You're pretty good.
By Ameer Ammar
Metal Gear Solid Delta was my first time playing through MGS3 fully. Before this review, I made sure to play a chunk of the original game to familiarise myself with where it's coming from as a remake, and if you've been following along, you'll also know I've been doing a franchise marathon, playing through the franchise as a whole completely blind, so this review will be split into two parts. One part will be about Snake Eater itself, focusing on the story, themes and how it all came together for me as someone experiencing it for the first time ever in Delta, and the other part will be focused on its qualities as a remake.
My thoughts on the story:
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is the MGS game I had heard the most about over the years before getting into it. I had prior knowledge of things like The End can be killed if you wait a few IRL weeks, and I knew about Big Boss being the protagonist and his conflict with The Boss, but other than those details, I had zero knowledge of what the MGS3 story is about or how it even plays. Getting into Delta, I was quickly surprised at how engaging the story was, despite being a prequel set about 50 years before MGS2. With it almost feeling like a whole other series at times, I expected to have a hard time getting into an entirely different cast, a different Snake and a Cold War setting, but instead I found myself completely engrossed by the history here almost instantly, with the brilliant opening Virtuous mission tasking Naked Snake with rescuing Sokolov. By the end of the Virtuous Mission, I was already fully engulfed by the mysteries this game presents right away. Why did the Boss defect? Who are the Cobras? Will Snake actually kill The Boss, and who even is EVA? What happened to ADAM? Can we trust Eva? And most of all, that was always on my mind: "How did Snake lose his eye?"
As the story unfolded, I found myself falling completely in love with the cast of characters; Solid Snake is a badass protagonist, but I found David Hayter's performance as Naked Snake a lot more relatable. Naked Snake is funnier for one; he has a stronger sense of humour than Solid Snake, leading to some hilarious codec calls, like the one about his fear of vampires or his obsession with explaining in detail to Para-medic how he is going to consume every disgusting creature he manages to get his hands on. Naked Snake also has a much more personal conflict than Solid Snake does in both MGS1 and MGS2. The trope of the student facing the master isn't exactly unique, but the magical thing about MGS3 is how it takes such a tired storytelling trope and does it better than anywhere else I've seen it. By the end of the game, I fully understood WHY Big Boss eventually turned to villainy. I understood why he lost faith in politicians and in taking orders from the president or any other president. None of his actions in future games are justified by the experiences he had here, but it gives so much more gravitas to what he does in MGS1 & MGS2.
The Boss and Snake's relationship is one that I interpreted as mother and son rather than lovers. EVA does pose this question several times to Snake, and I think Snake himself feels confusion about what he exactly feels, but I truly believe Snake having to kill The Boss is like asking a child to put down their own mother. Snake only really could go through with it in my eyes because The Boss begged him to end her life. Otherwise I truly believe he didn't have it in him to pull the trigger. He isn't a monster, but this event is what will eventually mould him into one, and who can blame him? How would you feel if you were asked to put down the person who raised you, your own mother, just to cover up a political scandal that could've been resolved in some other way? But due to the nature of the Cold War and the men behind it, Snake simply had no other choice but to listen to his mentor and take her life. A complete loss of faith in every single thing Snake ever fought for is the only emotion I felt for Snake at the end aside from unending sadness.
I can't move on without talking about EVA. Snake's lover in MGS3 quickly became my favourite female character in the franchise up to this point because EVA is awesome. She functions almost as a second protagonist to Snake Eater, showing up in a tonne of cutscenes, codec calls and even some gameplay segments. She is the perfect companion to Snake on his journey, and due to her being a spy herself, you're never really sure whether you can trust Eva or not, and that's the same way Snake feels through the experience as he slowly falls for her charms, and you as the player do as well.
The entire game I was questioning whether Eva is trustworthy or not, whether she actually has Snake's best interest in mind or not and whether her journey with Snake has affected her personally or was it all just a front? With the ending twist of Eva being revealed as a spy for China and also revealing to Snake the truth about The Boss's mission, I realised the same thing that Snake realised, that it doesn't matter whose side she's really on, just that she was there to tag along. Because what is an enemy?
"Enemies change along with the times. The flow of the ages. And we soldiers are forced to play along."
The cast of villains in MGS have so far felt as iconic as the actual heroes of the story, and MGS3 is no different. The Cobras don't get the same level of development as the members of FOXHOUND from MGS1, but instead they get the best boss fights in the series up to this point that I've experienced. Each Cobra member has a wholly unique twist and multiple strategies to approach their boss fights (aside from The Pain; he sucks.)
