible nightmare game-after-game. So much so that they decided to give him his own game, serving to again retcon his character.
This is his debut in the series. He was the character that was forced on us after Snake “dies” in the tanker incident. In this game, Raiden is meant to represent YOU as the player. A large portion of his training comes from VR, or Virtual Reality, in which he goes through a large majority of the same missions as Snake in the Shadow Moses incident. He’s trained to be a soldier by video games, great. All in all, he does his job to bridge the gap between you as the player and the game.
Aside from the bait-and-switch that Koji-pro pulled with this character, I have nothing against him. He can be a bit whiny at times, but most other characters put him in his place.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
After suffering a bit of PTSD from the events of MGS2 and being a child soldier, he begins to distance himself from his family. His wife Rose, a sort of mission psychiatrist and the “saver” from MGS2, has a son and the leaves Raiden for his old Commanding Officer. His story in this game is really convoluted and it involves an “illuminati” like entity known as the patriots manipulating his life.
Either way, Snake defeats The Patriots in his final mission, finally freeing Raiden and his family from their evil clutches. Did I mention he was a cyborg ninja in this game? Because thats kind of important.
He gets his body back, meets his son for the first time and gets back together with Rose. Everything is cool, right? Except...
Metal Gear Rising Revengeance
This game went through at least three different revisions in it’s development cycle. Kojima wanted to tell a story about Gray Fox and his time as the first Cyborg Ninja (This is why the Gray Fox costume exists, and not Olga’s from MGS2). This would have expanded the story of a lot of characters from the first MGS game, but his team had something entirely different in mind. They wanted to tell a side story to Metal Gear Solid 4, in which Raiden would risk his life to save a child computer genius named Sunny from the Patriots. This too was scrapped because they didn’t know how to properly mesh in the new “Zandatsu” (or Cut) mechanics.
Platinum Games took over and created the oddly named Meta Gear Rising Revengeance. A nod to the fact that the game was nearly shitcanned.
My problem was that they absolutely ruined the ending of MGS4 by having him AGAIN leave his family to become the Cyborg ninja. All of Snake’s efforts in dismantling the worlds greatest PMCs meant nothing because they’re back and stronger than before. I realize that war will continue, but it continued like there wasn’t even a setback.
Unmanned Gears are now a common war machine, as well as the GECKOs. What did stopping the Patriots actually accomplish!?
I admit that the game is fun to play for what it is, but lore wise? It’s garbage. The original two ideas would have been a lot better for the series, but I guess pumping out a lazy sequel is better than abandoning a game. Raiden represents everything I hate in lazy writing.
