Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D

Genre: Stealth / Action-RPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, originally released on PlayStation 2 in 2004, is a Stealth-based Action-RPG that is, quite simply, one of the greatest videogames ever made. After Metal Gear Solid 2 disappointed many series fans and was one of the most divisive videogames in the history of the medium, many were wary of the series’ third game, a prequel that takes place chronologically first in the series. Yet upon its release, it was seen not only as a return to form for the series, but a game that truly pushed the franchise forward in multiple ways, from visuals to gameplay to story.

The game was re-released in 2006 on PlayStation 2 as Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, with enhancements to camera controls, a slew of extra content, and a new online multiplayer mode. This version of the game would form the basis of a 2011 remaster on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Then, surprisingly, a version of the game was one of the earliest games shown to be running on the Nintendo 3DS prior to the system’s launch, though the game would not see release on Nintendo 3DS until a year later, in 2012.

In many ways, Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D is something of a miracle port. That it even runs on the Nintendo 3DS is in itself impressive, a testament not only to the power of the Nintendo 3DS, but to the ingenuity of the developers who managed to get the game working on Nintendo’s handheld. While it’s a port of a game that was by that point eight years old, make no mistake – this is one of the best-looking PlayStation 2 games ever made, and even now as I write this in 2022 it’s still a sight to behold.

The amount of detail in the characters and environments in this game still puts to shame many modern games. The animation, the lighting, the atmospheric details… so much about this game is still incredibly impressive even today, and it makes the trip to Nintendo 3DS mostly unscathed.

Well… I did say “mostly”. The framerates take a pretty big hit in the transition to the Nintendo 3DS, running at a maximum of 20FPS but at times dropping to 15FPS. It’s understandable given just how graphically taxing this game must be on Nintendo’s underpowered handheld, but even so it’s disappointing how choppy this game can be.

While the visuals may have had to sacrifice their framerates to fit on the Nintendo 3DS, the sound makes the transition flawlessly, with the game’s phenomenal soundtrack, excellent environmental noises, and all of its amazing voice acting remaining intact here. In fact, a few new voice lines were evidently recorded specifically for this release of the game and its use of the unique features of the hardware.

It should be noted that the story in Metal Gear Solid 3 is one of the greatest ever told in a videogame. It’s one half historical military melodrama, one half absurd sci-fi soap opera, with a style that’s both grounded and bonkers-crazy at the same time. If you’re new to the Metal Gear franchise, know that you don’t have to have played any of the prior games to understand what’s going on here (well, as much as anyone can understand the lunacy in this game’s plot), but series fans will thoroughly enjoy countless references to the earlier games in the series, even though they all take place chronologically later.

For the uninitiated, the spoiler-free premise of the game’s story has players taking the role of a soldier with the codename Naked Snake who has been sent on a covert mission into a Russian jungle during the height of the Cold War to secure a military research scientist seeking to defect. However, there’s more going on than Snake or his team is aware of, and unexpected developments cause complications in the mission that could have dire consequences for the fate of the world.

As Snake is just one man in the wilderness up against an army of hostile forces, his effectiveness will depend on his success at sneaking, making effective use of camouflage, and hunting for his own food to keep up his stamina. While Metal Gear has always been a series that placed a great emphasis on stealth, Metal Gear Solid 3 did a lot to evolve the series’ approach to stealth and survival, in ways that added a lot of wonderful depth to the gameplay. In particular, the jungle locale added some wonderful opportunities to blend into the environment in ways that felt both natural and revolutionary for the series.

On the Nintendo 3DS, all of this makes the transition over, and the game even includes the camera enhancements added to the Subsistence version of the game. What’s more, there’s new touchscreen menu navigation that makes it easier to sort through your stuff, and having the map and HUD information on the bottom screen frees up the top screen to focus on the gameplay. In addition, this release also makes use of the Nintendo 3DS’s gyroscopic motion control on rare occasion, though its use here is mostly gimmicky more than anything.

While many of the changes in this version of the game are improvements, the one thing that really suffers in the transition to Nintendo 3DS, even more than the framerates, are the controls. Metal Gear Solid 3 really was designed to be played using an actual gamepad, and the Nintendo 3DS just isn’t up to the task. However, even beyond the ill-suited hardware, the button assignments are odd and the game refuses to let players change them.

Having a New Nintendo 3DS (or an original model with the Circle Pad Pro attachment) definitely helps, adding a second analog input to control the camera (you must go into menus to enable this). However, even with this helpful addition, it still feels awkward and unnatural to control this game on the Nintendo 3DS. I do think you’ll eventually get used to it over time, but it will definitely be a struggle early on.

To some extent, the problems with Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D were probably unavoidable. As I said before, the fact that Nintendo 3DS can even run this game is impressive in its own right. However, being an impressive technical feat does not completely excuse the terrible framerates and frustrating control issues present here, and both fans of the franchise and new players will have to adjust to the frustrations these issues cause. However, underneath those frustrations, Metal Gear Solid 3 is still one of the greatest videogames ever made, and while this isn’t the ideal way to play it, it is still a must-play game and this is, as of this writing, still to my knowledge the best way to play it on a portable platform.

tl;dr – Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D is a port of one of the greatest games of all-time, a stunning Stealth-based Action-RPG with an unforgettable story about Cold War era spies in a Russian jungle. It is truly impressive to see this game running on Nintendo’s handheld, and there are even some nice additions here, but this version comes with some major issues too – namely, some nasty framerates and some extremely awkward controls. These are major problems, to be sure, but if you can get past these frustrations, you’ll find the game underneath is still outstanding, although it’s far from the best way to play this game.

Grade: B

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