The End and The Fear were my favourite boss fights from The Cobras. The End, funnily enough, can be entirely skipped through a couple of ways, changing his encounter entirely to be against the Ocelot unit, which I accidentally stumbled upon during my rerun on extreme difficulty. I know this is common knowledge in the MGS fanbase, but as someone who went into the game completely blind, it was an amazing feeling to discover this method on my own naturally as Kojima intended back in 2004. The Fear's boss fight felt a lot like the Vamp boss fight from Sons of Liberty but on steroids. The Fear is extremely fast, jumping from tree to tree, with his invisibility cloak meaning you need to both be watching exactly where he'll jump to next while also dodging his rain of bolts towards Snake. It's an invigorating, fun fight that was a huge highlight for me, especially on extreme difficulty, where a couple bolts could kill off Snake.
Towards the end, the entire ending with Volgin and the Shagohod is a huge highlight; it reminded me of the Jeep escape from MGS1 but once again, on steroids. Going through the entire Grozny Grad facility on Eva's bike, taking out a tonne of enemies with infinite ammo while dodging the giant robot leading all the way up to the final boss fight was intense and a blast to play. The entire final ~3-hour stretch of this game is one massive reel of highlights of amazing set pieces, incredible boss fights and satisfying, heartbreaking story moments – a masterclass in how to end a game.
The final thing I have to say about MGS3's story is just how timeless it is. The anti-war message and the concept of politicians sending soldiers to their deaths pointlessly for political gain are themes that will always be relevant, especially in our modern world, and there's a lot I still have yet to process from the story that I am sure I will be mulling over in my head for many years.
I cannot end this section without mentioning the soundtrack and especially the incredible James Bond-esque Snake Eater main theme by Cynthia Harrell whose incredible voice elevates this entire narrative in my mind and is one of my favorite pieces of music made for any game that I've listened to.
So to conclude this first section, MGS3 Snake Eater is an iconic, celebrated masterpiece for good reason that should absolutely be experienced firsthand regardless of whatever version you decide to go with, as they all have this exact same story fully intact.
My thoughts on MGS Delta as a remake:
I'll get right to the biggest flaw that might be ironed out by the time you're reading this: MGS Delta suffers from performance issues across the board on all platforms, and the platform that suffers the absolute worst is unfortunately where I played MGS Delta, which is the PS5 Pro. MGS Delta looks like a blurry, shimmering mess on PS5 Pro with the worst implementation of PSSR upscaling that I've ever witnessed on the system; the constant low-res look genuinely ruins the visuals on a consistent basis during gameplay, and I am really hoping this is addressed sooner rather than later, as I often found myself wondering how good this will look after they actually fix it. Visuals aside, the frame rate is inconsistent on every platform; getting into firefights will drop it into the 30-40 fps territory. For some reason, diving into water drops it heavily as well for a few seconds; it's just a messy job, and it shouldn't have launched in this state at all. PC users have reported even worse issues and crashes, so I recommend looking out for that before playing on your system. It is truly disappointing that this game shipped in such a state. It's not impossible to enjoy, of course; the performance issues don't make it unplayable, but they are noticeable, and for $70, it is simply unacceptable. I'd recommend waiting for a sale for this single reason alone instead of getting it at launch.
Visually, MGS Delta has had a very mixed response from the hardcore MGS community, and I can't blame them for it. Visually, Snake Eater doesn't have that same iconic look that the original game had with its strong greens and yellow hues everywhere; instead, that is replaced by more of a standard Unreal Engine 5 graphics look, and it comes down to personal preference what you prefer and why.
Thankfully, MGS Delta also came with a Legacy filter that restores the original tint and look that renders a lot of the criticism towards the colour palette basically pointless. My own personal thoughts on MGS Delta visually are that it looks gorgeous, especially the character models. Every single MGS3 character is recreated lovingly and in the highest fidelity possible; you can count the hairs on Snake's chin now, The Boss is actually rendered as a middle-aged woman, and Eva is gorgeous and actually has visible eyebrows now. By far the changes to the character models are the best piece of the package, and I'd say it's worth playing MGS Delta over the original for them alone, as the new facial expressions add so much to every cutscene that just wasn't there in the original game. I found myself so excited to watch a cutscene when they came about just to witness these amazing performances come to life with these phenomenal character models.
In terms of environments, 90% of MGS Delta looks great, but 10% can look strangely dull and almost has an unfinished feel to it. One part is the cave where, despite the game recommending you look for a torch, it's oddly bright and you can get around with 0 issues without one, or the scene of Snake saluting, which has been making the rounds online, lacking that heavenly feel of the original. Just small oversights like this in a few key locations stood out to me, but overall it's a very pretty game, especially with the Legacy filter that gives the colours much-needed depth that the non-filter lacks.
