9 Awesome Video Game Moments That Didn’t Need To Happen
6. Psycho Mantis Breaks the Fourth Wall - Metal Gear Solid
Hideo Kojima is renowned as a visionary video game developer whose work includes some of the most innovative and inspiring ideas explored within gaming. Heck, this whole list could just be entries from his entire Metal Gear Solid franchise!
There are numerous examples in each game of going the extra mile to achieve something groundbreaking and making you question ‘have I ever experienced this in a video game before?’ One such example I draw your attention to is the boss battle with Psycho Mantis in 1998’s Metal Gear Solid.
When you first encounter the psychic member of FOXHOUND floating in midair, he initially ‘reads’ two things about you – your playstyle within the game so far and any Konami video game savings you have on your memory card.
He initially comments on your progress by judging how often you have died, alerted enemies with your presence and how successfully you have navigated traps.
Although being praised/read to filth by Psycho Mantis here is a fun inclusion, recording your progress and ability and adjusting things where necessary is commonplace in video games.
However, no one was ready to hear Mantis commenting on how much you enjoy playing the likes of Suikoden, Azure Dreams and Castlevania. This 4th wall break was further explored in 2004’s Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes on GameCube as Mantis would also comment on your Nintendo video game savings.
Beating Mantis also took some creative thinking as trying to fight him head on proved incredibly difficult considering he could read your every decision and move. But by switching your controller port on the console meant that he could no longer read you, making it a much fairer fight, with Mantis also commenting on this after his defeat.
The Psycho Mantis boss battle will forever stand out as a video game going the extra mile to achieve something incredible. Breaking the 4th wall to speak to you directly, the player, and switching controller ports were revolutionary for the time and have gone onto inspire many video games since.
Video game boss battles come in all shapes and forms and this could have been a much more straight forward affair of taking down the boss to move onto the next section.
Giving him psychic abilities and exploring what that could mean for the player is next level thinking and the kind of creativity which Kojima is often known for.