The year is 2001. The anticipated sequel to the smash hit, Metal Gear Solid, has just been released. Immediately, outrage is sparked and the game becomes the bastard child of the franchise, for one primary reason:

The fans hated Raiden.

It’s been 21 years since then (Insane, right?), and where’s all the hate gone? People actually LIKE Raiden now? Why’s that?
This game is why, and here's why you should definitely get it.

Platinum Games, famously the creators of Bayonetta and Nier: Automata, are no strangers to fast-paced hack and slash games. In fact, they’re probably the best developers in the genre. When Kojima asked them to make a hack and slash game based in the Metal Gear universe with Raiden as the lead, they delivered in spades.

Gameplay is actually very simple. Unlike Bayonetta and Devil May Cry, where the player is buried in weapon types to switch in and out, MGR gives you a single sword and says “Go nuts kid.” You have light attacks, heavy attacks, and all the combos that gives you. Very easy to pick up, very easy to get into.

What makes the Metal Gear Rising stand out from the pack is its emphasis on parrying enemy attacks and using your high-frequency blade to cut through anything in your way, enemies included. A properly directed light attack in the direction of the enemy deflects their hit, preventing the player from taking what could potentially be crippling damage on higher difficulties. Considering there is no block button, and dodges are slow and unreliable, parrying is the only decent way to avoid taking damage. MGR did it before Sekiro made it cool, although it's not nearly as demanding in the timing as Sekiro was.

Equally, healing items are incredibly scarce, requiring players to utilize MGR's unique combat mechanic of “Zandatsu”. By either stunning or damaging an enemy enough, players can slice them open with blade mode and rip out their fuel cells, refilling his health to full. Knowing the proper time to slice n’ dice and having good precision in your moves is the key to success, and on Revengeance difficulty, it's often the only way to stay alive under the onslaught of enemies thrown at you.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2705921360

To further emphasize how beginner-friendly this game is, unlike some hack and slash games that give you no warning and expect you to memorize all enemy attack patterns to dodge, Metal Gear Rising gives you a fair chance to react to what’s coming, leaving it up to the player to respond. Parryable enemy attacks are indicated by a red flash in their eyes, while unblockable attacks (Usually grabs) are indicated by a yellow glow.

The gameplay is fast, engaging, and easy to get the hang of. The bosses also take full advantage of this system to deliver memorable battles that I still hold in high regard to this day.

The only iffy part of the gameplay loop is that, probably due to being a Metal Gear game, Platinum Games included an incredibly minimalist and half-baked stealth system. While Raiden can see enemies through walls, and can “backstab” them, he has no sneaking mechanics, or really any way to hide. At best, it's a way to take out a few enemies before you inevitably get spotted and the massive brawl breaks out. At least there’s not really a penalty for getting spotted, unlike in MGS; you can just chop them in half.

The game also has a high level of replayability. Although the story and setpieces don't change, the rating system pushes players to improve their performance throughout, and every new difficulty level can change the enemies one encounters in each area. On normal, the first fight of the game is just against a handful of soldiers. On Revengeance difficulty, you're immediately thrown against a Gekko mech, along with several dogs.

This is a Metal Gear game. Those that have played the Metal Gear Solid series know what this means. To those that have not: This entire game is both a serious political commentary, and an absolute joke at the same time. The topics can often be very serious, such as terrorism fueling the war economy, creating jobs, and being unpleasantly good for a nation. This is true; World War 2 actually pulled the American economy out of the Great Depression.

But then the next minute, you have a cyborg ninja debating philosophy with a sentient robot dog, Raiden wearing a mariachi band outfit, and most famously, a terrorist declaring that “Memes are the DNA of the soul.”

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2705922823

On the surface, the combination of dead-realism and complete absurdity seems incompatible, but the game owns it by being acutely aware of how crazy it’s being, embracing it, and running wild with it. It’s the same writing logic that propelled Metal Gear Solid into being rated one of the best series of all time.

In the end, it creates an incredibly fun way of discussing genuinely serious topics, though sometimes the absurdity overshadows the horror of what’s happening in the moment.

