So I've Finally Played Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater...

Hey y'all, just wanna throw this here because a lot of people are getting the wrong idea with this one. A lot of people are getting the impression that I didn't enjoy this game, and my writing with this video definitely could've been more clear, but that is absolutely not the case. If you stick through to my conclusion, I still really enjoyed the game. I just think that it has some problems that the MGS games before it didn't have, and I wanted to dig into those and get a discussion started on them. Like I said, I should've conveyed that more throughout the video so that people didn't get the wrong idea, but unfortunately I was only able to see the script from my own perspective, and didn't foresee that it would be perceived that way. Regardless of whether you agree with my opinions or not, thank you for taking the time to watch my stuff! I love having the discussion, but let's make sure to keep it respectful so that everyone can feel welcome to participate 🙂

The Crosbow bolt didn't bug. It took you a long time to remove it, so the arm healed and scarred with it stuck.

2 things worth mentioning: Your health bar increses when you let your injuries heal for themselves. And the Eva escort part, you have to press the action button to tell her to follow you

One thing you may have missed because a lot of the lore is hidden in random codec conversations: It is hinted heavily in the codec conversations with Eva that the child the Boss had with the Sorrow during WW2 and then taken away from her by the Philosophers is actually Ocelot himself. What's not really hinted at is whether the Boss was aware of this the whole time. Depending on what you believe, it does put an interesting light on the few interactions they had in the story. It also puts an interesting light on the relationship between Big Boss and Ocelot being the adopted and biological sons of The Boss.

Subsistence has both camera angles. I think you click the right stick to freely change between fixed and free cam x

They didn't include the theme song during the ladder to entertain the player, the theme song is the point of climbing the ladder.

The "trick" with the Fear is his stamina. He needs to eat -- and by leaving poisonous food around you can make him very vulnerable while he throws up.

A few things I enjoyed with The End boss fight. You can completely avoid the fight by killing him when they're on the docks if you get into position and shoot fast enough. You can set your Playstation settings time for a later date and he will actually die of old age. You can shoot his bird and really piss him off.

So this game has a lot of its content in optional Codec calls. Instead of the death monologues, you get a lot of the information about the bosses through contact with Major Zero, Sigint, and so on. In fact, there are so many important details in these Codec calls, such as the game hinting at Ocelot being the son of The Boss and The Sorrow, which is why in MGS4 he looks a lot like The Sorrow. Other things like how Volgin and Raikov have a gay relationship, and some of the accolades of the Boss and the Cobra Unit during WWII. As for the boss fights, the game seems to be a lot easier, as you said, and I think the "Hard" difficulty is supposed to be the "Normal" difficulty. The other fun thing about this game is that most of the bosses can be fought in CQC instead of with guns, and playing this game while using non-lethal for all the bosses makes the game so much more fun. The Volgin and Boss fights using only CQC makes the game, especially on "Extreme" into a tense, fun series of fights. Anyways, the nice thing about the additional details in the Codec calls is that you can choose to take them in to get more information on the whole universe, but they're not required to understand the main storyline of the game. And I think this did a great job balancing the amount of cutscenes in the game versus gameplay, which some of the games in the series (get ready for 4) do a terrible job in doing.

That ladder climbing part is ICONIC

1 thing that took me a while to figure out is that the ability to sneak is mapped to the directional buttons and not the sticks.

