Metal Gear Solid III: Angels Fall
Metal Gear Solid III: Angels Fall is the fifth game in the Metal Gear Solid series, and follows up directly from the events of 2008's Metal Gear Peace. It's a stealth/action game that follows the story of an aging Solid Snake as he attempts to destroy the Patriots once and for all, while tracing down clues left by a man claiming to be the legendary soldier Big Boss, who was once thought dead after being defeated by Solid Snake on numerous occasions. At the same time, the game also follows the story of Vapor Snake, AKA Lyra Marin, as she hunts down the people responsible for her mother Paz Ortega's death while trying to put her own personal demons to rest. Bringing both of these stories together is the terrorist warlord known as Skull Face (the villain of OTL's Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain), who seeks vengeance against Big Boss, believing him to be representative of the cultural imperialism of the West (his vendetta against Big Boss ITTL is similar to his vendetta against Cipher IOTL). The game continues forward from Metal Gear Peace and Outer Heaven in terms of gameplay, maintaining some of the systems originated by those games, while also introducing many of its own. It continues the "split system" from Metal Gear Peace, with Solid Snake's gameplay segments consisting of more open-world stealth (similar to OTL's Phantom Pain) while Vapor Snake's segments are much more linear, with more hand to hand combat (more reminiscent of classic Metal Gear titles, but with less stealth). Solid Snake, who is now nearing the end of his lifespan because of the effects of the aging virus he was given at birth, is encouraged to avoid combat whenever possible, and when he must fight, to do so non-lethally. Like in OTL's Phantom Pain, Snake must call for support from a variety of allies. There's no Quiet in this game (she'll show up in a future title), but combat companions similar to OTL's D-Horse and D-Dog make appearances, along with another sniper character (ironically, TTL's sniper character is a loud and boisterous man named Wrecker, who's just funny enough not to be obnoxious and who ends up becoming a fan favorite, he's voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch). There's not quite as much freedom in this game as there is in OTL's Phantom Pain, but it's still much more open ended than previous Metal Gear Solid titles, with Hideo Kojima using the open world segments as a sort of "test run" for an even more open ended game later on. Meanwhile, Vapor Snake is also able to utilize stealth and non-lethality, but her combat style, which uses both fighting and firearms, is much more like a beat 'em up than a tactical shooter. She's much more physical and hands on, but despite this, has many of the same combat moves as Solid Snake does (it's implied he's been training her). Vapor Snake goes on her missions alone, with no companions to call for help, but despite her enhanced physical capabilities, this does give her a lot less tactical options than Solid Snake, forcing players to commit when they go too far with her, giving her less escape routes if she needs one other than just punching through the enemy and fighting her way out. The game's Split System has some Phantom Pain-style player choice elements involved with it. Though it's not possible for players to choose the order they undertake certain missions, it IS possible for players to influence what hazards and scenarios Solid Snake and Vapor Snake encounter. For example, with the Beauty and the Beast unit, it's possible for either Solid Snake or Vapor Snake to take all four members of the group on (or for Solid Snake and Vapor Snake to split the fights). It's possible for Solid Snake to visit certain areas in one playthrough, and for Vapor Snake to visit them in another playthrough. While much of the game can still only be completed by a certain character, the Split System allows players to decide which of the two protagonists meets certain challenges, adding flexibility and replay value to the game. As mentioned before, the Beauty and the Beast Unit appears in this game, after appearing in Metal Gear Solid IV IOTL. They consist of the same members ITTL, with mostly the same abilities, and depending on who encounters them, the boss fights can go very differently, with Solid Snake forced to use more trickery and subterfuge to fight them, while Vapor Snake can battle them head on (though this isn't always the easiest approach). Also, in order to spare the lives of the Beauty and Beast unit, they must be battled with a certain character, with Solid Snake needing to battle Laughing Octopus and Crying Wolf in order to spare them (though he also has the option to kill them) and Vapor Snake needing to battle Raging Raven and Screaming Mantis to have that option (though, like Solid Snake, she can also kill them). The game features significantly improved graphics from both Metal Gear Peace and Metal Gear: Outer Heaven, pushing the Sapphire and especially the iTwin to their limits (with some iTwins reporting overheating from running the game, the sequence that causes this is patched out within days of release). The Nexus version has better resolution and also a faster frame rate, and is one of the better looking launch titles for that system (though it would come to pale in comparison to future games on the system). This game sees most of the familiar voice actors return, including David Hayter as Solid Snake and Mari Devon as Vapor Snake. Ironically, Big Boss in this game is played by Donald Sutherland, the father of Kiefer Sutherland who voiced Venom Snake in The Phantom Pain IOTL. As Big Boss is quite old in this game (looking even older than Old Snake), this is considered an appropriate re-casting, and because Hayter still plays Solid Snake, most fans don't have a problem with it (especially since Sutherland's performance is considered by most to be quite excellent).