However, this IS a canon part of the Metal Gear universe, meaning it makes numerous references to the events of the other games. If you haven’t played the other games, you won’t understand what people are saying every now and then, but thankfully the majority of the dialogue is self-contained within Rising, preventing too much confusion. If you’re one of those people that really loves their lore or needs context, I would heavily encourage you to play or watch the Metal Gear Solid series, as they are equally excellent games.

The game looks great, plain and simple. The game is somewhat dated by today’s standards, having come out in 2013, so you don’t have to look hard to find some rough edges, unrefined models, and simplistic architecture. It makes up for this with good art and character design making them visually memorable and interesting. MGR especially loves its particle effects, so expect lots of those.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2705920211

Even the biggest detractors of Metal Gear Rising never deny one thing: The music in Rising is AWESOME. The intense electric metal perfectly suits the cybernetic themes of the game, and the boss themes are incredible, both lyrically and musically. “Rules of Nature” was the go-to edgy meme song before “Bury the Light” from DMC5 took its place 6 years later. In fact, you’ve probably heard Rules of Nature at some point if you haven’t been living under a rock since 2013. I still listen to the boss themes when working at my PC.

GeForce RTX 3050Ti 4GB | Intel i7 | 16GB | Windows 10
Obviously a game from 2013 better run on my specs, but it’s important to note it also ran perfectly fine on my old PC from 2013, which only had a GeForce 840m 2GB and 8 GB of RAM. Unless you’re still using your 2005 Windows XP PC held together with duct tape, you should be able to run this game on good settings with good frames.

A controller is HEAVILY recommended due to the precise omni-directional nature of the game. Keyboard and mouse parrying is so difficult in comparison that MGR was the sole reason I bought my first PC-compatible controller.

Metal Gear Rising isn’t necessarily a one-of-a-kind experience; you can get the same story from Metal Gear Solid, and the same general gameplay from any hack and slash. However, the combination of the two styles, great sense of visual design, amazing soundtrack, and ease of accessibility make it a worthwhile purchase for any gamer. It can drop down to less than $7 on sale, but it’s worth the full price.

Get it when you can!

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Sometimes, when a person is damaged, it is easy to see. Sometimes, it isn’t. And sometimes, the person who is damaged doesn’t even know it themselves. It helps to have friends and family that can offer guidance to get you through the tough times…. but only YOU can fix your own problems. They cannot be fixed for you.

I Wani Hug That Gator! appears on the surface to be a funny dinosaur/crocodile dating sim. This is true. It is filled with references, jokes, and often has a naturally silly flow. But just beneath that layer of meta humor and entertainment is one of the deepest and most realistic stories of self-healing and support I have ever witnessed in not just gaming, but in all of media.

Let me tell you why the funny gator game is worth your time.

In IWHTG, you play as Inco G. Nito, a human attending a school of anthropomorphic dinosaurs. While his name and appearance would lead you to believe he’s a parody and caricature of the typical “self-insert protagonist”, he is very much his own character, with his own story, morals, and goals. However, Inco is not a very competent person. While his family is quite well off, his parents are intensely neglectful, pursuing their own careers instead of being at home with him. He’s moved from place to place his whole life, and as he says himself, “a rolling stone gathers no moss.” This has made him disconnected, naive and unsure of himself or his goals in life. He has never been given the attention nor forged the relationships to begin to understand what he truly desires, how to assert himself, nor how to properly interact and connect with others. As the player’s character, it is the player’s responsibility to make the choices that will help push him towards achieving self-actualization.

But Inco is not the only major player in this story. The other is the titular “Gator” the game refers to, a girl by the name of Olivia Halford. Just like Inco, Olivia is not in a good place in life. Despite her prodigious skill in art, and a genuinely good person under the surface, Olivia has been beaten down by life to the point of simply giving up. She is coasting, unable to summon forth the willpower to try anymore, believing herself to not be worth the effort, and that she cannot amount to anything of her own skill. She mistrusts everybody she doesn’t know, having been burned too hard in the past to believe anybody genuinely cares for her anymore, and even doubts the love her own family has for her at times. She has resigned herself to believing she will always be given pity as a handicapped person, and can never stand on her own merit. She is truly at the lowest point.

