4. Metal Gear Solid Psycho Mantis
Were going from Kojima-influenced to actual Kojima now, and more specifically, Psycho Mantis. It cannot be underestimated just how much of an influence the whole Psycho Mantis boss fight had on game designers the idea that a boss could take you out of the regular game, tell you to put your Dualshock controller down and move it across the room was stunning, but the fact you had to beat him using a fake reset the famous HIDEO screen and swapping the controllers around was absolutely mind-blowing. This had never been done before, and it was just wildly inventive. In fact, Im willing to bet that most of the other fourth-wall breaking moments on this list come from that Mantis moment. Metal Gear Solid was always known for its addressing of the player hell, the only way you could find Meryls codec frequency was by looking on the back of the game case but this took it to another level. It was just dementedly brilliant, and it knocked you through a loop. Most games would just rest on a psychic boss being able to read your avatars actions and making that the main hook of the battle, and while Kojima did that, he took it above and beyond in praise-worthy fashion. What was more fun though was the fact Mantis could actually read your memory card and tell you about other Konami games youd played. When a game is taking the mick out of you for playing Castlevania, you know youre experiencing something special.