Let’s get one thing out of the way right now: Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance was the best game I played at E3 even though I only played it for about ten minutes.
When Platinum Games was revealed to be developing the game, I was excited. Bayonetta ranks as one of my top 50 games of all time and the idea of Bayonetta + Metal Gear was almost too much to comprehend. But who cares about all that? Let’s talk about the demo.
The game looks fantastic, in traditional Metal Gear fashion, but that wasn’t what blew me away. What did though was blade mode.
Blade mode is what they are calling when time slows down and you can aim Raiden’s sword to make many precise cuts to an enemy. I remember loving the idea of slicing through everything in the game when Revengeance was first shown and it lives up to my expectations.
I spent the beginning of the demo running around and slicing up anything I could see– it is that much fun. Doing this really lessened the amount of time I had to play the demo but it was worth it.
Simply hold down LT and aim the reticle with the right stick. Flick the right stick in any direction to slice that way. You can easily slice things dozens of times in a second and it looks unbelievable and behaves realistically too. Pieces flop and fall over like you’d expect them to with no slowdown that I noticed. The pieces themselves, however, did quickly disappear.
There is even a combat log that displays how many hits and pieces you have created in your crazy rage. There was also a letter rank given out similar to Bayonetta that graded you on speed, kills, and more.
The combat itself felt super-fast and smooth– just what I’d expect from Platinum Games. The combos were interesting enough but it felt a bit limited compared to Bayonetta but this is just a demo.
Of course there were quick time events during combat that end with Raiden knocking an enemy into the air, activating blade mode, and then slicing away. Again, this felt ridiculously fun. There’s really no way to express how great it looks and feels. It is pure fun and gory in all the right ways.
QTEs also happen during cut scenes just like in Bayonetta but not too often and always to emphasize the action.
The demo ended with the helicopter boss fight that is shown a bit in the newest trailer and that too was great. Based on some of the things Platinum Games has come up with before, I can’t wait to see what happens later.
I absolutely loved my limited time with Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. The only thing I can even think of as criticism is that I hope there is a good amount of weapon and combo variety in the final game. Everything else looked, played, and was freaking amazing.
Do not pass this off as Bayonetta with a MGS paint job though, the trailers have proven that it is very rooted in the series and the part of the game I played did as well.
All I know now is that I’ll be buying the Zone of the Enders HD Collection for the demo of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.
This game is already my game of the year for 2013 and there is very little hyperbole in that statement.