The theme of Metal Gear Solid III is revenge and how it the desire for it manifests in each individual, growing and spreading like an infection amongst even the most righteous. It's the thirst for revenge that draws Lyra back into conflict, after she's unable to return to a normal life, while the desire for revenge has also driven individuals such as Skull Face and Big Boss to commit the deeds that they have committed over the course of the series. Perhaps the only person who isn't consumed by revenge, at least as the game begins, is Solid Snake, who seeks only to stop the Patriots before he succumbs to the effects of his virus. He seeks out EVA, and his dialogue with her forms the game's opening cutscene, while also catching the player up on everything that's happened since the events of Metal Gear Peace. EVA reveals the location of the Patriots' AI systems, a decommissioned space station using a new form of stealth to remain completely invisible. Through these AI systems, which manipulate the world's markets and information technology, the world's most important political leaders can be controlled without the use of force or brainwashing, simply by giving them the right information to make the decisions that the Patriots AI wants them to make. She has the location of the space station, but not its access codes, which are held by another individual known as The Broker. Solid Snake goes to find the Broker, who is working as the president of a financial firm under unusually heavy security. At the same time that this is occurring, Skull Face and his forces are poised to release a virus in the city where the financial firm is located. As Solid Snake attempts to penetrate the firm's security, he runs into Laughing Octopus, who deflects every one of his attempts to subdue her and eventually disables him. As she gets ready to finish him off, she is distracted by a small EMP set off by Meryl and Otakon, who traced Solid Snake's location. Thanks to their interference, Solid Snake is able to find the Broker, who reveals that he is under the employ of Big Boss and that he is unable to reveal the access codes for fear of who might be listening. After Solid Snake assures him that the code will not be used for anything but the destruction of the Patriots, the Broker is about to reveal it, only to be killed suddenly by a virus released by Skull Face, of a similar nature to the vocal cord virus from OTL's Phantom Pain that kills those who try to speak in their native tongue. Fortunately for Solid Snake, he speaks dozens of languages, and Otakon is able to use his extensive knowledge of Japanese to survive (while Meryl is spared because she evacuated the release zone). However, many people die, and the world is once again consumed with paranoia. As Solid Snake ruminates on why Big Boss had the access codes to the Patriots AI and why he didn't use them to destroy the Patriots, we then switch perspectives to Vapor Snake, who brutally raids a base being held by mercenaries, just to gain one more clue as to what happened to her mother. Though she knows that Cipher, AKA Zero, is dead, she seeks to kill anyone who played a hand in her mother's death, and also wants to destroy the Patriots, hoping that by accomplishing both of those things, she'll be able to sleep peacefully again (it's implied that she's had very little sleep in the past few years and even with her physical enhancements, it's starting to take a major toll on her physical and mental well-being). After being attacked and nearly killed by Raging Raven, she manages to slip away and reluctantly contacts Solid Snake for help. He tells her he doesn't want her to get involved, and refuses to help her, telling her that her fight ended and that she's only hurting herself by continuing to fight. She angrily rebukes him, determined to get revenge and becoming increasingly unhinged.
