#I do not have the manual for MGS3 though u_u

[solradguy]

Who are your favorite characters in MGS? Most favorite, most compelling, etc.

I only had access to MGS2 and 3 up until like a month ago and I last played 3 like 20 years ago now so I only really know characters from Metal Gear, MG2, Metal Gear Solid 1, and MGS2, so these opinions are probably gonna change as I progress through the series. Working on playing ALL of the (major) games lol

Anyway, I'm a basic bitch, I really like Solid Snake and Otacon rofl They're the bae's haha

I will admit that this is probably because MGS2 was like one of — if not THEE — first "adult" game I ever played that had a serious/heavy story, characters that died (+stayed dead), and a cast that wasn't composed of teens/kids, so that's probably affected my feelings towards those two a lot. Snake was SOOOOOOOO different from characters I was used to at the time; I was like hot off the heels of reading Eragon for the first time (before Eldest was even out), and I think FF10 and Jak 2, too. Snake was like... Sad and tired compared to every character I knew at that point.

I didn't really know how to interpret or understand characters like him yet, but I remember thinking like.... "This is the most believable/human fictional character I have ever seen" hahaha He smoked cigarettes!! That's so bad!!! We just did DARE in high school and my state (Ohio) was building up to the indoor smoking ban (2006), so my tiny child brain processed that like "smoking = he wants to die." I thought that was some really deep shit!! They put me into AP English a little after I first played MGS2. It's really hilarious in hindsight. It made me want to know more about him and it drove me nuts that you only got to play as him for a little bit before playing as Raiden. I didn't hate Raiden though, he was cool but in a different way. Even back then I thought the Raiden hate was stupid and kind of entitled.

Otacon I always liked because he balanced out Snake's gruffness and he was kind of silly, but he's not really in MGS2 a lot so I didn't get to really know him until I played MGS1 recently. I'm still kind of chewing on my thoughts about him post-MGS1... I like that he wears his heart on his sleeve and does what he thinks is cool/best, but he cares a lot too (maybe even to a fault). In a romantic/shipping context, I also like him with Snake, but I'm not entirely sure that all the dialog in MGS1 is really directed towards Snake ("Do you think love can bloom on the battlefield?"); I think it's mostly about his feelings towards Sniper Wolf. That said, I do think that (after Wolf dies) Otacon perhaps fills that void with his feelings towards Snake. One of my buddies told me you find out a lot about his dad in Peace Walker and I'm looking forward to that and how it will change my perception of his character.

Sniper Wolf's post-second boss fight cutscene made me like her a lot too. Kojima's women always throw me for a loop haha They've almost always got their tits out and flirt with the protag, but then they hit you with some of the heaviest and compelling lore you've ever seen. I liked Wolf's parallels with Meryl and how they both realize perhaps too late that their goals and ideals were misguided.

I liked Psycho Mantis more than I was expecting to, too (esp. his boss fight), and Meryl, but I kept thinking about how they kept saying she was "in her teens" and Snake is 33 in MGS1 😭 Don't like that !

In MGS2 I remember really liking Fortune but it's been a bit since I played 2 so I can't elaborate on that much. Olga having armpit hair in MGS2 also had an INSANE impact on me as a kid (not in a weird way, in a baby ftm trans way) but I don't remember basically anything about her character.

That's it for now. Thank you for coming to my 20+ years of Metal Gear Solid character thoughts TED Talk