Review: METAL GEAR SOLID: MASTER COLLECTION VOL. 1 is a very lazy disappointment

Over the past couple of weeks, Konami has been releasing Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection vol. 1. This is a collection of different games of the Metallic gear series and was released on Nintendo Switch, PC (through various retailers including Humble [affiliate link]), PS5 and Xbox consoles (affiliate link). Physical versions are also available at your favorite retailers, including GameStop (affiliate link). Konami was kind enough to provide me with a code for the Master Collection on Xbox Series X|S, but the following thoughts are my own.

The launch of the Master Collection it was a mess to say the least. Before the launch, it was already under fire for some reasons, then it was launched and many fans were not happy. I want to preface the rest of my review by sharing that I haven’t played any of them Metallic gear games before this one and so the thoughts that follow will be a mix of my reactions with some things I’ve seen around to discuss the games’ performance.

I’ll start with my personal thoughts regarding Master Collection. I’ve really enjoyed these games so far. The gameplay is fun although I sometimes get frustrated with various aspects such as the layout of the controls or the lack of a key element at the start of a level. I’ve been wanting to play these games for a while and was excited to have this chance. I also really like some of the goodies included, including scripts for the games, books with additional information about the games, and more. I really like and appreciate that more and more of these collections are becoming more archival in nature. It’s also important to note that they include box art images which are crucial to some of the games’ objectives. Of course, I also love the sheer number of games included. Lastly, I appreciate that they acknowledge that some aspects of the game might be problematic to some extent with a message when loading games, but it doesn’t alter anything in the game, which to me is as it should be. Let people play as it was, but recognize that some ideas, points of view, etc. they are not good. It’s like what Disney did with some of their older content and I think it’s good for preserving historical media. Unfortunately, this is as far as the professionals get.

The first thing that irritated me is that the MXS games are bundled together, the NES games are bundled with some bonus content, and everything else is a separate download. While I can appreciate the ability for gamers to save precious storage space from games they aren’t playing, a unified launcher would have been truly incredible. I’m thinking something like this Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Launch the launcher and you can download individual games from there. It would have been much nicer.

It was also disappointing that there were no additional filters or anything for any of the games. Being able to add scan lines to MSX and NES games would have been a nice touch. A toggle sharpness filter Metal Gear Solid it would have been welcome on my part. Everything is so blurry in that game. We know Konami plans to introduce scan lines for NES games, but perhaps they should have been present at launch. You can’t even adjust the brightness of the games. It simply tells you to change the brightness of your TV.

Now we will get more into the technical aspects. I’m not really equipped to talk about it too much, but I would recommend checking out the video below from IGN where they do a Digital Foundry style technical analysis. In short, Metal Gear Solid it should run at 60 fps, or at least a stable 30 fps, but it doesn’t and that’s bad. I honestly would have been fine with the 30fps cap Metal Gear Solid if it were a stable 30fps, but it’s not.

While I play on Xbox Series X, I also know that the PC version of Master Collection it was a disaster that deserves a brief mention. This review is not for the PC version, but it’s important to note it in context. It’s a fixed resolution and from what I hear the controls are absolutely rubbish, which is even more frustrating considering the fact that Metal Gear Solid It’s been available on PC for a while now.

Another element that has led many fans to question Konami’s decision making is the lack of a Gamecube remake Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Serpents. They could have included this game as an option to provide a nicer version of the first game for anyone interested. Maybe it will be in a second volume of the collection?

At the end of the day, I’m happy that Master Collection exists. It allows gamers like me to enjoy classic games that we’ve missed or who are nostalgic for using modern hardware. Heck, the games are fun to play. Unfortunately, it really shows that Konami saw it as a simple cash grab and made no effort to make it something that fans will be talking about for years to come. I appreciate the team adding the bonus items and allowing players to experience the games as close to the original as possible, but everything falls flat. When a PS1 game can’t run at a stable 30fps even on an Xbox Series That said, Konami could eventually use updates and patches to fix these errors, but this is truly a disappointment to many. It seems like it wasn’t ready, but they wanted to get it out in time for the predatory Christmas sales.