This leads into the second chapter of the game, in which Solid Snake and Vapor Snake both seek out the information they desire. Solid Snake confirms that Big Boss is alive and that he is seeking to create his soldier's paradise again, a grand Final Heaven, while Vapor Snake learns about Skull Face's role in her mother's death but not the exact role that he played. This is where the Split System comes into play, as six different locations open up for the two to gather clues from. Through the player's actions in the first location, in which they play as Solid Snake but encounter Vapor Snake, the next few locations can be approached in a variety of ways. These locations are a series of military bases located near cities around the world, where Skull Face plans to launch his next series of attacks, but also where information can be gleaned about Big Boss. These locations are all places where Big Boss has operated before, during the Cold War and during the various proxy wars, both covert and otherwise, that were fought between the United States and the Soviet Union. These places also tie in to military operations from previous games in the series, with allusions given to games as early as the original Metal Gear. During this crucial first mission, which takes place near Prague, Solid Snake explores a forested area surrounding an old biochemical plant. The plant has been taken over by Skull Face's troops, and Snake must make his way in and gather a sample of a strange new virus which Skull Face intends to test out on the people of Prague. During this sequence, Solid Snake not only meets up with Vapor Snake, but also finds a clue as to Big Boss' whereabouts that directs him to an area that was once Zanzibarland but is now part of modern-day Kazahkstan. He must also, with Vapor Snake's help, battle a strange new Metal Gear, a hybrid of machine and biotechnology that is able to manipulate plant life and integrate it into its structure. After defeating this new Metal Gear and saving Prague from the effects of the virus, Solid Snake resolves to travel to the former Zanzibarland. Depending on what occurred during this mission, Vapor Snake may or may not follow. If she does, she'll end up battling against Laughing Octopus, while if she remains in Europe, Solid Snake will battle her. Either way, Laughing Octopus gives more information about Skull Face upon her defeat, telling Solid Snake that this battle is about whether or not the soldiers who have ravaged the world with war will pay for their sins, and that she is currently paying for hers. Vapor Snake eventually arrives at the former Zanzibarland later on (whether or not she battles Laughing Octopus), and stumbles upon a recording that Big Boss made in which he talks to his "children": Solid Snake, Liquid Snake, and her. Though Vapor Snake loves her mother dearly (even though they have never met), she is torn about her father, not knowing if he is just another terrorist warmonger or whether he was just fighting for peace even as he relished in war. The next segment of the game takes place near London, and ultimately results in a battle between either Solid Snake/Vapor Snake and Raging Raven. During this time, the two of them navigate the city, with Solid Snake engaging in a sort of James Bond-esque spy mission as Vapor Snake infiltrates a heavily guarded compound in which one of Big Boss' old allies is now keeping another Metal Gear machine. This machine is capable of taking to the skies, and so this segment concludes with one of the two Snakes battling Raging Raven and the other one battling the aerial Metal Gear. Either way, the fight leaves significant destruction in London, causing more panic around the world, events that the Patriots AI seems to have planned for, but also events that make it easier for Skull Face to spread his virus. This segment ends with a confrontation between Solid Snake and Skull Face that leads to Solid Snake being captured and put in a container ship headed for parts unknown, while Vapor Snake gives pursuit.
The next segment is a sequence in which Screaming Mantis tortures Solid Snake while Crying Wolf looks on. Vapor Snake enters the ship and confronts Crying Wolf, asking her why her unit is working for Skull Face, to which she gets the answer that they're not, that their target is Solid Snake and that once he's dead, their mission will be complete. If Solid Snake is able to resist the torture and break free, he'll be the one to battle Crying Wolf, otherwise, Vapor Snake is the one to battle her. All hell breaks loose on the ship after Screaming Mantis and Skull Face turn on one another, while a squad of mercenaries shows up as well. Solid Snake and Vapor Snake team up to escape the ship, while Skull Face leaves and Screaming Mantis ends up killing most of the mercenaries before escaping herself. The chaos frees another Metal Gear, which Solid Snake and Vapor Snake must team up to fight. After that, the two go their own separate ways, while Solid Snake meets with Big Boss on top of a cargo box on the deck of the burning ship. In a very lengthy cutscene full of flashbacks and exposition, a lot of plot threads are explained, including Big Boss' purpose for not destroying the Patriots AI. He seeks to use the Patriots AI to turn the whole world into his Outer Heaven, raising soldiers to a sort of "protected class" who would eventually come to run the planet. Solid Snake confronts him on this, telling him that The Boss would never approve and that it would take the freedom away from people, but Big Boss replies that people would still have freedom, but that when it came to war, there was no such thing as freedom, only the blood and glory of the battlefield. Solid Snake tries to