Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Review

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a third person action game, where you take on militarized cyborgs in order to bring justice with your sword.

Slicing cubes open in the Tutorial

Gameplay is not very complex, you can move and jump around while cutting enemies down with your sword. There are some combos you can perform, but nothing fancy. Most of the time you will be pressing the attack button repeatedly until the enemies hit the "K.O." point, where you can move into this slow-motion samurai style slicing to dismember your opponents. You can also block attacks if you time it correctly and once you have access to secondary weapons you can use them too, although they are not as effective as your sword.

Body enhancements.

As you progress through the story you will defeat enemies and acquire BP. With them you can buy power improvements to your own cyborg body. Depending on how fast you defeat your enemies, how much damage you take, how many times you sliced them open (a.k.a. Zan-Datsu) you will get a variable amount of BP.

Overall Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a weak game. Personally I try to always find good things to say about a game and the slow-motion slicing mechanic is pretty entertaining in the beginning. That said, that's where it ends. The game has a terribly weak plot, cliche characters and very shallow mechanics. The main system, the slicing mechanic, does not go any further than what you get from the start. Ending up being more in the way when you are forced by the designers to use it, than being integral part of an evolving experience. There are other games, like Bayonetta, that deliver a much richer content with a better constructed experience to the point that you'd better spend your time on them.

If you do decide to take Rising on, beware that it is not representative of the Metal Gear franchise. Also it is not a long game, if you cut out the cinematics time you should be able to finish it in less than 5 hours. Happy slicing.