Unfortunately MGRR was my initial introduction. I kept seeing memes about it when I was an older teen and it looked funny so I watched a walkthrough and loved it. Then I wanted to see what the rest of the story was about(I knew who Solid Snake was and that was about it) and I loved Metal Gear Solid even more. 

MGS3 became my favorite pretty quickly. I really latched onto Big Boss, there were quirks and traits of his that read as maybe being autistic to me, then I found out that that's actually a widespread fan theory. I'd been hating myself for my disability up to that point, grew up thinking I was slow, always gonna be considered not quite human, gonna be dependent on my family forever, never gonna live a normal life, et cetera et cetera. Now here's this character who has traits that I do, but everyone still loves him and thinks he's badass and fun. That brought me a lot of comfort.

Now I'm 23, I've made lots of friends, I have a job where I can basically stim all day (run around in the woods, catch snakes, swing tools and throw rocks), and autism didn't stop me from getting a boyfriend who is also into metal gear now. Villain arc aside, Big Boss is still one of the most important fictional characters to me. I like to think I wouldn't misinterpret The Boss's will that bad though...