kill Big Boss, only to be disarmed, but Big Boss neglects to kill Solid Snake, instead telling him that he'll come to understand in time, before leaving him on the burning ship. He's rescued by Meryl and Wrecker, who help him back to shore. Solid Snake resolves to stop Big Boss, but that Skull Face is the more pressing matter, and he and Vapor Snake ultimately visit several more military bases to foil both Skull Face and Big Boss' plans. During this time, Screaming Mantis is confronted and defeated by either Solid Snake or Vapor Snake, and this leads to another sequence in which a lot of exposition is dropped (it also leads to a confrontation with Psycho Mantis similar to the one from OTL's Metal Gear Solid 4, with Solid Snake fighting him). A connection between Vapor Snake and the Beauty and Beast Unit is revealed, though the connection is left purposefully vague, so players aren't quite able to connect the dots initially. The sequence also sets up for a final confrontation between Solid Snake and Skull Face, who plans to infect the entire world with his virus, starting with Tokyo. Solid Snake pursues Skull Face and his squad to a base just outside the outskirts of the city, while Vapor Snake learns the the truth about what happened to Paz (essentially the same thing that happened in OTL's Ground Zeroes, captured by Skull Face's unit and tortured for a time, only to be rescued by Big Boss, but left with a bomb implanted inside her body and forced to sacrifice herself to save him). Learning this truth fills Vapor Snake with an all-consuming rage, and she storms into the facility, killing dozens of Skull Face's soldiers along the way. Solid Snake, meanwhile, confronts Skull Face, but after a brief scene of dialogue that seems to be setting up a major boss fight, Vapor Snake comes into the room and without a word, brutally beats Skull Face to death. This is all cutscene, the player doesn't control her, this isn't a boss fight, it's just a no-holds-barred beatdown in which Skull Face doesn't even have time to beg before Vapor Snake caves his skull in with a final punch. In an emotional cutscene afterwords, Vapor Snake falls to her knees and starts sobbing. She's not satisfied with her revenge, she's just hollow, and killing Skull Face has brought her no comfort, and it certainly hasn't ended her pain. Solid Snake tries to comfort her, but she's inconsolable. The one consolation from all of this is that Skull Face's organization has been defeated and his plans have been ended, but Big Boss and his orbital Final Heaven still remain, and Solid Snake has to stop them, with or without his sister.
The next segment of the game, which consists of the final 25% of the main storyline, plays out as a series of short but plot-heavy missions tying together the final threads of Big Boss' role in the series, as Solid Snake must hunt down a group of mercenaries who guard the way to Final Heaven. Meanwhile, Vapor Snake's missions involve finishing off the remaining people tied to Skull Face, while increasingly going insane from the fact that she was never truly able to resolve her grief and anger. Her connections to the Beauty and the Beast unit are brought into focus here as she gradually begins taking on parts of their personalities and trauma, and as Solid Snake gets closer and closer to confronting Big Boss, Vapor Snake gets closer to becoming Hollow Snake, the ultimate soldier, created from the shattered remnants of her own psyche and the trauma of the Beauty and the Beast unit. Her breaking moment is when she learns that Big Boss isn't her actual biological father (the "flashbacks" from the previous games are revealed as implanted memories given to Big Boss by Revolver Ocelot, as he knew that if Vapor Snake found out what she truly was, it would break her). Instead, she was actually conceived by one of Skull Face's soldiers while Paz was being held prisoner. Six months later, she then removed from Paz so that the bomb could be implanted in her place. Skull Face intended to kill her , but Ocelot arranged to have her taken and given to the family who would raise her as a normal girl, though before he gave her away, he subjected her to a procedure that would give her similar DNA to Solid Snake and Liquid Snake (and he also made sure she would survive in the first place, considering that she was three months premature). Upon learning the truth, Vapor Snake has a complete psychological break and becomes Hollow Snake. She intends to kill Big Boss and Solid Snake while destroying Final Heaven in such a way that it would trigger a Kessler Syndrome event, trapping humanity on Earth for centuries to come (she claims that humanity "doesn't deserve to infect the rest of the universe with its wickedness"). To these ends, she takes a Metal Gear unit that was once a secret weapon of Big Boss (a very similar unit to the "Sahelanthropus" from OTL's Phantom Pain) and plans to ride it into space and crash it into Final Heaven. Meanwhile, Snake sneaks onto Final Heaven after gaining the final access code, but not before visiting EVA who helps him use the code to gain access to the unit (and then dies in a very poignant scene due to her own viral infection). Solid Snake then sneaks onto Final Heaven, where Big Boss has assembled the surviving members of his old team, along with a horde of mercenary troops all suffering from PTSD in recent wars. After progressing halfway through, a sequence will play out in which Hollow Snake attempts to crash Sahelanthropus into the station, and Solid Snake must use a laser cannon to disable it. It still crashes into the station, but causes only minimal damage, and Snake must first damage Sahelanthropus enough to force Hollow Snake out, and