Gameplay-wise MGS Delta is a freaking blast; it is so much fun to play this game, and it's as replayable as something like Resident Evil 4. As soon as I finished this game, I was itching to get back into it right away and try out different styles of play or go for a non-lethal FOXHOUND run, which I am planning on doing at some point, but that isn't because of the remake but because of how impeccably designed the original game was and how that has been kept in the remake.
What is most surprising is that the gameplay isn't actually that radically different from the original game as Delta keeps the original layout, level design and is closer to a remaster than a remake in that regard, but the gameplay systems are all touched up, feeling more like a bridge between MGS2 and MGS4 now, for example gunplay is pretty much lifted from MGS5, crouchwalking has finally been added in, there's less moments where you're forced into first person and instead the game keeps an over the shoulder camera for the most part, movement feels in general much better in Delta, it's not as smooth as MGS5 especially getting out of cover feels often odd or trying to CQC enemies out of corners just isn't an option, which overall makes MGS3 play a lot more like Guns of the Patriots than anything else.
The camoflauge system is a fun mechanic for the entire game, constantly needing to swap out camos to blend more into your current environment adds a layer of depth that previous entries lacked, and the quality of life change that allows you to change this on the fly without going into the menu is a welcome addition. Having to hunt for rations is also really fun, I wish they went even further and added cooking mechanics in the remake and some recipes to add even more depth to this system, its one of the aspects that as a remake could've been touched up but Konami played it too safe and stuck to what was already in the original with no changes.
Another aspect that could've benefitted from an update is how CQC works, despite using MGS5 mechanics and animations you can't do the same things from MGS5, its very often I found myself wishing I could take down enemies out of corners or there being a huge delay when getting out of prone and when you can actually take down enemies, it's a strange layer of jankiness that could've been ironed out but the remake just chose not to do so.
It's also worth pointing out that a ton of the gameplay animations aren't new, but instead taken from MGS5 directly, while I don't think that's a negative as its the same protagonist as in Ground Zeroes, there are times where the animation blending looks super strange, for example every time you do a take down, Snake's hands go back to the default position then snap right back to the remake's actual hands position, but aside from this minor nitpick the animations still look as great as they did in MGS5.
The new control scheme results in an experience that has a lot less friction than the original, which pretty much played the same as MGS2. Being able to actually aim and shoot with different buttons is something that I didn't realise how badly I was missing in MGS1 & MGS2 until I finally got it back with Delta. It's not that the original is anything near unplayable, but having the choice to play with modern controls does a lot to alleviate the barrier to entry that those games have built up over time.
What the remake portion at the end of the day comes down to is this: DID Metal Gear Solid 3 NEED a remake? In my opinion, the fact that the core game remains intact and that this is more like a remaster rather than a complete remake from scratch, similar to Silent Hill 2 or Resident Evil 4, does prove that MGS3 holds up just fine, but the other question that I think should be asked is now that a remake exists, what has it achieved? And looking at the fact this is topping sales charts on every platform, this remake has opened the door for a whole new audience to experience MGS3 that never gave it a chance before, and that alone is enough to justify the remake's existence. Whether you decide to play the original game, which is available on all platforms via The Master Collection, or through the Delta remake, you are guaranteed to have a great time with MGS3.
Unfortunately it really pains me to have to be as harsh as possible on the condition this was released in. No game should launch looking worse and running worse on the PS5 Pro compared to the base console; that alone drops this remake's score a tonne for me, and I will be giving two scores due to this.
Accessibility Features:
The Snake Eater remake includes a thoughtful set of accessibility features that make the game more approachable while still respecting the original. Players can convert hold actions into simple taps, making tasks like dragging enemies less demanding, and can also adjust how long button presses need to be held. Visual clarity is improved with customizable text sizes, a center-screen dot for camera guidance, and HUD color-correction modes. Subtitles are highly adjustable as well, with options for size, backgrounds, speaker names, and separate settings for gameplay and cutscenes. On top of that, the game offers two distinct control schemes: a modern free-camera “New Style” and a classic fixed-camera “Legacy Style.” Together, these options ensure that both newcomers and longtime fans can enjoy the game in a way that suits their needs.
FINAL VERDICT
Metal Gear Solid Delta Snake Eater is a good remake of a masterpiece; it works so well as a result of the fact it is still MGS3 at its core design, just with a new coat of paint and some new modern gameplay elements. Unfortunately, the optimisation issues hamper much of it, and it should've simply never been allowed to release in this state.
Metal Gear Solid Delta at launch - 7/10 - WAIT FOR SALE + PATCHES
Metal Gear Solid Delta (after patches)/Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is a 9/10 – BUY