The ladder climb is one of the most iconic moments in all of gaming

Let's talk about dem bosses. First and foremost I'm not gonna say you fought them wrong. Whatever way nets you a victory is a right way. That being said, there is definitely a way the game wants you to fight these bosses, non-lethaly. Not only is the challenge for non-lethal takesdowns greater, to me at least, but going non-lethal also nets you special camos that all have bonuses tied to them. Ocelot: defeating him non-lethally gets you the Animal camo which will cut down on your hand trembling if you have low stamina. For some extra fun, you can shoot off his hat, or the beehives above him for some free hits. Plus if you stand next to the cliff edge with a pistol drawn he'll challenge you to a quick draw duel. The Pain: Beating him non-lethally gets you the Hornet Stripe camo which makes all bees, leeches, spider, and scorpions ignore you. Unfortunately I don't really have any fun tips or tricks for his boss fight but you seemed like you enjoyed that one anyhow. The Fear: The name of the game is stamina, his will deplete constantly forcing him to hunt for food. You can sabotage this by throwing out rotten or poisonous food to force him to throw up, costing him more stamina. In addition taking a fake death pill will cause him to come check on you before he lowers his guard, giving you a free shot, or instant kill if you have a stun grenade and the AK. He drops the Spider camo when beaten non-lethally, giving you and automatic 80% camo index at the cost of high stamina drain. The End: Uniquely you DON"T get his camo via non-lethal win, you do get his gun however. You have to hold him up to get him to drop the Moss camo, which is the only camo that can reach 100% camo and will recover health and stamina, health regen is slower, in sunlight, or torch light. For additional fun you can tranq his parrot and release it to follow back to the end, or you can kill it to make The End more aggressive but unable to find you as easily. The Fury: Invincible to your tranq darts until you slash his suit with the combat knife. He also plays a bit like the Vulcan Raven fightif you choose to engage with him "properly". You can also shoot the pipes overhead to put out some of the fires he leaves in his wake. Non-lethal takedown gets you the Fire camo, which halves damage taken by explosions...kinda weak I know but it looks cool. The Sorrow: You can skip the entire boss fight by taking a fake death pill, followed by revival pill. You get his camo by default. Volgin: Put on the Raiden mask to distract him long enough for a free hit, only works once. Plus there are pipes in the arena that you can shoot to spray him with water to weaken his electricity. Throwing a Russian Glow cap into the arena will absorb some of his lighting attacks as well. Non-lethal takedown gives you the Cold War camo. Enemy soldiers will hesitate to shoot you while you face them, will attack from behind though. The Boss: CQC! After spending the entire game getting your ass kicked, you finally get to turn the tables. With careful timing you can counter her CQC throws and throw her to ground for some free shots with the gun of your choice. Non-lethal win nets you the Snake camo, no real special abilities but is effective in just about every environment. Final Ocelot duel: It is possible to "lose" but the bullet will still be a blank. You can also choose to not fire or miss on purpose. Thank you for coming to my TED talk, I hope these help you have some more fun with these bosses on future playthroughs.

I had an arrow go directly through Snake's head one time. I didnt remove it in time and it stayed there the entire game

Just watching through your play throughs I notice you don't tend to use lateral thinking which was one of the highlights of the games, and sometimes that's why you don't always feel like you "got it". Like in MGS1 with mantis, changing your controller port to 2, stops him reading your mind. With MGS2 vamp, you weren't shooting the knifes but in this one, you never used the beehives above ocelot to bring him out of cover. The pain, if you want to deal with bees, in the real world you'd smoke them so smoke grenades are very effective. The fury's interesting mechanic is if you destroy his fuel tanks on his back You could of used your tranquilliser on the bosses to take their abilities, or the end talking about his endurance, and being close to death, if you change the system clock he'll die of age

Just thought I'd point out with the Subsistence release you can swap the camera from third person to fixed camera angles at any time.

ah we finally here. I GIVE MY LIIFE NOT FOR HONOR BUT FOR YOUUU!!

IMO you missed the point of the ladder and the song. They didn't decide to play the song because the ladder is so long, but the opposite: they made the ladder so long in order to break the pace and allow the player to relax while just listening to the amazing song. Kojima is a master with unconventional gameplay to throw off the player. Stuff like the psycho mantis reading your memory card and making the controller move in mgs1, Campbell breaking the 4th wall and ordering you to turn off the console in mgs2 are other examples of it.

30:40 burh that ladder climb is EPIC

I played this game back in the day almost simultaneously with Silent Hill 2, so the long stair going up felt to me like an interesting counterpart to the creepy long stair going down in SH2.