Replaying MGR because RULES OF NAAATUUUUUURRE I guess

This is such a great boss design

The actual fight is ridiculously good too, although that's true of nearly all the bosses really

Most action-game bosses have a rhythm where you dodge until you can do some kind of guard break and then wail on them while they're stunned

MGR has one of the best implementations of this structure I've ever seen

Bosses have vulnerable states but you can trigger them SUPER early

Attack, guard, and parry are all the same button with different timings. Imperfect parry is a guard; mashing the button is attack

You can play it like Kingdom Hearts and just run around until the boss gives you time to attack a few times,

but if you nail the parry timing you can interrupt just about any attack and turn it into a damage opportunity

Game feel/Visuals/audio/p much everything *completely flips out* when you do this

Like imagine if landing a Falcon Punch had a THEME SONG

Wrecking bosses like this feels absurdly awesome, & since it's not Dark Souls a failed parry is just a block. Hard to execute but no penalty

Thus the game ALLOWS you to suck at it but is constantly pushing you to try to play it in the raddest possible way

It goes way, way deeper than this too, in ways that I honestly missed the first time I played it. Which is part of why I'm revisiting it tbh

Didn't ever get good enough at it to see just how rad it can get when you're playing above beginner level, but I Have Heard Stories

rofl I completely forgot about this kid who's voiced by a 30-year-old man

For plot reasons he speaks Guyanese Creole and I guess they just had a really hard time finding a voice actor lol

100% convinced this was Kojima's decision from before Platinum took over development and they just had to do their best to deal with it

The main character of this game is a dude wearing three-inch heels

so that he can attach swords to his feet and kick people in half

I haven't played enough Metal Gear games to understand why this Final Fantasy character shows up out of nowhere

THE MEMES