Since the dismissal of the creator of Metal Gear Hideo Kojima from Konami, a leading Japanese game developer is getting a negative response from many gamers around the world. One of the best and most phenomenal action shooter franchises done by Kojima is no longer able to walk again after Konami seizes the full rights over Metal Gear. Then how did Konami return their good name? The answer is to make the latest series Metal Gear Survive.
Instead of being greeted with enthusiasm, the gamers actually even more disappointed and continue to give scathing criticism to Konami who considered too fool to play this. Present as a game with the Survival genre, from the beginning I did not see the strong identity of a Metal Gear game. The only factor that makes it familiar is probably only from Fox Engine implementations. But out of curiosity, I finally dive deeper to see how good the quality it offers.
Stories More Similar to Spin-off Scenarios
Before going deeper into the concept of gameplay and features offered, it's good if you understand the story line that summarized. Metal Gear Survive itself takes the same background as Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes. Where you play as a member of the Big Boss troops assigned to guard Mother Base. Due to an unexpected tragedy, all the troops are pulled by wormholes that take them into a mysterious and dangerous world.
There is no source nor visible signs of life, this world is a death cage inhabited by mutated creatures. The concept is quite interesting, but the background of the world has a bland design. You can see that Konami only takes most of the assets of the existing Metal Gear game and modifies it. This is what makes exploration feels boring and less rewarding.
Elements of Survival are Solid and Challenging
Since it was first promoted to gamers, Metal Gear Survive always puts the gameplay survival element as the main focus. Business that had this doubt turned out to be sweet fruit, because all the elements of survival that offered itself is quite solid count. Maybe most gamers do not agree, but this is what KotGa Crew feel after playing it.
Not much different from most other survival games, all the activities that you do are trying to survive. Using a special building as a base camp, you must gather enough materials and resources to continue construction of the headquarters. The weapons and equipment crafting system is also designed simply and effectively, but you may get bored quickly because the process is too repetitive.
The level of difficulty alone can make some gamers frustrating because the characters are very fragile in many conditions. Starting from a low hit point that allows the enemy to kill you, to the limit of unreliable stamina capacity while performing some action (running, attacking the enemy, and surviving certain conditions). The enough stealth elements to play an important role in the previous series will not work well, because one small mistake can get you targeted by dangerous zombie horde.
Online Co-op is Exciting, But Tainted Microtransaction Excessively
For this one you must have heard the news some time ago. Yup really, Microtransaction in Metal Gear Survive is already at a level that is too excessive where you have to pay to be able to open a new character save slot. So to start the game from scratch with the modification of different characters, you have to spend the original money just to unlock a feature that is appropriate in a game.
Quite outrageous indeed, but at least co-op gameplay offered Metal Gear Survive make the experience of play becomes much more exciting. You can invite three other friends to hunt for materials and resources, while working together to build a bigger base. Unfortunately, you should always ensure the internet connection is always stable and not broken even when playing single player mode though. So if the connection breaks, you will automatically be automatically removed from the game with progress that could have also come missing.
Conclusion
All aspects built in Metal Gear Survive turned out to be quite solid as a survival game genre, which has been the focus of Konami from the beginning. But calling this game a "good" Metal Gear series is not as easy as it's given. Even though this game managed to maintain a typical Metal Gear atmosphere thanks to Fox Engine implementation, but the experience you get will not be much better than most other survival games on the market.
Opinion certainly will not always be the same, and it could be some newcomer gamers end up liking Metal Gear Survive. Thanks to the meaningful input of the gamers, hopefully in the future Konami can complete a new series that can meet expectations and restore the good name of this Kojima heritage franchise.