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Comment by lostphilosopher | Hacker News Reader

The Metal Gear Solid boss fight with Psycho Mantis is my favorite example of rarely-seen game mechanics (in this case in a video game).

(Spoiler alert on a game from 1998.) https://www.thegamer.com/metal-gear-solid-psycho-mantis-boss...

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MGS has so many cool mechanics.

I was in university when Snake Eater came out and I got to play it when I went home during the Christmas break. I got to The End fight and had to go back. When I came back during March break I didn't have to win the fight because he died.

https://metalgear.fandom.com/wiki/The_End#Avoiding_the_fight

And that of needing the games cd case for Meryl's codec if you wish to proceed further in the game, iirc.

Otacon: "there should be a codec number on the back of the game box"

I do enjoy when they include pseudo-reality in to character.

I hated that one, cause it wasn't game box but disk case, and in game I'd just picked up a disk and spent forever trying to figure out how to look at the case before looking up the answer.

You know the PlayStation Classic mini-console that came out a few years back? They incorporated that puzzle into the console's packaging: the back of the PSClassic's box includes thumbnails for the 20 or so games that come installed, and MGS's thumbnail is just a picture of Meryl's codec convo screen. It cracked me up when I first saw it.

That screwed me over, because I rented it and the store had put it in one of their standardized store cases

4th wall breaking stuff is cool. A few other big games that break the fourth wall in boss fights: Arkham Asylum (Scarecrow), Undertale (Flowey), Pony Island (Asmodeus.exe). Nier does something similar.

I know I am in an (extreme) minority with lots of people considering it a classic, but honestly while it is creative I always thought that was total bullshit and an example of extremely gimicky game design. It literally made me never play another Kojima game after that.

Star Tropics (A great, if quite linear, action-RPG for the NES) required you to dunk the actual game manual in water to solve a puzzle.

Which in the 2019 re-release they neglected to handle[0] leading to people being very confused. I bet they just figured everyone would google it

[0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20190625150528/http://www.ninten...

I've played it so often that I have it memorized (it helps that it's a fairly famous model of jet airplane too)

Very interesting, Was there any dialog clues that hinted to that specific solution?

Yes, if you die once you'll get a call telling about it. If you die the third time, you'll be able to break two statues, nullify his mind reading.

Or, from youtube said, you can defeat him without both, since he'll evade seven attacks and will be hit by the eight.

IIRC, if you take long enough to figure it out, you can call your "support team" in-game and they'll give you hints about trying the second controller port.

(Also I love that this and the comment chain immediately above it are both Kojima games. Can't wait to see what kind of mechanics he throws at us in DS2.)

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