The lack of related images for this game I can select is preposterous. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is the newest entry in the Metal Gear series, co-developed by Kojima Productions and Platinum Games, originally unveiled as Metal Gear Solid: Rising, being only developed by Kojima. In 2011, it was relaunched as Revengeance with Platinum and released February 21st 2013.
STORY/WRITING/CHARACTERS
The story follows Raiden, a sword wielding ninja cyborg working for the Maverick private military company to support his family, performing jobs like protection of VIPs and training armies in an unnamed African country after a civil war. Unfortunately, a terrorist PMC called Desperado Enterprises attacks the country with a modified Metal Gear Ray, and the leader Sundowner kidnaps the president of this still unidentified country. Sundowner kills the president, and Jetstream Sam, one of Sundowners allies, cripples Raiden. After being repaired, Raiden sets out to investigate Desperado and stop whatever they're planning. The story in this game is fairly interesting, adequately told and has some cool twists, despite making little sense. It overall feels very disconnected from the Metal Gear universe, having no real ties to earlier games in the series. The stage is set by these earlier games, but once the story actually gets going it feels as if it is actually a spin off, rather than an essential part of the narrative. The writing is what you might expect from a Metal Gear game. It's good, once you get into the flow of silliness and seriousness. There are stupid bits, but they are fun stupid, not you-should-be-taking-this-seriously-why-are-you-laughing silliness of MGS4. The Winds of Destruction are fun, great MGS style villains, but they aren't as deep or interesting as past boss characters.
GAMEPLAY
In the actual game aspect of this video game, you control Raiden as he engages with the various cyborgs, robots, and Metal Gears thrown at him by his opponents. The play focuses around sword-fighting these robotic foes. The combat feels a bit button mashy at first, but the game reveals its depth as it progresses, partly because lot of seemingly important combos have to be purchased. Important like dodging and launching kind of important. Thankfully, defense isn't completely off the table, because of a very interesting block mechanic. Instead of pressing a button and blocking, you press the left stick towards an enemy and hit the attack button to parry their strike, functioning like an easier to use, directionally oriented version of Royalguard Style from DMC3. This leads to highly entertaining, stick-flicking high-speed action that is ridiculously fun. It isn't as deep as Bayonetta or a Devil May Cry game, but it's fun in its own unique way. Another interesting mechanic is Blade Time, which slows down time and places control of Raidens sword to the right stick, allowing you to cut in whatever fashion you so desire. Cutting specific areas of the cyborgs nets bonus points and allows you to perform a "zandatsu" move, which causes Raiden to rip out another cyborgs spine and crush it in his fist, instantly refilling his health and Blade Time meters. Overall the game feels deep enough to get hardcore hack-and-slash fans like me enjoying the complexity, but shallow enough that you can pretty much learn a couple of moves and stick with them the whole game. The game on it's own is fairly challenging in an entertaining way, but the scoring system is almost broken. Filling out the requirements for an S-rank is mind-bogglingly frustrating. The Jetstream Sam fight is particularly bad, considering I could no-damage win the fight in under two minutes with a combo of over forty hits and only A-ranked because I didn't collect enough Blade Points (The games currency) Even in standard fights unblockable ranged attacks come from offscreen frequently, and though they barely do damage, they'll still throw off your No-Damage Bonus. If you don't care about scores, you'll never notice these issues, but they will be frustrating to people who play for scores and ranks The camera is also really bad on harder difficulties.
GRAPHICS
Metal Gear Rising has positively stunning graphics, considering how well the game runs. I never noticed any kind of framerate hitching or slowdown at any point on my PS3 copy of the game. Characters look excellent, and the animations are top-notch. The environments and art direction are very pretty, which is a breath of fresh air after the dirty grunge of MGS4.
SOUND
The music, overall, is very good specifically in the game. I wouldn't listen to most of the tracks outside of the game, apart from a few excellent boss songs. You'll probably enjoy it if you like thrashy punk/metal that gets you psyched to kill some cyborgs. The voice acting is... entertaining for the most part. Some characters are just poorly acted, but others sound spot on, even if it isn't technically the best acting in the world. Raiden's voice sounds particularly amusing. He sounds like someone doing a bad Solid Snake impression, and that's entertaining in it's own right (because MGS2, right guys, right?)
FINAL THOUGHTS
This game is exactly what I thought would come out of a collaboration between Kojima Productions and Platinum Games. Good, somewhat silly story and writing, cool villains and entertaining characters on Kojimas part. Fast-paced, stylish, deep gameplay on the part of Platinum. This game is fun, unique, and graphically beautiful, despite having a dreadful scoring system The story is fairly simple and feels a bit disconnected from the rest of the Metal Gear games. The voice acting can be good, but it's mostly either bad or cheesily entertaining. Overall, this game scores a 9 out of 10.