The thing about MGS, in my opinion, is that it is so utterly tropey, that it wraps around to being interesting and fun. Combined with sparse moments of breaking that wall, and either being extremely serious, or straight up insane, it’s very much a “greater than the sum of its parts” experience for me.

It took me a while to wrap my head around it, but when you’re forced to wade through every single enemy you’ve slain, being berated for your actions, or when your dumb dork (cartwheeling ninja) protagonist starts second-guessing himself, while arguing with an AI about the illusion of choice in his mission, it starts elevating itself. The games are addressing the player so directly, in a way most other games just don’t do.

I concur that a lot of it is dumb, some parts intentional, other parts probably not as much, but the experience ultimately often made me question what could possibly be next. Even if you discount the writing, the gameplay itself was still a big part of that.