I Wani Hug That Gator is a story of two people healing, coming to terms with who they are, and becoming the best of themselves. It’s a great, feel-good concept, and if that was just it, I’d still probably enjoy it. To my surprise, IWHTG takes things a step further.

I rarely see ANY form of media so accurately portray how people with these issues would act, and on top of that, how true the hidden message of the game is. Healing from issues like these is a long process with several steps. It’s not a straight line, and it’s not as simple as being told to be better. Sometimes life kicks you while you’re down, and sometimes it kicks you while you’re trying to stand up. Olivia does NOT immediately trust Inco. In fact, it takes quite a long time for her to do so. Equally, Inco tends to still fumble at the worst times and be unsure of himself until very late in the story.

But it’s the unspoken message of the narrative that truly struck home with me. Friends and family are important. They can provide kindness, affection and advice in the worst of times. But true change, and true choices can not be made for you. They must be made by YOU. A choice you do not make for yourself can not lead to lasting, impactful change.

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Like all visual novels, the choices the player makes guide them towards one of multiple endings. IWHTG has four endings, ranging from absolutely terrible outcomes to the best case outcome. Throughout the story, there are choices that are deeply important to the characters. But unlike most VNs, where some choice/ending connections are kinda vague or arbitrary, every key choice in IWHTG has a significance. I think of them as a “healing” choice, because the “correct” decision is one that pushes Olivia or Inco towards the path of self-actualization and healing.

But what gave me reason to stop and think is how the choices are presented. As the player, Inco’s “correct” choices are ones he can make for himself. He should speak up for what is right, stand up for himself when he needs to, and reach for the connection with others. But Olivia is just as important as Inco. However...... the player is not playing as Olivia. They are playing as Inco. And Inco making a choice FOR her is not helping her. In fact, it actually does the opposite.

By making a choice for Olivia, the player is robbing Olivia of her ability to prosper on her OWN merits. You cannot succeed in life by having everything handed to you, and chosen for you. Olivia’s entire issue is that she feels as if everything is given to her only out of pity, and that she cannot succeed on her own. If Inco makes that choice for her, he simply proves that more true, and drives her deeper into that hole.

Inco and Olivia must make their own choices to improve. Inco can only help Olivia, he CAN NOT make her change for the better by making that choice for her. She must decide that on her own, like a real person. Both characters must be the catalyst of their own journeys. It is only when they both improve, on their own choices, by their own merit, that they flourish.

IWHTG plays nearly identically to any traditional visual novel or dating sim. It’s a text and image based format, where you read it like a book and occasionally make choices, some of which are important. Almost everything gameplay-wise is what you would expect from a VN / Dating Sim.

Some assets are better done than others, but on average, the quality of the art, and especially the animations is better than what I’d expect from a visual novel. When I normally play a VN, I expect static images. This was a nice surprise.

It has music, but it’s not very memorable. It does its job, and that’s all it really needs to do.

GeForce RTX 3050Ti 4GB | Intel i7 | 16GB | Windows 10
The game runs fine, and I had no issues. However, the “point tracker” debug mode seemed to be enabled by default for me, which I had no personal issue with, but some people might. It can be disabled in the settings.

I went into I Wani Hug That Gator expecting an amusing, simple story about a guy hugging a gator. What I got was a shockingly deep story about mutual self-healing and the importance of taking control of your own life. I spent nearly a full week thinking about this game after finishing it. It even pushed me to start working out and rekindle my old passions like video editing and writing. With my ADHD, dedication is incredibly hard, and the fact that I am STILL working out four weeks later is astonishing, even if I am having some issues figuring out a routine.

But what matters is that I made the choice to improve for myself.

I heavily recommend this game to anybody that feels like they’ve been struggling to realize their potential in life. It may just speak to you like it spoke to me.
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3354918448

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