then battle her. Of course, Solid Snake is no match for Hollow Snake, and so after doing a small amount of damage to her (which itself is extremely difficult), she easily subdues him. This begins another boss fight/cutscene sequence in which Solid Snake helps Hollow Snake to battle her demons, which take the form of the Cobra Unit from Metal Gear Solid II, and in which the player controls Vapor Snake, while Solid Snake plays the role of support. This plays like a boss rush sequence of The Pain, The Fury, The Wave, and The Sorrow (and yes, during the Sorrow fight you have to deal with every single enemy Vapor Snake killed during the game, which, considering her play style, can be in the THOUSANDS). Defeating the Sorrow leads to one final sequence in which Vapor Snake must battle the memory of her mother, which takes the form of Peace Walker. After Vapor Snake lands the final blow, she finally frees herself of her trauma and pain, though it will always linger to some degree (an allusion to the "phantom pain" which surfaced in OTL's Metal Gear Solid V). The fight has caused her to be severely injured, but she's able to stand and walk, and tells Solid Snake that she's ready to walk away but that she can help him if he needs her to. He says that he'll go on alone, and she embraces him before leaving. Solid Snake then makes his way to Big Boss, and the two have one final, emotional confrontation. The final boss battle is a hand to hand brawl, no guns, but full of emotion anyway, and also quite difficult, with the player forced to utilize most of the combat techniques they've learned up to this point. Solid Snake defeats Big Boss, but refuses to kill him, realizing that Big Boss is about to die anyway as a result of the virus that will also ultimately kill Solid Snake in a few months as well. After one final conversation between the two old soldiers, Big Boss dies. Solid Snake doesn't know whether or not he wants to destroy the Patriots' AI system, as he realizes that its only purpose at this point is to create wars that will ensure soldiers still have a place in the world, and not, as Big Boss originally stated, to make soldiers superior. As he ponders whether or not to destroy the machine housing the AI, Vapor Snake contacts him and tells him that she's going to trigger the station's self-destruct sequence. She tells him that doing so will give humanity a chance at peace, and that, in the end, she's "her mother's daughter". Solid Snake tells her that destroying the Patriots won't guarantee peace, as humans can still choose for themselves to make war, but Vapor Snake says that it will give peace a chance. Snake just smiles, then picks up Big Boss' body, escaping Final Heaven just as it explodes, taking all remaining traces of the Patriots with it. Later, Solid Snake is standing by Big Boss' grave, which is next to The Boss' at Arlington National Cemetery. He makes a short and poignant speech. Meanwhile, we see that Vapor Snake is no more: she's gone back to being Lyra Marin, and has become an advocate for peace, just as her mother once was (but unlike her mother, Lyra truly is advocating for peace with no other intentions). She's finally at peace herself, for real this time, with no more anger in her heart, only a small sadness that she's learned to live with. We see Solid Snake visiting many of his old friends (the ones that are still alive), and it's implied that he'll live out his last few months with Meryl. Finally, he visits Lyra, who still considers him a brother and calls the two of them "the children of war and peace". She says that even though Big Boss isn't actually her biological father, in a way she still sees him as a father, as she had to learn to become a soldier just like him. She and Solid Snake discuss their lives from this point and that she'll be happy never raising a weapon again, while Solid Snake is also glad to get to live the last few months of his life in peace. The final scene of the ending shows Solid Snake picking up one of the pieces of Final Heaven that fell to Earth. On it is printed a message from Big Boss to the soldiers of the world, giving his philosophy one last time, and that while soldiers were born to fight, every soldier deserves to live in peace. While Solid Snake is about to reach the end of his life, the destruction of the Patriots means an uncertain future for the world.
Metal Gear Solid III: Angels Fall is released on September 5, 2012, for the Nintendo Sapphire and Apple iTwin. The game receives excellent reviews, though they're not quite as glowingly positive as the reviews for Metal Gear Peace, criticizing the game's slightly uneven pacing and a bit of awkwardness during Solid Snake's open world sequences. However, it's still considered one of the best games of the year, and becomes one of the fastest selling iTwin games of all time thanks to it being the first mainline Metal Gear Solid game released for the system (in the previous months, Konami had released an HD compilation of the previous games in the series on the iTwin and Gemini, building hype for this title). It would sell even faster on the Sapphire, becoming one of that system's top selling games of the year. It would be the last Metal Gear game that Hideo Kojima would release for Konami, at least in its current incarnation. Kojima actually has plans for the series beyond this game, but it's a time of turmoil and transition for Konami, and Kojima and the company have been increasingly unhappy with each other in recent years. Ultimately, whether or not Kojima would get to truly finish his flagship series would boil down to circumstances beyond either Kojima or Konami's control, and one that would become the biggest story in gaming in 2013...
