The newest entry into the Metal Gear Solid franchise, Metal Gear Solid: Rising, garnered many of the headlines during this year’s E3, because Konami released the first solid, concrete information about the game and released the first official trailer for the game. Straying from the tried-and-true full on sneaking formula that has dominated the previous Metal Gear Solid games, Rising is trying a different approach: one that is centered on ninja badassery.
The teaser trailer showed Raiden, the game’s protagonist, deciding how to ‘delicately’ cut up an enemy and destroying actual buildings with his trusty sword. If that isn’t awesome enough, according to the creative director and producer for the game, the studio actually ‘scaled back’ the powers of Raiden.
Speaking to NowGamer, Shigenobu Matsuyama and Mineshi Kimura, said that the studio decided to scale back Raiden’s slicing abilitites, mainly due to balance issues.
“Back in R&D there was a very tall building you could cut and slice down. But then we thought the balance of the game would be destroyed. So at this stage we’re kind of thinking maybe we should not do it so much – we need to consider the balance with the gameplay and the mechanics. We haven’t really defined the correct answer as of yet.”
Rising certainly is gathering a few nods from hardcore Metal Gear Solid fans. Even though the game is not focusing on Solid Snake, but rather Raiden, Solid Snake, or even any Snake for that matter, and is not looked after by the legend, Hideo Kojima, it is looking pretty good. Hopefully the final game will look the same.
