Hack All Boss No Root: How Metal Gear Rising's Combat Mechanics Set It Apart

There's something about parrying mechanics that appeals massively to fans of action games (when they're implemented well, at least), and you'd be hard-pressed to think of many games that do parrying better than Metal Gear Rising does it. Every single action in the game is an example of mechanical perfection - every slash, every dodge, every block, every parry, all of it comes together to deliver one of the most thrilling and satisfying combat systems we've ever experienced in a character action game.

Metal Gear Rising's combat remains peerless, even when compared to other excellent Platinum titles (of which there's more than a few). That's unsurprising, of course, because that's true of pretty much every game PlatinumGames has ever developed. The studio has a mastery of action combat systems like very few other developers in the industry do.

Unsurprisingly, this was the highlight of Metal Gear Rising. The game has a personality unlike any other game we've ever played, and from its story to its cast of characters (more on that in a bit) to its dialogue to its high-octane action, it embraces that absurdity in truly exceptional ways. This is a game where being absurd was almost the point, and it did that in ways that set it apart from other games in the franchise.

PlatinumGames' beloved hack-and-slash action title recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, and though it remains to be seen whether we will see it coming back into the limelight in any shape or form, here, we're going to celebrate its ten years by looking back at it and talking about ten things that made it the excellent game it was.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance prides itself on a very unique and unhinged brand of insanity. It may not be a mainline Metal Gear Solid game, but it continues to hold a special place in the hearts of all series fans - or those who played it, at any rate.

Hack all boss no root