O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.
If there is one entry in the Metal Gear franchise that is unanimously beloved, it would be Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Impressive for a PS2 release, wonderfully balanced in gameplay and storytelling, funny and dramatic, systemic but easy to understand. Yet, it was never among my personal favorites. I’ve only played the game (specifically Subsistence release) once and while I liked it enough, many things about the game frustrated me. And due to that, MGS2 remained my favorite. And yet, surprisingly, as I was revisiting the games through the Master Collection, I found how MGS1 and 2 didn’t age as well as I had hoped… While MGS3 felt a lot better than I have remembered.
While the first 4 mainline Metal Gear games felt like incremental evolutions of the same idea, MGS3 feels like an attempt to pose a simple question – what if Metal Gear was created not in the 1980s, when stealth wasn’t a defined genre yet, but in the middle of 2000s, when the genre was at its peak? As a result, when playing Snake Eater you can still recognize a lot of elements and ideas that were attempted in the previous games, including huge outdoor areas that were absent in the previous two 3D titles, yet there’s a distinct shift in how the game is meant to be played. Well, to be absolutely fair, you can still play MGS3 in a very arcade-like stealth action manner and if you’ve ever seen speedruns of the game – players find crazy and creative ways of mastering this game’s systems. But this time, for the first time in the franchise, the game feels like what a stealth game should be, rather than what it used to be before. The game nudges you towards learning how to blend with the environments with camouflage, to crawl, to wait, to distract, to be unseen. It punishes a lot of things that used to be acceptable before – enemies will hear you running when you’re near, for example. And without the clear radar with the visibility cones you’re relying much more on your own understanding of game’s systems, rather than clear rules.
And you know what – when I first played the game on PS2, I didn’t like it much. The camo system felt finicky, opening and closing the inventory felt slow, load times for areas and for loading save games wasn’t the fastest on the disc-based system… And later, I was praising MGS4 for improving basically everything I disliked about MGS3. Yet now, on PC with the Master Collection Version, things felt quite snappy and quick. And you didn’t really need to fuss as much with changing camouflage as I remembered. Heck, I even checked the classic camera and it felt great, unlike how unhelpful it often was in MGS1 and 2. Though I did play through the game with the fully 3D camera instead anyway.
Oh and I guess it’s worth pointing out now, that while Master Collection Version is called “Snake Eater”, it is based on the HD Collection release done by Bluepoint in 2011 which in itself was based on the Subsistence re-release of the original game. That was the release that added the new 3D camera, that is closer to how MGS would work from then on. But it also had a bunch of cool extras. Sadly, just as the case with the MGS2 Master Collection Version (and HD Collection version), some of the elements from the original release are missing. And this time, the list is rather big. Snake vs. Monkey bonus mode, based on crossover with Ape Escape series, is not present. The rather popular back in the day first iteration of Metal Gear Online is also not available. One neat easter egg with an unfinished Konami game is cut. And most disappointingly, the hilarious Secret Theater isn’t present either – this was a collection of joke cutscenes made by the development team included with the Subsistence release, but in this collection you only get a Demo Theater, where you can watch real game cutscenes.
Speaking of them – MGS3 might be the best balance in terms of story and gameplay in the franchise. It’s really well directed, mostly well written, full of fun moments and charismatic characters. It switches between funny and dramatic without missing a beat. And works as a wonderful pastiche on spy fiction of the 1960s, while also being its own thing. It continues with the naive and optimistic idea of love and world peace that was somewhat lost in cynicism of MGS2 and is very entertaining to experience even today. Plus, unlike the previous two entries the game doesn’t even falter during its second half and remains strong start to finish. Well, apart from a few frustrating moments here and there.
That last thing is what genuinely surprised me. I forgot how uneven MGS1 and 2 actually are. And how really well balanced MGS3 is. Despite having more systems and simulations. With the need to eat and heal wounds, with a more involved inventory system and a bunch of other details that you often need to utilize to complete the game… it’s still simpler and easier to get into than some of the moments from its predecessors. Sure, some of its systems and concepts still feel a bit outdated by modern standards as far as controls or some mechanics go, but not that many. For the most part, playing MGS3 feels very good in 2025.
I did not expect this to happen. I was afraid that I would enjoy Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater less than I did before, and as mentioned – I didn’t love it the first time. Yet the opposite happened – I loved it. It’s not a “better” version of MGS1 or 2 – those still operate in a completely different mindset. But there’s a lot less to fix or update about MGS3 than I thought there might be. And I think a lot of people could easily enjoy it in 2025 without any changes. Would be curious to see if the upcoming Delta remake will be a superior option to play the game. But if you were curious about why people can’t shut up about how awesome Snake Eater is, you might as well check this Master Collection version.